Clerkenwell Post Illustration

It’s been another ultra busy week for me (which is always great), painting private canvas commissions, design work, and keeping you guys updated throughout, which is always an enjoyable experience.

As promised from me a few blog posts ago, and the fact that I’ve been keeping you guys in the dark on a few things I’ve been working on lately, I can now showcase one illustration which I’ve recently finished for ‘The Clerkenwell Post’.

This was a great illustration to complete for this fantastic publication, which is a local lifestyle paper which celebrates the design, heritage and craft in Clerkenwell.

I was asked to produce an illustration in response to three stories, which are all published within the magazine.

I chose the story of ‘Grub Street’, which was a street that was located in Clerkenwell during the 19th Century. Within this concentration of lowly paid writers and book publishers, was a wealthy individual who was nicknamed ‘Hermit of Grub Street’.

After his brother tried to shoot him, he stayed in his house for 44 years until his death. He refused to communicate with his servants, only enter a room when they left, and became an bookish, old, recluse.

Even though he had money to spend, he only eat gruel during the winter, leaves and herbs in the summer, and allowed himself to have bread and egg yolk on special occasions – he knows how to treat himself!

It was a story which opened many forms of ideas and compositions in my head, which was my favourite story out of the three. After I read through all of the text of ‘Grub Street’, I set about sketching the idea and writing down various ideas and concepts in my sketchbook.

You can see below my rough drawings which was sent to the client. We decided to go for number 2, which was one of my favourites out of the 4.

From here, I produced the illustration with watercolour, gouache and then edited the final artwork in Photoshop.

It was a great project to be a part of, which I very much enjoyed producing! The new issue isn’t out yet, but will keep you informed when it does!

Many thanks to AD Cai for your feedback during the project.

Many thanks for listening and visiting my news page today. You can follow what I’m up to on my Twitter, Facebook or Google + pages, I’ll really appreciate it if you do, and don’t be afraid to say hi to me! Many thanks again, and have a great day!

The Clerkenwell Post Illustration & Rough Drawings