Skiing, Chamonix, the French alps.

A recent ski holiday to the French alps has inspired me to (attempt to) replicate some of the brilliant traditional French ski posters and postcards that you see in all the wonderfully tacky gift shops.

The posters are simple, yet so effective. Limited, bright colours, with eye-catching bold shapes and typography - I think these are awesome. So I've had a crack at re-creating one of these with my little colour co-ordinated skier. I also plan on doing a series, and if I can produce anything half as striking as the originals, I will be happy.

Here is number one...

Skiing, Chamonix, the French alps.

Ejectorseat Arts Festival 2011.

This year I have been asked to produce all of the imagery for The Ejectorseat Arts Festival 2011.

With 40+ pieces of imagery already completed, keep an eye on this blog for more drawings and more posters assembled from my illustrations, by the nice chaps over at the Johnny Toaster Graphic Design Agency.

The festival is to be held in Southampton's Palmerston Park on Saturday June 4th, and will bring a wealth of talent together, including: illustrators, artists, musicians, filmmakers, craftspeople and much more.

Ejectorseat says...

This summer the annual free EjectorSeat Arts Festival will return to Southampton’s city centre. Taking place on the 4th of June 2011, it will transform Palmerston Park into a creative hive of artistic activity.
The event will begin at 12pm and run until 10pm, bringing back more of the same great music, arts, crafts and festivities from last year with some fantastic new additions.

This year, the festival hopes to build upon previous success for an even bigger and better event for the city. Mac Ince, Co-Founder of EjectorSeat, says “We are still charged by last year’s success, and are using this momentum to build an even bigger and better festival for this year.”

Keep your eyes on the Ollie Stone Illustration blog for more images and news.

Alternatively visit the Facebook events page, here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=155264394535877

Holiday time.

Tomorrow morning I escape the swirling storm of chaos that my world is rapidly becoming. I'm going skiing, and it's going to be good.

During this little holiday my 'creative' brain will turn to photography, and in particular, photographing a little toy (this toy has not yet been purchased, but I hope it to be a dinosaur or snowman) in random places throughout my trip.

Upon returning I plan to turn these photos into illustrations and create a travel journal of sorts... I might even draw on the cast that protects the bone, that I might break...

Stay tuned readers...

Final Creaturemag Image. It's a New York creature.

Today my last illustration for Creaturemag made its way into the pages of their brilliant website.

Many thanks to Matt Witt and creaturemag.com for playing host to my strange array of images - It has been brilliantly fun.

Don't forget to keep checking www.creaturemag.com for regular creative brilliance. It's awesome.

This fellow is the New York Creature.

Creaturemag final image.

Tomorrow will show the last image I will be contributing to Creaturemag. I know, sad, but true.

After almost a year of posting little monsters doing random and sometimes controversial things, I feel it is time to call it a day and pass the 'Freak of the Week' mantle onto another lucky soul.

Tune in tomorrow, for creature-tastic-ness.

Elizabeth and the Moon.

Image Four for the short story: 'Elizabeth and the Moon'.

Personal Statement.

I suppose you could call this my new personal statement?

'My love of drawing and bright colours leads me to draw... well... brightly coloured pictures.

Since graduating from Southampton Solent University in 2009 I've been drawing pictures for people - clients to be exact. These clients have included Umbro, Time Out London and Article Magazine.

After graduating from university I ran off and travelled around Europe for a couple of months. With me I took the bare essentials of: some Marmite, a debit card, a few pens, a few sketchbooks and a big pot of ink - which in turn decided to leak a lot.

During my travels I visited a long list of cities and drew everything I could, from people and road signs, to landmarks and cityscapes. The inspiration derived from these travels fed right back into my illustrations, and I was off drawing like a crazed madman in a darkened room.

For the time being I reside in Southampton, and work as a freelance illustrator. The world around me acts as my main influence, taking note of any surreal or entertaining situations and drawing them up later on. This is an attempt to portray a sense of humour in my work...

The world at large takes itself too seriously - I just want to create images that make people smile. This has been my main aim all along.'

Look, Cover, Draw, Check.

Billy Mather, friend, illustrator, fellow Southampton Solent graduate and all round creative genius, has started an image blog called: Look, Cover, Draw, Check.

"LOOK.COVER.DRAW.CHECK is a weekly blog from the illustrator Billy Mather.
The idea is simple, Billy is given an image at random, which he has to look at, cover up, draw from memory and then the results are shown here on the blog.
Every Wednesday there will be a new post so keep checking back.
Billy relies upon your help to keep this blog going, so if you have an image you’d like him to attempt to LOOK.COVER.DRAW.CHECK please email them to: billymather@me.com"

Look, Cover, Draw, Check.

http://lookcoverdrawcheck.wordpress.com/

Billy Mather Illustration.

http://www.billymather.co.uk/

This Wednesday I was asked to have a go, and it was brilliantly fun.

Check out the page, send in photo, and enjoy the results. My monstrosity is pictured below...

Elizabeth and the Moon.

Just recently I have been busy creating imagery to go alongside a brilliant short story written by Owen Tromans.

Slowly but surely we are getting there, and with three images already completed and another four or five to come, this is sure damn to be good when printed.

Expect this collaboration to be complete in a month or so - stay tuned for updates.