Monday 28 February 2011

YARNfest...the Aftermath.

Right, well, here we go, my first live drawing write up!
I took part in the YARNfest 2011 'Cover Wars' event last week, in which 4 illustrators, myself included (no way! Yes way.), representing different creative networks went head-to-head to design a new cover for Hanif Kureishi's celebrated novel 'The Buddah of Suburbia'. Needless to say, I was terrified. Like, completely, dude.

The other artists taking part were all really good and talented, and having done a bit of research into their work, it only added to my already rather large and indomitable pile of utter terror. They were as follows: Claire Hartley representing Ammo Magazine, Robin Boyden representing Paper Fox Press and Hidden Dingbat representing The Hidden Dingbat Collective. A surmountable amount of talent. Meep. And ME (Jamie Littler. Please pay attention). Representing the Soupa Creative Network! Woooo!

Gooooo Soupa!

But, to cut a long story short, it was a great, great night. After a little introduction from us all, it was straight into it, Claire Hartley versus myself. She did a beautiful piece that was really nicely detailed (and we both had to really strip back our style to the bare minimum...we had 20 minutes to do an A2 illustration! 20 MINUTES!! That's like...how long it takes me to get out of bed after my alarm!)

The really nice banners team Ammo Magazine brought to support Claire.

As soon as I started drawing, and managed to control my shakey hand, and got over the fact that I began by drawing my image too high on the page and had to rub it all out again...I got in the 'zone', and managed to block out the fact that we were being watched by a big (and very supportive!) crowd, and I found myself really enjoying it! I even managed to relax enough to hear Hanif Kureishi himself reading excerpts from his book whilst we were drawing, and the guy was incredibly funny. With all the talented artists there that night, who were all incredibly cool and nice to boot, I somehow managed to swing a second place, which I couldn't have been more surprised with! The winners were the brilliant Hidden Dingbats...well done guys! I really was impressed with everyone's design that night, and I really recommend you check the guys out! So yes. I shall definitely be doing some more live drawing in the near future. Who ever would have known that it's just like drawing?
My lotus flower cover...


Claire Hartley and I going HEAD TO HEAD.


Blocking in my colours...wet ink and watercolour...with only 20 minutes...no time to let it dry. But who does have the time, these days?


The clock is ticking. And Hanif Kureishi's reads from 'The Buddah of Suburbia'


The judges JUDGING.


Aaaaand my finished piece. Aw.
Thanks so much to the guys at YARNfest for putting this night on, and to Jo and all the Soupa lot for their support and for being awesome. All the photos here were taken by Clare Kelly (from Soupa...WOOOO! Thanks a lot, Clare!)





1 comment:

Jon Davis said...

Sounds like a really good event & looks fun.
You don't often get to do any performance type stuff if you're an artist, so I bet it was cool to do.
And I do think your cover was very good btw, nice idea.