Colaboration Series #1

I have begun work on 4 simultaneous exploratory and exciting collaborations with a designer, an artist, a fashion designer and an animator. Hopefully all will begin to come together in 2010, but here is are the first two exchanges between me and Gareth Roberts. To initiate the exchange, I sent a parcel of white photocopies based on a lot of the images I have been constructing throughout 2009, which don't appear below. We have beeen using a photocopier as our mutual reference point, but I'm curious to see what happens next...

Betamovie print nearly sold out!

I just wanted to say thanks to all the image-hungry-shoppers who have bought one of my Betamovie screenprints from Print Club Secret Blisters 09 show, and let you know that there are now only FOUR prints left out of the edition of 35, so if you're keen to get your hands on one before they sell out, the Print Club Shop is open for business...

Platform Lecture Series

I've just finished working on an identity for a lecture series at Winchester School of Art called Platform and the first in an edition of posters. The colour palette shifts slightly for each lecture.

Time Out Trashed

Last week I ran a 2-day illustration workshop for a group of 12-18 year olds at Acton High School with Time Out and Trashed Mag. I introduced illustration and it's relationship to journalism. The students spent some time illustrating the stories they had written about all sorts of subjects including gun crime, the rise of men's vanity and the death of bubblegum pop. It was really fun and I put emphasis on the additional ways in which images can be produced, aside from the kind of traditional drawing often taught in schools.

The articles and illustrations will form a small publication of which 100,000 copies will be distributed with a future issue of Time Out.

Frieze Art Fair Family Guide 2009

To follow on from the project I worked on for the 2008 Education Space at Frieze, this year I worked with the excellent Hannah Murgatroyd at the Royal College of Art ReachOut Programme and designers Europa, to produce this printed guide and large wall vinyls with Graphic Thought Facility. We chose 4 special Pantone colours, including 2 flourescents, and worked with overlays to build up compositions of the original artwork I created by moving cut-outs and type across a photocopier, to mimic a mise en scene, the idea behind Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth's work for their participatory event as part of Frieze Projects 2009.

Omnicrom

New experiments with Omnicrom foils...

Mikhail Wassmer

I'm back in London again after another wonderful month in Berlin. I uncovered some great things, fell in love with another sommerbad (illustrations based on swimming pool tiling to follow, I'm sure...) but one to note is definitely Mikhail Wassmer, a Swiss photographer who is taking fantastic documentary photographs about life in Berlin who I met first when we climbed the fenseturm. He is archiving the photos as journals on his website. They make me nostalgic already...

One dose of blood poisoning and countless coffee later...

I caught the ultra fast ICE train over to Hamburg for three days this week to help one half of megatalent Telegramme studio host their screenprinted poster show as part of Flatstock Europe 4. Good times!

EATJAPANESEFOOD

WWW.EATJAPANESEFOOD.CO.UK/WWW.HOLLYWALES.COM is back!

So my blog will no longer be used as much to showcase commissioned artwork, but will concentrate more on experimental projects, news and some of the great stuff I am lucky enough to see...

Hopefully over time it will also become a resource for my students at WSA when I return as a teaching fellow to the BA and MA Graphic Arts courses in October. Have a look at the new site and let me know what you think!

Neon Indian

I just finished this 3-colour screenprinted poster for Neon Indian, which was a new collaboration with art direction by the fantastic Telegramme.

Holzkohle

I have never drawn with charcoal as good as this before today. Thankyou!

Fotoautomat, Zossener Straße

I'm working in Berlin again until October on some experimental projects, this week I have been exploring fotoautomats with Thomas Ormonde.

Kauppatori, Helsinki

Preview

Sneaky sneak preview of some 2D experiments I'm working on based on parachute tents at the moment.

Toolkits #2

More work-in-progress flying in all directions while I'm busy working on a screenprinted poster for Neon Indian with Telegramme .

Science vs Art

If you're anywhere near Zürich on 17th September, you should check out We Speak English. I just made this logo for their latest Science vs Art lecture series. Join them for a free evening of engaging films, combined with introductory lectures on a range of educational topics for the latest Science vs Art.

Maxwell House

New drawing for the New York Times

Guardian WORK 15/8/09

I did this cover illustration for last Saturday's Guardian about the prospects of blogs becoming self-made real-life publishing deals.

Toolkits

I have been busy producing a catalogue of Impossible Shapes as a sideline to a commission I am working on at the moment - they are a selection of one-off inimitable configurations made using processes which cannot be duplicated.

Olympik for Grafik

I made this A0 poster about mountain biking for Grafik magazine's Olympik exhibition, which will be held at the German Gymnasium in King’s Cross from Tuesday 22 to Thursday 24 September. Private view Tuesday 22 September - invitations to be sent out soon. The exhibition will form part of this year’s London Design Festival in September. The posters will be for sale with a percentage of the proceeds being donated to children’s charity Right To Play and the British Paralympic fund.


The project is a collaboration between Grafik, SEA Design, Robert Horne and Team Impression.

Finland

New levels of inner peace and gratefulness reached during a stay in the woods on a recent trip from West to East across Finland.

New Site coming soon

The Joyful Bewilderment

Hangtime at Bristol's Here Gallery this weekend... good times! Go and check out the show if you find yourself in the area. Here Gallery, 108 Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3RU

New!

Some new things I've made this week...

LOST CAT

My friend Dan has lost his cat Ron. Help us bring him home! Ron's pro-modelling career was just taking off when he went missing 2 weeks ago from Gun Street E2; not usually camera shy, this is out of character and I ask you people of the east end to keep your eyes on the streets for that bushy orange tail he stole off a fox (distinguishing feature: white gloves).

Betamax print for Blisters

This drawing is available as a three-colour 50x70cm screenprint from Print Club London and will be available in their online store in the next couple of days...

Grafik - Alan Kane feature

Drawings for Grafik Magazine to illustrate Alan Kane's new "Life Class" on Channel4.

Faesthetic #12

2-colour magazine spread based on home and how inside protects you from out. Thanks UPSO - this is a fantastic magazine, everyone should check it out...

The Illustrated Ape

new cover for one of my all-time favourite magazines, The Illustrated Ape. Out soon!

make a physical

My ideas for new-era t-shirt 'prints'

Secret Blisters 2009

I'm hidden somewhere in this print show which opens at Dalston's Print Club on 26th June. Come!

Beasts of Oslo

I went to Norway for the weekend and met these guys.

The Independent

all-new hyperhyperhyper realism drawings for the Independent on Sunday

Converse

Tour De Force

I have just finished photographing the latest collection for Tour De Force and designed a lookbook. Modelled by my good friend Tea Tamminen.

New!

After several months as a nomad living between London and elsewhere in various rooms and configurations, I have decided to set up a new studio in London. My website is offline while the momentum gets going... the paint is still drying...

Owl & Lion Gallery

Thanks to curators Story Motel, my new zine 'YES' is currently on show at Owl & Lion in Edinburgh. 'YES' and all the other zines in the show can be purchased online here

Brick Lane Gallery

At a show called History Repeats Itself curated by graphic designers Europa, students from Winchester School of Art Graphic Arts Programme will exhibit work alongside a series of great talks from practising designers & illustrators. Don't miss it!

Binz, Rügen

Munich - YES

Last week i worked on a project with Timm Haeneke (DE) in Munich called YES for Owl & Lion Gallery in Edinburgh. We produced a 24 page zine which explored people's response to objects in an unexpected context.

Flohmarkt

I love making up stories.

Dizzy Spell

Due to health problems, I find myself renting a shack-like house on the border between Mexico and Texas. The sitting-room is in the United States, whilst the kitchen is in South America. I exist on a mixed diet of Twinkies and tortillas, mulling over my emotional difficulties and awaiting a selection of telephone calls which never come. Time passes without comment, and a rusty film of disinterest forms over my thoughts.

Over a period of vaguely discernable weeks, I develop a species of vertigo which leaves me unable to look either up or down without extreme dizziness. My vision is locked on a horizontal plane. My situation deteriorates until I cannot look at the window without seeing the word 'window' and a foggy reflection of my own countenance.

Eventually I cannot enter the United States without being overcome by emotions which manifest themselves as an overwhelming compulsion to whirl around smashing everything. When I retreat to the kitchen I find mountains of crockery coated with a mixture of coagulated food and thick dust.

I huddle in the short hallway that occupies the space between the USA and Mexico, quivering with fatigue. I cannot find my tenancy agreement. I realise that I will be stuck here, in this hallway, forever.

from Small Thoughts by Stanley Donwood

Away

I'm back in Berlin for another month, and after a few days exploring the leftovers of this years Pictoplasma conference around Mitte and P'berg (and eating waffles in a snowstorm) I met my friend Anje Jager in her new studio - an exciting run-down sped-up office leftover from the past - perhaps an old bank or social security building. i'm going to be working here for the next few weeks...

New York Times

from a collection of weekly editorial drawings for Lives in The New York Times magazine

Holly portrait by Timm Håneke

Sunday

Vodafone

Guns - Fight Recession!

Valentines Day Card

Boris Johnson's Adverse Weather signage system

I found this in Kings Cross today.