Tiger says NO, NO, NO...

WAIT for the tiger to appear...
Amazing creatures, aren't they?

Tulips

been away to Australia! I know they have email there but sometimes it is good to just get away and see a new land without having to worry about your email. Evidently we suffer from email anxiety now - I know I check mine about 2o times an hour! Crazy.

Here is a new image - ALL INK by the way. I was just mucking around in the studio, as I had some new paper and this happened.
I entered it for Images 32 and it got in and now they have chosen it to be the cover of the book - *chuffed*

The original is in a frame and will be appearing as part of a group show - Scottish Illustrators- at Frames Gallery in Perth, Scotland, opening on Friday February 15th at 5pm.
I am looking forward to seeing some of my long lost illustrator chums at the private view for a wee drinkie and a blether.

Illustration Friday-OPEN

Hello everyone,

This Illustration Friday is an extra special one as it has the promise of an exhibition in California at the end of it for 25 lucky IFers. May the best 25 win!!

So...OPEN. What does this one mean?
Well, There is nothing better than kicking back on the sofa with your man, woman, dog (all 3?), relaxing and OPENING a bottle of wonderful wine.

Ah, that's better.

Think Local, act Global - Fence Collective

You cannot get more locally global than the Fence Collective - with the magic Kenny Andersaon (AKA King Creosote) being the front man, so to speak.
Their music is great and they do secret wee gigs in the pub next door to me - as well all over the world.
Check out the link to this feature on the BBC and see if you like them too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A26813973

Illustration Friday - WEDDING!

Missed a couple of these cos of work, work, work - but I couldn't resist this one, especially as Brianna is now hitched! Congratulations to Brianna over there in Illustration Friday Land- hope you had a lovely day yesterday.

Now, this is an ALL INK illustration - not been near Photoshop (apart from being saved as a 72dpi image). Refreshing.
This illo is all about how a photobooth sees so many weird and wonderful people using it - are photobooths out of fashion now that we have phones that take pictures? Hope not.
Anyway, this couple are wanting to get their wedding pics taken oin the booth, but they are having to wait for the Cowboy who can't get his lasso action quite right...ho hum

Illustrophile

I got a lovely email yesterday from Charlene Chua, a Toronto based illustrator, who is also involved in the Illustrophile blog.
She has put up a little feature about me with links to my site - in particular the lettering I do. I was really chuffed - but more so because I had never heard of Illustrophile (I think it is new) and it is a wee cracker of a blog - as they say, it's an " illustration blog for lovers of all forms of illustration and commercial art"

There are LOADS of links to other illustrators, styles, interviews and other Illustration Associations - I'll need to get them to put up Scottish Illustrators too!

Illustration Friday - Visitors

It's Illustration Friday mad this week! I've put 2 in today, as I managed to get the Captain drawing in before Penelope changed the topic.
I did this week's Illo Friday image for The Guardian weekend magazine, for a wine column I sometimes illustrate.
The article was all about the utterly minging wine that is generally sold in corner shops and in garage shops here in the UK - so this couple, who were going to visit a friend, thought they would buy some from a pub (you'd think it would be a good place to get wine) - but no - it was even worse...and they got chased out the pub by the skinhead with the pool cue.
And all because they had missed the off-licence before it shut on a Sunday.

I love my wine, and may I offer you all a tip - try wine from the Margaret River area in Western Australia - especially the unoaked Chardonnay and the Semillon Sauvignon Blancs. Wineries of note are Leewuin, Madfish, Wise and Palandri. Bloody brilliant.

Also, last but not least, THANKYOU to all of you for the lovely comments on my blog referring to IF's choosing me as pick of the week - I am thrilled and chuffed to bits! But I won't let it go to my head, I promise.

Illustration Friday-Captain

Finally! I have done something new for Illo Friday! Give me a pat on the head....even if it a week late!
I have done a smutty Captain who is keen to dance with the ladies (and more) - in this case the Amazonian Scottish Cowgirl - who is having none of his furtive attempts to barndance round the Parade Square.

He does look good in his uniform though, bless.

illustration Friday - Emergency

Now, what is the bigger emergency? The fact you won't get your sliced honey roast ham for your lunchtime sandwiches, or that the Deli assistant appears to have sliced her hand off ( and looks quite happy about it)
YOU DECIDE.

Illustration Friday - Missing

Illo Friday again - and interpreting "Missing" in the loosest possible sense...

here's the story:

Two men are walking down Broughton Street in Edinburgh after
a big night oot in the toon
One of the men, Jeem, says to his pal, " I fancy a poke of chips, Tam"
"Aye", says Tam, "Gonnay go get us a poke of chips then...wi' salt n' sauce"
"Aye, aw'right then ma man, gie us a golden minute"
Jeem scoots off to the Rapido Chip Bar and waits in line, swaying ever so slightly.
The warm fug of chips'n' vinegary sauce waft over him.
30 minutes later (it was a long queue) Jeem and Tam are opening a steaming, big poke of chips.
"Braw, man - jist what eh needed the noo, eh?" said Tam, happily.
He took one solid, golden, steaming chip out of the brown paper bag, held it up to Tam's face and exclaimed:
" Where's ma effing sauce, man??? Eh?"

miroslav sasek

oooh, I AM excited.
Am a bit under the weather today with a henious allergy so I always resort to a bit of interweb shopping to cheer me up.
I am delighted to say that purchasing 4 books by the wonderful illustrator Miroslav Sasek has done the trick.
His illustration work is so deceptively simple - but, although now very retro hip, still has a fresh modernity to it - which is why they keep re-releasing all his books!! It stands the test of time.
So, I bought "This is Hong Kong", "This is Venice", "This is New York" (of course) and "this is Texas"
I intend to buy This Is Edinburgh, as it is brilliant and I lived there for about 16 years.

All in , I am rediscovering the work of designers and illustrators such as Sasek, Paul Rand , and Saul Bass(see the pink/red/green pic here). Bold, graphic, fun, colourful and simple. Love it.

Illustration Friday - Moon

I love drawing moons - especially crescent ones...and with a bit of cloud action too.
Did this illo for a property developer's brochure...one of a series of 10.

Design Stars Boulevard!!!!

It's very exciting as the lovely people at DPI in Taiwan have asked me to feature my illustrations in their "Design Stars Boulevard" book , which is out this month.
I love DPI Magazine - it features some brilliant talent from around the world - 60 fellow creatives, in fact! DPI really LOVE love, love illustration and pay it huge respect, so I am all for them

Anyway, they have designed a beautiful spread of colourful illustrations - including images produced for Absolute New York, The Association of Illustrators in London, Target and the New Yorker. These will appear alongside work by other top illustrators and designers from around the globe.
Be sure to grab your copy.

http://www.mydpi.com.tw

Illustration Friday - Poem

Not done a Friday for ages...so when this came up I remembered I had a rejected G2 cover for The Guardian newspaper (UK) which illustrates a poem by Andrew Motion called A Man - the lettering is mine aswell!
Rejected because there were meant to be apostrophes inbetween the "Why is", but I was writing it based on an email I got from the Art Director and the apostrophes got replaced by a grammatical symbol -the semi colon " ; " -which looked like an "i" !!
There was no time to fix it before the paper went to press so...REJECT! Got paid though...

Be sure to check out all my latest blog entries below!

Spain versus UK...LOVE 'em both

just came across this little lady in my evening repast through the interweb...Blanc Gomez from España. She is a graphic designer in Madrid but her other projects include a lot of illustration - nice stuff, especially the Moleskin project in Japan....but is it v similar to the work by one of my fave illustrators, Adrian Johnstone? LOVE his Robinson juice ads at the moment - they are so colourful and FUN!! More animation on TV please!

http://cosasminimas.blogspot.com/
http://www.adrianjohnstone.co.uk

DPI Magazine,Taiwan interview with me...Issue 91

This interview and feature of my work appeared in November 2006 issue of DPI Magazine - it is a LUSH magazine, with loads of features and interviews and is highly appreciative of illustrators all over the globe. Many thanks to the lovely Lulu Tzeng, who has now moved on to pastures new - Hello Lulu!

I have also included some of the pages from the magazine when it was printed.


Interview with Jill Calder, Illustrator. DPI Magazine, Taiwan.

1. Could you introduce yourself, including birthday, birthplace, and your educational background or other you think it’s important to you?
Answer: My name is Jill Calder and I was born in Dundee, Scotland (UK) and I am 36 years old! I attended school in Dundee and then at age 17 went to England to do a general Art course in Cumbria. I then was accepted into Edinburgh College of Art to do a Honours Degree in Design, where I specialized in Illustration and Animation. I quickly followed my Degree by going to Glasgow School of Art in 1992 to do a Post Graduate Diploma in Illustration. I officially became an illustrator in October 1993 when I received my first commission!

2. How did you get started in the illustration field? Who influenced you ?
Answer: All I knew from my time at college was that I had to go and see as many people who commissioned illustration as possible. I had a huge A1 folio that I would take on the train down to London (about 5 hours away on the train) and I would carry this heavy folio around to magazines such as Vogue and Esquire – I sold a piece of work to the Art Director of Esquire, but didn’t get any commissions! I think my folio of work was too violent then – it was all about cosmetic surgery and Martin Amis books. Too “fine art” as many would say. I quickly realized that I had to develop a more lighthearted approach if I was to get work. Looking back now, I think that my college work was perhaps a little pretentious and that my work now is much more honest and reflects my personality more.
I have many influences and heroes! They change all the time too, but the following people or styles have been pretty constant: Picasso for his drawing and ceramics, Howard Hodgkin for his colour and paint, the writer Annie Proulx, Ronald Searle, Javier Mariscal, Sarah Fanelli, Romaire Bearden, Geoff Grandfield, Velazquez, Alexander Calder for his whimsical wire sculptures, Japanese woodblock prints, the art of Huang Yongyu whose work I discovered when I visited Hong Kong, the city of Las Vegas, Jacobean and Elizabethan portraits from 16th Century England, Alan Kitching for his typography, Marshall Arisman, Auguste Rodin, David Hockney…the list goes on!
My first commission was for The Scotsman newspaper for an article about dyslexia (dyslexia.tif) and I was thrilled. I still like it. It is easy to get disheartened when you don’t get work, but you have to keep showing people what you do – and you have to keep developing your illustration and drawing alongside that.

3. What is your illustration style? How did you find it? Has it changed since you started?

Answer: Its really difficult to describe your own style! I LOVE drawing and colour and I suppose they are at the root of everything I do. I draw in sketchbooks or on the Mac and sometimes the line is very controlled and sometimes its sketchy, but I like to have a mixture of elements in my illustrations – more to surprise myself than anything else. An Illustrator’s style is like their handwriting, it is unique to them – though there are people who like your style so much they try to copy it. To me, you just need to have the confidence to develop your drawing and your interests and see where it goes, creatively. My work for the last year and a half has been mainly digital, because I started using a Wacom Tablet to draw with, so that has been a big change for me. I still love using ink and paint, but I have been perfecting my Wacom drawing technique and I think that has made my work more painterly again as I use it with Photoshop CS2 and it really brings all the brush palettes to life because of the pressure sensitivity, which I really like. The Wacom people liked it too and when we met up at MacExpo in London they asked me to do some case studies for their potential clients.


4. In your works, we can see many lines, colors and figures, what is the theme you love to create? Has any impressing or interesting story behind your illustration works?
Answer: I love drawing people, you are correct. The human figure and the human personality fascinate me and I love creating little narratives within my illustrations as I put them together. The thing that really interests me is the relationship between people – and so I use gestures and body language and facial expressions to show this. That is the best bit about interpreting a writer’s work, whether it is for a book, or a newspaper column because as an illustrator you get to add your voice to the piece, or at the very least, give the reader something else to consider. I do a lot of editorial work and one newspaper in London, The Guardian, asked me to illustrate a short story which was quite anti-war. There were 2 full page illustrations to do in colour, one to go on the cover of the tabloid section in which the story was featuring. The only snag was that I had to do both illustrations in 5 hours! I love a challenge like that and basically I just read the story and started drawing – it was a process of gut instinct about what would work, what characters to show and in what context. I loved every minute of those 5 hours and was really pleased with what I produced

5. What are your ideas to create diverse “spots”? How you present those works? Are they different from your illustration works?
ANSWER: those spot illustrations on my website are just really small illustrations I have done – mostly for horoscope features! They call tiny illustrations “spots” over here in the UK! I just treat them the same as normal illustrations, though you have to be careful how much detail you put in them. The more simple the spot the better it works on the page

6. What is your favorite assignment?
Answer: I STILL get excited when I get a new commission – I love the thrill of being asked to do illustrations for someone. SO, in a way, every assignment is my favorite. The ones I like best are where I work closely with the art director and we brainstorm together to get the best results. I get to stretch my creative muscle in jobs like that and the whole process is so much more satisfying than just being told exactly what to do.I am constantly amazed that some art directors these days can have so little imagination and have little experience of getting the best out of an illustrator.


7. Since you have been the illustrator, what was the biggest challenge you have met? How did you solve those problems and face next challenge?

Answer: The biggest challenge has been the business side to my job. I can do the creative bit, but all the marketing, pricing, licencing and keeping financial records has been difficult, though I have a good accountant now, which helps! When I left college I had some idea about how to run the business side of things, but when it came to putting it into practice, I was hopeless! I have learnt from experience-trial and error!- I am confident pricing my work and negotiating licences now, but it took a while. I teach illustration students now, and I am keen to see that they are more prepared than I was, as you really have to be alert and know how to protect your work through licences and contracts.


8. Did you ever find yourself with no inspiration on animations? At that time, how did you face the situation?

Answer: When I am truly STUCK for an idea, I either just start drawing anything other than what I am meant to be drawing. This makes me relax a bit and then an idea just sneaks up on me unexpectedly! OR I go away, leave my studio and do something completely different, like cook a meal or walk the dogs. A change of scene can do wonders for your imagination and usually you come back refreshed and motivated. The best advice I can give if you are really uninspired, is to go outside with your sketchbook and look at what other people or animals are doing and start to draw it – there is NOTHING like real life to inspire ideas.


9. What’s your future plan in three years?
ANSWER: Although I have been working as a professional illustrator for 15 years I am still keen to do more work outside the UK. I was invited to join Friend and Johnson in the USA 2 years ago and it has been fantastic so far. They are really good agents and I have had some great work through them. It takes a while to break into a new market, and I would say that it has taken the best part of that year for the F&J team to get my work noticed through extensive marketing and folio visits – it has been worth it though, as I am working for such clients as Neiman Marcus, Philip Morris and Harvard Business Review. I really want the next 3 years to be about consolidating that relationship and to get some really interesting and challenging projects, such as the New Yorker/ Mass Mutual job.


10. Do you feel contended present life? On some day, you have a long vacation, where do you want to go? Why?
ANSWER: YES! Life is pretty good just now. I got married earlier this year and my husband and I live in a delightful little fishing village near St Andrews in Scotland. I have achieved a good balance between working at home on my illustrations and teaching illustration students at Edinburgh College of Art which I do for 2 days a week. That’s not to say I don’t like going on holiday! My friends tease me about how many times I go abroad, but I love travelling. My husband’s brother lives in Hong Kong and we went there recently and I loved it – we visited Macau aswell, which I found really interesting. My favorite destinations are Australia, which I have visited 3 times now and Mexico [ see sketchbook pages, mexico1.tif and mexico2.tif] If I was to go anywhere new, I think I would like to visit the Antarctic, as I am intrigued by icy landscapes at the moment and I think it would be amazing to experience such a wilderness and make lots of drawings. I don’t think I could live abroad though – I just like to travel and then come home and then feed my experiences into my illustrations.

The New Yorker Presentation/June07

Whey hey - here it is, a bit late as usual - a few photos of my BIG NIGHT at Conde Nast., New York
I had been asked over to NYC again to do a 10-15 minute presentation about my work (with reference to the Mass Mutual job) to an eclectic audience of Mass Mutual worthies, New Yorker and Conde Nast folk and, of course, some of the wonderful New Yorker subscribers!
Audra Asencio organised the whole deal and, wow, what a job she made!
There were about 130 people there and my talk was billed to be the focus of the evening (as I discovered, when I arrived...).

My talk started with a quote by a chap called James Finlay - "Nothing encourages creativity more than the chance to fall flat on one's face" - well, it works for me, I can tell you.
I went on to explain that "fear" was always a factor in motivating me and for making me push my ideas and techniques further. Maybe I came across as terribly British when I said that!? Who knows. It all went very well, and I even got a few laughs too.
At the end, there were loads of questions - really good ones too, which put me on the spot but which I endeavoured to answer as best I could. The one about illustration not being used in Presidential/political campaigns kind of stumped me though and I may have waffled a bit about Polish posters and Gerald Scarfe
Anyway, I told them that the antidote to fear was a pencil...and to just draw, draw, draw...and proceeded to show lots of drawings and roughs and idea pages.
Sophy at F&J took the pics! That's me and Yassmina from F&J - total stars

New Yorker-as promised

I am so slow to add these...but that is because I have been busy illustrating an article about a lovely company in the States that sells sex toys and other such earthly delights. Seriously. I'll put it up once it is published because it was great fun to do.
Anyway, here are some(3) of the finished New Yorker illos - you can see a full story about this on the Ispot too (in the Art Talk section).
In connection with this job, I had a great trip to NYC in April - many thanks to Sophy at F&J and the seriously funny Jating who did a great Tyra impersonation. It was so exciting meeting the New Yorker team too - they are lovely and their Conde Nast cafe is rather good too (a la Devil Wears Prada)
The New Yorker and the Mass Mutual people are having me back to the Big Apple later in June to a little soiree at Times Square - I think I have to do a presentation, but if I can do that in front of 60 demanding students then I can do it anywhere (do I hear Frank Sinatra in the background?)

Enough. Let me know the skinny.

Illustration Friday-Citrus

It's an all digital illo this one (unlike the New Yorker ones)
I actually did this for a media buying company to illustrate Dataplanning - it got animated aswell, but I can't find that file.

I promise I will put up the New Yorker illos soon!

New Yorker/Mass Mutual Mini Takeover...and me

It's been TOO exciting recently, but I think I can tell you all the news about my latest illustration project which will hit the streets TODAY, Monday, April 9th.

Through my agents, Friend & Johnson in New York, I received word that the New Yorker magazine were wanting to look at my book in connection with a special project they were planning with a single advertiser - a "mini takeover" of the ad space in the magazine. This would be similar to the Target takeover of the New Yorker 2 years ago, where they used about 10 illustrators who created imagery for all the ad space in the entire mag.
You can imagine my heart leapt when I got the phone call saying that I had the job and that it was to be me and only me doing the illustrations - I think I may have screamed as well...and maybe danced a little too.

Here's the low down: The New Yorker team had shown my work to the creatives at Mullen advertising in Boston, whose client, Mass Mutual, were doing the mini takeover. After looking at several illustrators, they eventually chose me!
It was straight to work as the schedule was pretty tight. But, hey, I'm a British Illustrator - we get brought up on tight deadlines.
Firstly, there was a conference call with all the Mullen and New Yorker people to establish the way the job was going to go - a verbal brief if you like. I was working with Tom Kelly and Trey Phillips at Mullen, with Tracey Maidment as the senior art buyer.
Wayne Kogan and Angela Gaudioso were keeping me right from the New Yorker end.

It was established that Mass Mutual wanted a narrative which would run through the whole magazine along the lines of the new "We'll help you get there" trademark tag line of theirs. Tom and Trey were keen to develop a storyline that showed a character dealing with lots of obsructions or barriers at the start of the story, that prevented her from sorting out her financial needs, but eventually overcoming them, taking action and getting the help she needed.

There were illustrations of all sizes to do - full pages to little 1/6th pages, so these sizes (sometimes quite awkward dimensions) had to be considered carefully in order to make the most visual impact with the story.

I quickly developed a female character, whom I named Stella (easier to type than "the Mass Mutual character", I think you'll agree). She was in her early 30's, looked confident and sassy, but was incredibly BUSY. She needed to look like she could deal with all the problems thrown at her and still come out on top.
Next, I created a colour scheme which would help the narrative along - I felt this should incorporate the Mass Mutual corporate blue, which is a lovely colour anyway.

There was lots of discussion about what the barriers should be - some sounded great on paper but didn't work so well in image form and vice versa. We also wanted to get a good range of "cinematic' shots in, using scale and perspective: something I love to work with in my compositions anyway, so this was fun.

So, the final illustrations were a mixture of life-like "barriers" such as having a tantrum throwing toddler to deal with to a more dreamlike sequence showing out of control piles of paperwork, where even the buildings are teetering towers of paper.

Look out too for the Mass Mutual logo which was incorporated into the illustrations - that was fun doing that!

The drawings are all ink on Fabriano paper - scanned and composed in Photoshop, where the colour was added too.
I also use a few pre-scanned collage elements, so that the colour is not too flat.
Some of the files have about 60 layers - massive!

I don't want to go into much more detail, as I think the illustrations tell the story themselves - so GO BUY THE NEW YORKER ON MONDAY!
Please feel free to ask me questions here, though!

More news about this items can be found on:
http://www.altpick.com
http://www.theispot.com

In the meantime, here are some of the ink drawings,initial sketches,rejected roughs and final roughs...I'll post the finals later today after the mag has been published!