Leamington Spa Completed

Leamington Spa...Initial sketches

Leamington Spa...Initial sketches

Taking the waters from the regency era to Queen Victoria. New designs reference the tropical collections of the Jephson gardens, The three pioneering Doctors who promoted the health benefits of the spring water, victorian bathers and general regency posturing.

Zizzi Victoria - second leg of the journey

Only the more successful images are being posted at the moment. Hopefully the rest will be up to scratch very shortly.

Venice - Simplon Orient Express

And let's shoe-horn in Victoria in her Saloon car - Who's aiming for historical accuracy here?

Paris - Simplon Motifs

Zizzi Victoria - Orient Express cont...

I felt stoking fires and preparing and serving meals are a fairly integral part of both the original OE and present Zizzi operations so wanted to get in some imagery of that also. Romance and mystery are also pre-requisite aren't they?

Zizzi Victoria - Orient Express

Here are some first-round ideas for the vinyls destined for London Victoria restaurant - The idea discussed is that the images should allow views into the carriages to see the characters travelling aboard The Orient Express. As the train's hay-day was the early 20th century, I'm hoping that the illustrations can remain largely grey/black/white with colours reminiscient of tinted photographs.

The concept is really a gift with loads of potential. Each of the OE's Pullmans carriages are named ( Phoenix, Ione, Zena, Audrey, Minerva, Perseus, Lucille, Ibis, Cygnus and Vera) so these might apprear superimposed over the carriage scenes. Also the Art Nouveau and Art Deco interiors and their distintive marketry designs I hope will play a big part. Also pictured is Mata Hari, exotic dancer and WW1 double agent who purportedly travelled aboard. More to come!...

last one

And some more

Canterbury Sketches

Further sketches for Canterbury but struggling to find suitable resolution. felt posting them to blog would be Cathartic!

Just can't seem to come up with

something as strong and pleasing as the Norwich designs. Will have to plough on, methinks .

Caterbury

When I attended Alasdair Gray's talk at the Aye Write festival in Glasgow I had the full intention of taking notes. I abandoned this idea in favour of just enjoying his company, which- despite the hundreds-strong audience - was very easy to do.

I did make one note, however, which was reads ' next time doing a Zizzi's think of Alasdair Gray' by which I meant ' do what you want' as Gray kept emphasising the people he most enjoyed working for were those who just allowed him to please himself.

I don't feel I've achieved that mentality yet as - I think like most other artists- I get pre-occupied by what I think people expect to see from me or in certain places. But in enjoying Gray's mural work and imitating a certain graphic/ rythmical line of his has helped me overcome a bit of a hump with this commission. The sketch is pictured but still needs revising

Zizzi norwich

Here are the results of the Norwich commission. The work took about three days all told but progress was slower than I anticipated - I think due to the wider range of materials, approaches and colour I was using, some for the first time.

As with all on site work - as you see how its unfolding in situ and given your time constraints-you you have to make adaptations. The Lower floor work (the girl with pattern) had to be modified -the wallpaper pattern lacks anvils and some of the carriages are reduced to basic shapes without wheels. I hope this won't irritate any diners. But i felt the wall was visually busy enough without adding these extra details. I felt much happier with the upstairs illustration (the farrier and horses). I'd use the stencilling and spraypaint techniques again as they were effective in this.

Thanks to Big Al the sparky for providing a sense of scale, there!

Sugar

A couple of drawings for a possible Zizzi sugar bowl comission - Teaspoons obligatory!

Zizzi, One New Change, St Paul's

Had a great time making the work for the opening - if only all jobs could be this rewarding! Here are my own photo's of the work over the four days but official press release images can be seen on Zizzi's facebook page: www.facebook.com/#!/wearezizzi . Loved also the seemingly infinite supply of prosecco royales by the last day! I think it enhanced the work. Many thanks to all the staff there.

Zizzi, One New Change Pitch Accepted

My pitch for Zizzi One New was successful and the preparitory sketchwork is ongoing ready to be transferred to acetates. The venue opens next week on October 28th!