These Ideas Designs

Sorry, I’ve been away for a while.  Some personal and professional stuff have been happening.  I started a new 9-5 job, got to pay those bills some how.  Trying to buy a flat, i hate admin, and trying to get my name out there in the Scottish Scottish Football world, all whilst trying to complete commissions and get my weekly podcast drawing to the Talking Lower League lads.  

In no way am I complaining, I just find it amazing how artists manage to find the energy to do everything.  I feel like I'm running on fumes.  With everything artists need to do, especially with the weight of COVID, its despicable that we aren't getting the respect we deserve for just getting through the day.  

Artists are being told by that they are expendable, the UK Government told them retrain.  I suppose the paintings and sculptures that the tories horde have no value. 

At midday on the 18th of May 2020, Celtic were confirmed as Scottish Champions for the ninth season in a row.

I’m a Celtic fan. I don’t hide it. I probably should ... it would probably help the sales of my art if I didn’t alienate one side of my hometown.

I want to write this blog post, cause I want to talk about why this is MY favourite title from the last nine years.

The lockdown has obviously lessened the celebrations. I’m sure all level headed Celtic minded people would have preferred that we completed all remaining fixtures and won the title on the pitch. And tbh all I want to do is get canned in the Galagate again waiting for a bus that doesn’t show up.

I grew up in the 90s. It really wasn’t fun being a Celtic fan in the 90s. I don’t really remember a lot of games that we won, but I remember the feelings when we lost. We had some great players. Two of them are my still heroes, I’m not going to name them, but I saw two of them standing together at a game last year, and I started to panic. These guys are ALL STARS, Hall of Famers, MVPs...GODS!

The first game I went to that I can remember full is Celtic 5 - Dunfermline 1 on 21st September 1996. Tommy Burns last season in charge. Di Canio scored 2 and Hooijdonk scored 2 after 70 mins, I didn’t see those goals as my uncle didn’t to leave at 70 mins ‘to be the traffic’. Rangers won 4-1 against Kilmarnock. Although we were close that season, we finished 5 point behind Rangers. We would win but Rangers would always win, and they would beat us in the Old Firm games. And that summed up the 90s for me.

I don’t really remember ever deciding I was football or Celtic fan. I didn’t really get much of a chance. When I was 4 I was put in a Celtic shirt and that was it. My uncle said you like green and white and that’s it. TBH sometimes, especially during Rangers reign in the 90s and under sometimes under Walter Smith OOs, I always wondered what it would be like if I had been able to chose a different football team. i don’t know if I would have picked Rangers, I mean I wear blue, I’ve got a lovely red and white Miller bear jacket. Maybe in a different universe there’s a version of me, who supports the blue side of Glasgow, and is writing a blog about who great it was in the 90s.

Everything of course is a cycle. We had the 70s to the early 80s, they had the 90s, now we have the 10s. Achieving 9 in a row, puts this roster of Celtic players above most in contempoary history. Perhaps on legends like Larsson, Naka and Lubo would compare.

I just want to demonstrate the improvements I have been making over the last 6 months.

The first image shows a recent update to the second image. As you can see, there is a noticeable improvement. Possibly due to practicing everyday.

My line strength weight and precious is A LOT tighter, colour matching is better and use of light is more realistic.

Episode 21 of the Talking Lower League Podcast.

My girlfriend has advised (threatened) me to use Tumblr as my website. She was MySpace and Tumblr famous, supposedly. So people of Tumblr, thanks for letting me join your site, please be kind.

I’ve posted this print of the Lauriston before, but someone just bought three prints of it and sort of forced me to make the most exciting decision in my life. Today I registered as a self-employed illustrator. Does that mean I can start seriously calling myself an artist...shit. It’s not a pipe dream, I’m actually doing this for really. It feels scary, exciting, terrifying, romantic and exhausting.

Anyway, I hope you like my stuff. I’ll be posting a lot more - I need to feed myself.

Love

One of my favourite @celticfc memories was watching @tomrogic18 treble winning goal in the @drygate. I lost my pint and nearly cried.

COVID isolation has made me dream about and the draw said dream.  

hope you like em’