Poirot's Florin Court

These days I'm working on a series of postcards for Clerkenwell based estate agent firm Hurford Salvi Carr. The first illustration is based on Florin Court, an icon of British Art Deco. It dominates Charterhouse Square, in my opinion one of the most interesting squares in Central London, at the very edge of Islington and bordering the City. It is also known as the Whitehaven Mansions, the fictional residence of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, created by Agatha Christie.

When architects Guy Morgan and Partners built it 1936 they imbued it with a total Art Deco style so when I was invited to visit the interior I was able to appreciate its fine details; railings that resemble clouds passing by, curved surfaces, and the distinct type used throughout the building.

I played around with these design features to produce a portrait caricature of Poirot himself, elegant and stout. I drew on period Art Deco posters to portray Florin Court as a modern efficient building in the thriving London metropolis. 

Have a look at the original building here.

Rock the Boat

I finally received my paper copy of Rock the Boat, the graphic novel I spend most of 2011 illustrating for Banter Publishing as their first publication. With a radical approach Banter takes great works of literature and updates them into modern day narratives on a graphic novel format. This way they seek to connect young readers to classic literature.

For Rock the Boat, scriptwriter Tim Lay took Jerome K. Jerome's Victorian hit Three Men in a Boat and set it in present day England where an amateur rock band sets off on a journey up the river Thames from London to Reading festival with the intention of becoming the next instant viral sensation.

My work was to take Tim's satirical vision of England's social fabric and turn it into images while at the same time staying true to the original novel's descriptive spirit. In the end this meant spending nine months stoaryboarding, pencilling, inking and colouring the 92 pages that make the graphic novel.

To top it off illustrator Paul Shinn worked on the lettering and make it actually readable.

Will let you know as soon as Rock the Boat is published, hopefully soon this year.

Battersea 2050

Born out of a conceptual collaboration with Aaron and Will, Battersea 2050 is the new and unexpected continuation to the Battersea Power Station Series, as of today a quadriptych.

Following on the theme of excess and energy I decided to take this new entry to the extreme and it is larger and denser than the other three. On the ‘A Catalan Weekend in London’ private view night Aaron challenged me to envision a future for Battersea and suggested year 2050 for the next milestone on the history of the famous London landmark. Borrowing from Will’s comment about a shift in the power source, this time it’s London what’s nourishing a reborn Battersea, satirised as a  carefree hyper powered revamped power station – now a leisure venue of some sort.

The London side has two new addition rows to the cast of characters from previous entries. Behind the Victorian houses, housing tower blocks and functional office buildings now stands the stardom of designer architecture of corporate present day London. From the back row towers over a line-up of hypothetical organic megastructures functioning as vertical districts in order to tackle overcrowding. The unmistakable city skyline has been redefined for good. By this 2050 plugs are bygone and everything runs wireless. Energy is generated by a zombified society that now powers a delighted Battersea set to entertain with fireworks of pure joy. Due to the climate change it also grows palm trees on its top.

Battersea Power Station – 2050

707x1220 mm

Acrylic paint, Indian ink and colour pencil on board. 

Psychedelic Fish Wall

I have done this short experimental animation after my last visit to Spain and the beaches around Barcelona. We were swimming nearby this bit of surviving architecture that was next to a surfing club although I'm not sure what it really used to be part of. It reminded me of some sort of fish, or a beached whale. Once I was back in London it happened that I watched the classic Yellow Submarine film and came up with this architectural psychedelia clip.

You can watch the animation here. 

Music: Fer by Plaid from Not For Threes

Central Tèrmica del Besòs

This image is a view from the train on the way to Badalona beach, over the Thermal Power Station in Sant Adrià del Besòs, that has now become an icon of the Barcelona skyline with its three chimneys. The way they are placed one next to the other, and the fact they're literally by the sea made me think of the conga line. The second image is a view from the beach towards Barcelona, with the industrial creature towering over it.