suspended animation

cd package for A. David MacKinnon

2011-11-08T16:49:00.000Z

Spent most of the last six weeks working on a very fun project. A cd package design for a yet to be released album for an excellent artist. There is an image for each song and I'll post the rest over time. They are very much in the style of fifties, minimalist animation.

Slow and Tootie

2011-09-13T18:57:00.000Z

Here is the latest chapter in the life of one SLOW IMPETUS.

Joey Ramone

2011-03-29T02:24:00.003Z

The first three Record Changer images took mere hours. This one was a killer. Worked on it for days. Now onto Joe Strummer and then Johnny Rotten.

PHONE JAZZ

2011-03-21T15:02:00.000Z

Simply put, phone jazz. Business scat. Scatological. Mobile nonsense.

Piano Men

2011-03-14T19:58:00.004Z

Some sketches I did in Flash over the weekend. Was thinking of those old Record Changer and jazz album covers. Scanned in some R.C. magazines and worked my images into them with a little help from Photoshop. Gene Deitch did a lot of covers for Record Changer. Et voila, here they are, a few hours later all amped up and ready to gig.

Lazy Eye

2011-03-14T19:43:00.002Z

Here are a few images from a pitch I'm working on for a video clip for the band The Minotaurs. Going for a fifties meets 2011 style.

Assault and Battery

2011-02-13T19:23:00.002Z

FOLK BRUSH

2011-02-13T19:20:00.002Z

Some brushed up folk.

As I Walked Out One Evening

2011-02-12T20:48:00.002Z

If you click here you can see my latest short film if you'd like to.

Analog Computer

2011-01-31T01:28:00.002Z

computer head

2011-01-31T00:37:00.000Z

ONTARIO TIRE STEWARDSHIP

2011-01-31T00:36:00.000Z

A project for Resonator.

AS I WALKED OUT ONE EVENING

2011-01-31T00:28:00.000Z

Here is a still form a short film I recently finished.

CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC

2011-01-31T00:24:00.000Z

I'm just re-posting a few things that are getting lost in the past and undermining the artistic arc of my portfolio.

A Man and His Dog

2011-01-31T00:18:00.000Z

I like this particular image because it reminds me of old style chalkboard animation by pioneers like Emil Cohl.

FEEDING FRENZY

2011-01-31T00:09:00.000Z

Did this yesterday. May still add some patterns to the fish bodies to make it less like animation and more like illustration. Or just more interesting all around. This is the place where Doctor Suess and I meet head on. But it may still seem that George Grosz is winning the battle for the control of my disposition.

HAUNTING

2011-01-31T00:04:00.002Z

I have been working on an idea like this for more than a year. Last weekend I made a card for my neice (Zoe) and then revised it, darkened it. Still working on a stronger composition, as you can see by the thumbnails.

ANGRY TOWN

2011-01-31T00:04:00.001Z

I am posting this because it reminds me of George Grosz. He is one of my favorite artists of all time. This was a pitch for a Honda job that never happened. A lot of things never happen. That's why these guys are so angry.

BLUE

2011-01-31T00:03:00.000Z

I guess I have been neglecteing this site, but it's not like anybody is looking at it much, and I have been busy with work and pitching for work. I have always hated that phrase "pitching for work". It is very sport oriented. Like baseball or lawn bowling or even worse, fucking cricket. (the assholes' version of baseball) None of which is the point...here are some blue things. Brush and gouache and a speedy delivery. If you have something to say to me I can be reached on tom-gravestock@yahoo.co.uk

LATER TOOTS

2011-01-30T23:58:00.000Z

You might begin to think I am obsesseed with red and black but I think it is just coincidence. Anyhow this was a project I made for the windows of Hibbert Ralph Animation (HRA) in London. There were fifteen A3 panels telling the story of a land/space/underwater pursuit which culminates in a party.

Orange Drop

2010-12-11T19:41:00.000Z

Here is a series of worksheets I illustrated for the Orange Drop recycling program. They're in a grey scale so the kids can color them. The larger sheets (including the one with the map) are for Kindergarden to Grade four and are folded into three sections, printed on both sides, creating six pages. The other two pages are for Grades 5 to 8 and are folded in two creating a four page mini booklet .

Something for Bryden

2010-12-11T19:30:00.001Z

Here is a business card I recently completed for a friend. Kind of fun I think.

Easy Chairs

2010-02-04T23:25:00.002Z

I did this series a quite a few months ago and thought I had posted it. Here it is now. There are actually about ten in total. That's some birch bark as a texture in the background. I think I draw better than that now.

ICBC

2009-12-18T19:08:00.003Z

This was a very easygoing and pleasing project to work on. It is supposed to be one continuous line but if you were to look closely you can see that I cheated a little.

Upper Canada College

2009-12-18T18:46:00.002Z

Here is my version of something I did for UCC. The final didn't really please me at all as it lost all it's energy and become too straightforward. But that is how it goes. I wasn't doing it for me.
That said, an artist still wants a project to have as much of "them" in it as possible.

dee

2009-12-18T18:41:00.004Z

I did this pitch for a Montreal rap artist by the name of Dee. Never got the job but I still like the images.

FEMBOTS CD

2009-12-18T17:26:00.000Z

This summer I designed a cd packaging for one of my favourite Canadian bands, The Fembots. I was very grateful to be asked to complete such a task. I only hope I did their great music justice. It was a lotta fun because I was able to do the entire package from cover to label with complete support from the group. Big up to Dave and Brian. I thought I would repost this today as I have just received my copies of the disc this morning. It sounds incredible.

FemBots CALLING OUT Tour

2008-09-06T00:23:00.002Z

Something I did for the FemBots upcoming tour. Look out for them, they could be in your neighborhood even now.

MORE LOBLAWS

2008-09-06T00:18:00.002Z

Something in the shops right now.

For Vancouver

2008-04-30T14:33:00.002Z

A couple of Little Red Riding Hoods.

THE BROWNS

2007-09-20T19:43:00.000Z

Meet the Browns. They may seem a little down. Maybe they're just playing it cool like they're from Toronto or something. Probably vegans on their way to yoga. Eating a lot of mashed food. Slows you down I guess.

COWBOY IN A CAVE

2007-09-09T15:00:00.001Z

The cowboy is back and he's wandered into a cave. Maybe he should have left the damn lamp alone. Usually he challenges inanimate things like rocks and trees and bicycles. Sometimes flowers. Layers and layers of tissue paper scanned to create this. It starts to look like so many levels of lettuce after a while.

EARLY THANKSGIVING

2007-08-24T15:53:00.001Z

Just to show that I play fair, something for the vegetarians in my silent community.

DISAPPEARING LINE

2007-07-20T19:15:00.001Z

Trying to move away from such a heavy use of line. Here are two examples of what I have been thinking about. There is no doubt that less is more. There is more room to shape an idea because it is less labour intensive and consequently much more fun. The guy in the hat is some sort of little Napoleon. Looks like he's either just come back from sea or he just can't remember where he parked his boat. The cowboy speaks for himself. He doesn't agree with cacti.

TANGLED

2007-07-11T17:48:00.001Z

Also, I found this yesterday. I did it a while ago but the digital version I had was pretty fucked up. I boosted the color balance so much it looked like goat's head soup. I actually prefer this more retro feel, kinda storybook gone wrong. Tangled

SOMETHING FOR VEGETARIANS

2007-07-11T17:41:00.000Z

Yes, thanks to vegans, vegetarians and animal rights activists rodents are ruling the streets at night. They have ruined my garden, raided my trash and I swear they have their eyes on my i-pod.

Been A Long While

2007-07-11T17:12:00.001Z

Yes it has been some time since I bothered with this thing. Time that's been slow and time that's been fast but let's not get into that drivel. These are three pictures I did recently. Feeling a great deal of disatisfaction with my cumbersome style. About to let the weight drop.

TOY STORE

2006-11-02T16:42:00.000Z

Finally, after weeks of doing things I grew to hate, I have an illustration I can almost live with. This is for the nb illustration calendar and I kinda like it. It still needs work but I am posting it anyhow. I have been pretty busy working in the animation world, slaving for a good friend of mine. Daniel Sumich is his name, a very talented fellow. Forget about that and let me know what you think of this boy in a toy store at christmas. The colour balance is still lacking and if you check the blog at johnkstuff.blogspot.com you will know what I mean. Now, thay guy is a genius. He makes a lot of us look like we are just playing around.

CHARCOAL

2006-08-24T09:14:00.000Z

These are some charcoal sketches I did last night. Charcoal is pretty different from drawing on a tablet. There's texture, resistance and vibration with conte and charcoal and pencil on paper, These drawings here are pretty retro but I think something is coming to life.

ORIGINAL FABLES

2006-08-12T14:08:00.000Z

Initially I was working with black and white drawings like these. I still kind of like these as they are before I started mucking about with them. The obvious problem with all the white is that the image glares at you. At first I framed the images with a heavy vignette. Then I went to a painted canvas textured red vignette. Now I am working on the approach I mentioned below.

FABLES

2006-08-12T09:40:00.000Z

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on this stuff. Taking artwork from an old film idea, adding more detail and changing the style of render. Initially, for the film I was making, it was just going to be black and white line. I tried a number of approaches and settled on this. What I consider to be fable like panoramics.

SKETCHES of SPAIN

2006-05-30T08:47:00.000Z

Here is something I started on Wednesday afternoon and had to have finished for Friday. It is for a travel brochure published by conde nast. The image is a representation of an annual festival in Spain. I was pretty happy about it during the process of making it but in reflection it kind of bugs me. It reads a bit like a drunken photograph. Initially it had more flow through but I could have improved on that with a better distribution of the three grey tones. Instead I kind of drew as if I were within the party.It kind of lacks a real focal point. Is that a good thing? It makes the image more lively and more like a celebration but when I look at my favourite illustrators their work seems more orchestrated. Not contrived but evolved. I guess I am going to have to work on this. The picture with the heavier shadows is probably stronger because it reinforces the idea of the trumpet and guitar dudes as a starting point.

POLKE POGO

2006-04-16T18:02:00.000Z

I did this some time ago. It's part of the Later Toots thing listed in the archives here... I guess it could be considered an outtake from the series I did. The style is some sort of homage to some really incredible domestic pieces that Sigmar Polke did.

MISTER BLUE

2006-03-09T16:18:00.000Z

Here is something new I have been working on. A film idea. Based on a song by an old fifties band called The Fleetwoods. A song called Mister Blue. The film is very simple, mostly lip sync and acting. Not too many shots at all. Something I can produce quickly without too much deliberation and procrastination. If you know what I mean.

GANGSTER COLA

2006-02-27T10:45:00.001Z

Whoah. Been some time. Lapsed blogger. Here is something that has taken me months to finish. I have worked on and off with this image since July. I must have done the figures twenty times eaach and I'm still not entirely happy with it. The blue longshot is called QUEEN SAYS TERRORISTS WON'T CHANGE OUR WAY OF LIFE. I was working on a series of roughs in a pub when this statement flashed up on one of those vulgar twenty-four hour news channels. They were so happy to have a new story to exploit and London had just been bombed. The queen, as usual, was oblivious.

CONFESSIONS

2005-12-18T21:43:00.000Z

I have been zig-zagging all over the place wih this wesite, It is no longer an advertisemnt but a slow motion journal. Anyhow, I have noticed a strain in my comics which is confessional and testament like. Character driven stuff. I'm not catholic but I can live with this place. It is an allotment I can work with.

RAINY SEASON

2005-12-18T17:27:00.000Z

This happened on a scribbly overlapping rainy sort of afternoon wherein I allowed my control to take some time off.

WASTED AND WOUNDED

2005-11-05T09:58:00.000Z

This is a kind of pulverized wet on wet style that I have filled entire sketchbooks with. Very gestural, irreversible and immediate. Or so I like to think. Not like anyone is too concerned but I decided to re-open the comment section. This on/off thing I have been doing with the comments is pretty much a dialogue with myself...nonetheless some people have called me and said they weren't too happy about not being able to comment so it's opened again. This system just needs some sort of spam detector to ward off corporate vultures.

BRUISED COWBOYS

2005-11-05T09:30:00.000Z

I did a batch of these bruised cowboy paintings a while ago. I made the background like a blood soaked dirty bandage on purpose but I suppose that is more than evident. On another note, I found a rep for my illustrations! They are N.B. Illustrators and I will be on their website soon.

MORE STREETS

2005-10-17T10:50:00.000Z

These two images are part of the BUILDINGS AND FOOD style I posted below. They are quite large drawings, A3 size, and a real pain in the ass to scan on an A4 scanner. Currently I am working on drawings twice that size. How in the hell I will scan those in I don't know.

NO COMMENT

2005-10-03T17:29:00.000Z

Hi, unfortunately I have been receiving a lot of comments from self-important assholes advertising insurance sites, dating sites and other things I have no need to see. Consequently there will be no further access to comments on this site as I don't appreciate wankers using my work as bait for their shady advertising endeavours. Contact me directly if you like at tom_gravestock@yahoo.co.uk

RED LIGHTS THIS WAY

2005-10-02T09:39:00.000Z

This has got to be one of the angriest street scenes I have ever done. Again, it is in great debt to George Grosz and a liberal dose of paranoia. The other image, THIS WAY TO FUN is like when you come out the other side of the tunnel on your way to an awards ceremony or some such event...essentially another type of Hell.

NIGHT OWL

2005-09-24T09:45:00.001Z

This is an image from a campaign I did for a bank in London. I like drawing over live action, not rotoscoping but
re-interpreting the live action or photograph. I started doing this years ago when I was in Canada when I would draw over blurred polaroids. The picture of the three dudes is one I did about fifteen years ago!I think my technique has improved slightly since then.

PUZZLED

2005-09-12T09:58:00.000Z

I painted these on some old puzzles I found. The landscape one is quite small, half an A5 I think. They are kind of for kids but I still like them. My preference remains for hand worked imagery and then taking it into the computer for refining rather that a lot of Flash/illustrator anonymous assimilation. Which is not to say thatI don't use those programs I just like hand worked stuff far more. Obviously, it's more personal. Even further I wonder if it is possible to ever really know the structure of something when the form is always prefabricated. It reminds me of the suburbs if that makes any sense.

BUILDINGS AND FOOD

2005-09-09T15:21:00.000Z

I started making these images a while ago. They all come under of the heading CLUNT'S HOTEL for reasons not best mentioned. I make these enormous backgrounds, well A3 anyway, then I take a bunch of my loose character sketches, scan them in, and make a crowd. I like how the characters barely ever interact. It reminds me of most of the cities I ever lived in.

CAPTAIN ROCKET POSTER

2005-09-06T12:45:00.000Z

This is a poster set-up for the ubiquitous Captain Rocket. Kind of a scrappy anime style I suppose.

THE REAL FIGHT CLUB

2005-09-05T23:26:00.000Z

THE REAL FIGHT CLUB is the story of two cartoons that start a club due to the extreme boredome of their two dimensional lives. They don't fight for liberty just for fun.

CAPTAIN ROCKET: SPACE LOSER

2005-09-05T23:09:00.000Z

Captain Rocket is like one of those old cliffhanger things they used to play at the movies well before my time. The hero always ends the film in what seems like certain death only to return the next week fit as a fiddle. Such is the neverending space quest of CAPTAIN ROCKET.

SLOW IMPETUS

2005-09-05T15:21:00.000Z

Slow Impetus is the story of a guy with serious motivational problems. He lives in an apartment but spends most of his time resting in a handpainted cardboard box.

business as usual

2005-09-05T12:45:00.000Z

Last summer I was working on a shabby little project in what they call The City in London. A lot of cheap blue suits and self-important soulless cretins running around. And thus: THE BUSINESSMAN RUNS.

To begin with

2005-09-03T16:55:00.000Z

My name is Tom Gravestock. I am a director/illustrator living in London. I am starting with the posting of some illustrations and comics. I call the site suspended animation because after a very slow summer that's what I feel I am living in, suspended animation.