Fishing lure paintings for ‘Lure fish kitchen’

Work-in-progress sketches  © Peter Gander 2014

Based on a recent post entitled ‘Fishing Lure’, I was asked by ‘Lure Fish Restaurant’ in London to come up with 5 new paintings based on vintage lures. Shown above are current sketches of a couple, drawn in pencil. Colour versions coming soon.

New pig on the block

Pencil sketch ('scamp') stage for Ham Client  © Peter Gander

This pretty porcine pencil drawing was sketched recently for a client who supplies no less than the Royal Family with the most handsome of hams and grandest of gammons. Those familiar with our piggy portfolio will recognise that the inspiration here was our pink ‘Pig Cuts’ tea towel. The final design will adorn aprons, tea towels and signage and, like every product with a Royal Warrant, one will be shown to Her Majesty for a Royal seal of approval, literally!

‘Goose’ brush and ink

‘Goose’ brush and ink  © Peter Gander 2013

Card mock-up  © Peter Gander 2013

This is the final number 10 in a series and what more fitting beast for our Have a Gander ‘Menagerie’ range of handprinted cards than a goose? Available on Folksy and Etsy soon. Original: Brush and ink.

‘Hen’, brush & ink

‘Hen’  © Peter Gander 2013

‘Hen’ card mock-up  © Peter Gander 2013

I’ve been ‘hen’tertaining myself with more beasts for our hand-printed ‘Menagerie’ collection. This ‘hen’some bird is of the speckled variety, inspired by a favourite beer, no doubt. (Original: hand-painted by brush & ink).

‘Fox’ card image

Rough brush and ink sketch for ‘Fox’  © Peter Gander 2013

Card mock-up for ‘Fox’  © Peter Gander 2013

The latest in our ‘Menagerie’ line of handprinted cards. ‘Fox’ will be made into a rubber stamp and each one will be handprinted onto individual cards. Original: Brush and ink.

Inking ‘Swallow’

Inking the Swallow  © Peter Gander

 A 'bird's eye view' of a work-in-progress shot inking the Swallow, one of a set of new Have a Gander 'Animals' Greeting Card images. The painted image is destined for the rubber stamp maker. Once it's turned into a stamp, we'll individually hand-print them onto blank cards. All a very painstaking process, but the result is a beautifully-handcrafted card with a very special quality worth all the effort.

Valentine’s cuppa

The Valentine’s rubber stamp image  © Peter Gander 2013

Using a proper cuppa as inspiration (ink drawing in corner)

For our Have a Gander business, I drew this design for a line of hand-printed Valentine’s cards for lovers and tea-lovers. The original drawing was done in Indian ink and scratch (dip) pen, visible in the corner. I used a dainty tea cup as reference, colour was added in Photoshop for the mock-up above. The real thing will be turned into a rubber stamp and individually hand-inked and printed onto card.

Unknown Sculpture, Canary Wharf, London

(Unknown) Sculpture, Canary Wharf, London  © Peter Gander 2012

I’ve had my eye on drawing this one for a while as I pass it daily from CanaryWharf Pier. Sadly I couldn’t find a nearby plaque with the sculptor’s name, so I can’t be terribly informative. But it’s quite a raw-looking piece, with cut angles from the sculptors’ knife visible all over, like it’s just been made from a huge block of clay. This faceted look translates well to cross-hatching with the biro in small chunks of light and shade. Drawn at West India Avenue, Canary Wharf, London. Bic biro on card and digital colour.

‘Couple on seat’ bronze by Lynn Chadwick 2000. Canary Wharf, London.

‘Couple on seat’ bronze sculpture by Lynn Chadwick 2000.  Sketch © Peter Gander 2012

Strong winds again today but dry at least. Right outside the Ogilvy office is this bronze by Lynn Chadwick. I was surprised to see the date of 2000, having presumed it was a 1970s piece, similar to the Henry Moore abstracted figures that I used to see around Harlow, Essex when I was younger. A ring of tiered seating surrounds this and a fountain, so I had a comfortable sketching position. Drawn with a soft (7B) pencil, the paper’s tooth was rather too rough for any subtle variations of tone, but the wash of  sepia over the top helped with that. Dry pigment on the brush dragged upwards (left figure) lent an appropriately rough texture in places. Winsor and Newton watercolour on 210gsm Khadi (Indian handmade) ‘rough’ paper pad.

London lunchtime sketch: Sasso Cosmico, Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London

Sasso Cosmico, Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London  © Peter Gander 2012

A grey day in London. Raining, in fact, so nowhere to sit down and sketch but would have sketched this standing up anyway, for the best viewpoint of this dynamic view down to the famous Canary Wharf tower. In the foreground is a sculpture entitled ‘Sasso Cosmico’, by Do Vassilakis-Konig (bronze and steel) 2007. This view will be familiar with commuters like me who get the Thames Clipper boat into the wharf. The very fine rain added an interesting dotty texture to the painting, visible in the sky especially. The woman pushing the pram, lower left, circled the small park continuously for as long as I was there, a good 40 mins! Staedtler Permanent Pen and Winsor & Newton watercolour on 130gsm cartridge paper (the latter was too thin/non-absorbent for such a well-soaked job really).

‘One for the pot’ (lobster)

‘One for the pot’  © Peter Gander 2012

A poor photo of this painting (at A3 or 42cm x 21cm it’s too large for my scanner), but hopefully you’ll get the gist. The outline was done with a jumbo bamboo dip pen and Ultramarine ink. Watercolour and ink on The Langton Prestige 300gsm rough paper. • SOLD

Tailormade Tea Towel: Tracy’s ‘T’

v1.0 scamp for Tracy’s tea towel  © Peter Gander 2012

During our show at Olympia last week, we were commissioned to come up with a bespoke tea towel design (1 colour) as a keepsake for a client hosting a party in Sussex at the end of June. This is the first stage sketch, or ‘scamp’ as we call them in the trade. This’ll print in green on white cotton. The client’s name is Tracy and she is also conveniently nicknamed ‘T’, a perfect excuse for a ‘T’ towel if ever I heard one. Not only that but tea plantations are part of the family business, so a tea towel doesn’t get much more apt than this! Soft pencil on layout paper.

‘You, me and a cup of tea’ greetings card

You, me and a cup of tea greetings card  © Peter Gander 2012

Unlike our tea towels, the greetings cards have the capacity for full colour, but not wishing to move too far from the original design, I added just a tinted green background variation and infill to the hand-lettering. Ink and dip pen on paper with digital colour.

Eel postcard image

Eel postcard image  © Peter Gander

A client who works for CEFAS commissioned me to come up with some eel-themed designs for a conference coming up later in the year in Edinburgh, Scotland. After forwarding some rough ideas, we settled on this celtic design-inspired ‘Eel knot’ as it was seen to not only look striking but also represents one of the creature’s habits of writhing underwater in huge ‘eel balls’ where hundereds of the creatures form a rolling sphere of eeldom, careering downstream in a dark shiny mass! Hand-painted ink linework with charcoal and digital colour. As usual, the type is hand-drawn too.

Re-drawing the design in pencil with a tad more precision thank the original scamp

Getting knotted over the puzzling shapes...

Painting the final linework on Canson Detail Paper, beautifully thin and transparent, so I can see the pencil sketch underneath

Treating this as a completely seperate layer, I drew some stylised ripples in charcoal, later turned to white

McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce bottle

McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce  © Peter Gander

Some objects at first sight at least, appear quite bland, yet always look great painted or drawn, I always think. Whether it’s a tin of soup (Warhol), a smoker’s pipe (Magritte) or even my loosely-painted sketch of a tabasco bottle, their representation as a screenprint, sketch or painting, brings interest anew to an erstwhile uninspiring item. Forgive the pun, but that’s what draws me to bringing them to light. As a graphic designer, I love the simple label typography, limited in colour, but on a richly-hued pepper-red product. An icon-in-the-waiting perhaps. (Black) Indian ink, Winsor & Newton Polar White ink and watercolour on Paperchase Kraft Cream hardback sketchbook.

Nude by bath © Peter Gander

An experiment in combining traditional and digital techniques. The nude is drawn with a charcoal pencil, highlighted in white and sanguine Conté, then scanned. I also scanned the background Kraft paper (or ‘brown’ paper as we poetically call it in the UK), seperately. The patches of aqua, green foliage, sienna border and model’s back highlight in white were then added as tints (in Photoshop/Wacom pen & tablet). Looks Anglo-Chinese perhaps?

Sketch for ‘Whitstable smack’ linocut

Sketch, ‘Whitstable smack’ © Peter Gander

For my end-of-the-month show, a preliminary sketch for ‘Whitstable smack’, which will be a linoprint using a composite of images of all things Whitstable. A smack is the distinctive sail boat shown in the centre, these were used for bringing in the oysters. Also featured are the Crab & Winkle, (after Britain’s first passenger railway from Canterbury to Whitstable); a wind farm turbine; the Fish Market standing figure, as per my previous linocut); a Maunsell Fort (ditto); The Street (sea shingle walk, ditto), Oysters, seagulls, fishing huts, an anchor and a rope border. This sort of composition is inspired and influenced by the wonderful woodcuts of British artists Geoffrey Wales (who actually lived in nearby Margate), Eric Ravilious and the linocuts of Edward Bawden.

Clare, reading

Clare Snowdon reading, Cerét, France, 1991

I was sifting through years of arty paperwrk in my cabin and came across this study of an old girlfriend reading that dated back to 1991. I was obviously not too well-equipped (artistically) for this holiday (like I would be now) and drew this using a Bic biro. Cerét, Rousillon, France, 1991.

Border Collie Bobby drawing

Bobby © Peter Gander

Pencil drawing of a friend’s border collie ‘Bobby’. 5B graphite pencil on off-white cartridge paper.