Cat Finnie :: blog

Autumn

2011-11-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

Still one or two stray leaves left on the trees here in London.

Sebadoh - Skull

2011-06-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

Ahab in profile

2011-06-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

Captain Ahab

2011-06-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a 'Cultural Exchange' with a friend to read books we selected for each other to read. My choice is Moby Dick, and so here is my impression of Captain Ahab.

Green skirt

2011-06-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

Another for my Sartorial set on Flickr.

Filmspiration

2011-06-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

Also started a new flickr set based on movies, here.

Sartorial illustrations

2011-06-21T07:35:00.001-07:00

Wow, long time since I really got down to business with this blog.
Here comes some new stuff: starting with some illustrations based on fashion and period costumes.

Dana Tanamachi

2011-05-16T13:47:00.001-07:00

Ace Hotel Room 1021 from Dana Tanamachi on Vimeo.

Gig poster for Alex Winston

2011-05-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

At The Borderline in London, June 20th,

Alex Winston | Locomotive | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Alexander Azemsha

2011-05-11T05:09:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous these. More here.

Re-working my Illustration Friday

2011-05-10T01:49:00.002-07:00

Michael Kiwanuka and Berlin

2011-05-10T01:49:00.001-07:00

Two good things, one video.

Illustration Friday topic

2011-05-04T09:17:00.001-07:00

This week is 'Lesson'. These guys were getting a little bored...
Paper planes are excellent.

Flickr linkage

2011-05-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

Now posting things to my Flickr account as and when they occur. How future.
Oh yeah, and I'm now also twittering into the ethernet: @CatFinnie

Travel inspired stuffs

2011-05-03T08:23:00.001-07:00

Doodle practice

2011-05-03T04:14:00.000-07:00

Just a lil doodle because I had been watching (and loving) the BBCs adaptation of Michel Faber's excellent novel 'The Crimson and the White.' The acting, sets and costumes were all wonderful. Watch it here.

Bright on Brighton

2011-04-25T16:03:00.001-07:00

Sunny days on brighton seafront for the long weekend.

Doodles

2011-04-15T06:36:00.001-07:00

Back in town...

2011-04-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

I'm back in town after my 2 month trip to South America and drawing things again! This is just a sneaky peak at part of this illo...

Submarine

2011-04-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

3eanuts

2011-03-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

I have returned to London... and I'm whiling away a few hours with 3eanuts.

"Charles Schulz's Peanuts comics often conceal the existential despair of their world with a closing joke at the characters' expense. With the last panel omitted, despair pervades all."

Yes indeed.

Image borrowed from the 3eanuts site.

Travel snaps so far...

2011-02-21T19:18:00.000-08:00

Just to keep this blog from dieing entirely while I{m away...

Goodbye London, hola Peru!

2011-01-26T07:36:00.001-08:00

For the next 2 months I will be travelling across South America, posting my photos and ramblings here:

http://anillustratorabroad.blogspot.com/

Goodbye ilovedust

2011-01-25T11:21:00.001-08:00

Cupcakes from Primrose Bakery are always delicous, though this batch were a little bittersweet as they marked the end of my almost 4 years at UK design studio ilovedust. I'm off to South America for a few weeks and then I'll be returning to London to set up by myself and see how it all works out.
Goodbye ILD, you'll be missed. And thanks for the tasty cakes!

Around town

2011-01-25T11:19:00.000-08:00

Animal hats! Likes.

Chinese New Year of the Rabbit

2011-01-25T11:10:00.000-08:00

On February 3rd, it will be the Year of the Rabbit!
So this is a little early, but there won't be any posts on here for a while soon because I'm off traveling, so here are a couple of rabbit related doodles I made earlier. Wishing everyone a happy, lucky year of the rabbit!

Cat & Bird

2011-01-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

Hurrah! I can finally share the finished short that I worked on with the superawesome ilovedust animation team.
It was very much fun to work on and I hope I'm going to work on more backgrounds and things for animation in the future.
Stay tuned for some bits and bobs of mine from the development stages.

Cat & Bird from ilovedust on Vimeo.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

Make it a good one!

Pantone 18-2120 is the pantone of the year :)

FFFFINDS!

2010-12-27T14:04:00.000-08:00

The Gruffalo

2010-12-27T05:05:00.000-08:00

Particularly loving the Christmas day showing of Studio Soi's animated adaptation of The Gruffalo on UK tellies. If you missed it, all is not lost since they have been posting many wonderful bits and pieces from their "making of" on their blog.

Mad Men

2010-12-20T14:28:00.000-08:00

Mad Men s awesome. Fact.
I doodled my two favourite characters while I was snowed in at the weekend.

Snowed in

2010-12-18T13:17:00.001-08:00

Snowed in with my sketchbook today.
Merry xmas all :D

The Age of Adz

2010-12-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

New Sufjan Stevens album is a complicated kind of wonderful.

Orange pig

2010-12-11T15:00:00.001-08:00

I was at the wonderful Natural History Museum the other week, making some doodles. Thought I'd practice drawing into the wacom tablet a little by colouring up this sketchy warthog.
Why is he orange?
I don't know... maybe he ate too many tangerines.

December

2010-12-11T12:06:00.001-08:00

December doodle. Long days of snow in London town.

Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

2010-12-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

Because it's a good way to make the cold days until xmas holidays go a little quicker - photos from Hubble Space Telescope, a new one revealed every day until xmas at Boston Big Picture.

Brrrrrr

2010-12-03T14:46:00.001-08:00

The big freeze hits London.

Cloud Control

2010-11-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

Cloud Control from Black Cab Sessions on Vimeo.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

2010-11-20T02:18:00.001-08:00

Video by Spike Jonze.

FFFFINDS!

2010-11-18T08:43:00.001-08:00

Antonio Rubino

2010-11-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

A great post at A Journey Round My Skull on Antonio Rubino (more images here), an Italian comic artist and illustrator. These works are from the early 1900s.

FFFFINDS!

2010-11-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

November FFFFINDs.

The Animals and Children Took to the Streets!

2010-11-14T11:09:00.000-08:00

A new production by theatre outfit 1927. Looks pretty interesting, a sort of mash-up of animation and live performance. It's on at Battersea Arts Centre this December.

This was the trailer, as it were, for their previous production "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea".

Ballet Russes

2010-10-23T07:55:00.001-07:00

Few of my own pics from the Ballet Russes exhibition.

Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929

2010-10-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Went to the this fantastic exhibition on the Ballet Russes at the V & A recently. Here's some images.

FFFFINDS!

2010-10-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

Guess I haven't posted in a while! Here's a variety of eye candy I've been casting my gaze over recently.

Berlin

2010-09-13T14:48:00.000-07:00

Couple of pics from Berlin last weekend.
Berlin Festival in old Tempelhof airport, some intriguing bottle labels and general wanderings around Kreuzberg and surrounds.

FFFFINDS!

2010-09-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

Random selection from the really beautiful and eclectic collections of BibliOdyssey.

Film titles

2010-08-26T13:29:00.000-07:00

Great page of vintage film titles here
Some of my favourites from the 50s and 60s below.

Croatia

2010-08-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

Trip to Croatia 2010

Arrrr, birthday ahoy!

2010-08-25T03:09:00.001-07:00

It happened to be a friend's birthday last week, so I made a card, with a pirate - arrrrrrrr!

Halloween characters

2010-08-11T14:04:00.000-07:00

A set of halloween characters I created for ilovedust recently.

FFFFINDS!

2010-08-11T13:54:00.001-07:00

Park Life

2010-08-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

Inspired by wanders around lovely Greenwich Park.

FFFFINDS!

2010-07-25T07:34:00.001-07:00

Coke - Recycle Happiness

2010-07-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

More hand-lettering for Coke via ilovedust.

21 Mercer

2010-07-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

An illustration I made of the Nike store at 21 Mercer Street NYC. It was for something, and now it's not, but thought it was worth sticking it up here as I spent some time making it.

McDonald's but Summery

2010-07-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

A little bit of fun type I illustrated recently for McDonald's new summer menu.

And this was it appearing on the back page of the London Metro. Ah, my work here is done ;)

FFFFINDS!

2010-07-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

Update on my favourites from FFFFOUND!

Toy Story 3

2010-07-01T03:45:00.000-07:00

Haven't seen it yet, however, absolutely loving these character development drawings from Nate Wragg

Spy some of the designs come to life in this 'ere trailer.

And finally, also delighted that a Totoro toy has apparently made it in to the film some places too!

Magneat

2010-06-15T14:26:00.001-07:00

My design for Magneat limited editions our now :D

She & Him

2010-06-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

Pattern

2010-06-13T11:16:00.001-07:00

Just a little something I whipped up the other day. I doodled this little robin back in the winter, and just realised he might make a sweet little pattern.

Glorious website online

2010-06-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

Glorious foods website online now.
Letters and illustrations created by us at ilovedust.

FFFFINDS!

2010-06-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

California is a Place

2010-06-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

Fascinating films and great photography at California is a Place.
All of them well worth a watch and can be viewed on their site.
Here's what they say about the project:

"California is loaded. From Disneyland to farmland, we’ve got Scientology and superstars, Silicon and silicone, crips and bloods. The border. Krumpin’ Clownin’ Jerkin’. The surf and the turf. The boom and the bust. California is humanity run amuck and then packaged, branded and sold. California Cuisine, California Love, California Casual, California Gold, California Girls, and of course, California Dreams. If it exists in the world, it exists here and it does so with pizzaz."

Cannonball from California is a place. on Vimeo.

Glorious Soups! Part 2

2010-06-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

And here are some larger views of some of the letters I worked on for this project.
I've included a couple of working ideas I liked that got cut from the final selection. D for Diablo, spicy chilli sauce, F for Fragrant Thai, an N for New England butternut squash and one for New Orleans. The others are A for Asian, S for Spanish, B for Big Easy, R for Roman, and N for New York.

The project has been featured on The Dieline and Lovely Package too. Yay!

Glorious Soups!

2010-06-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

- They're out in the shops now!
ilovedust helped re-brand Glorious Soups and Sauces with unique illuminated letters to identify each soup.
Letters I worked on were A for Asian Tomato Rice & Ginger, B for Big Easy Chilli Cream Sauce, I for Indian Chicken, N for New York Alfredo Sauces, S for Spanish Tomato & Chorizo, T for Toulouse Sausage and Bean and much of T for Tuscan Chicken & Orzo, and the R which would have been for Roman, but the name ended up changing (Ahh, and it was one of my favourites with it's little Roman column).

Oh yes, and I'm not even just saying this, but everyone has said the samples they tried were absolutely delicious! Not just tasty for the eyes.

Cycle London

2010-05-31T13:21:00.000-07:00

Transport for London ran a competition recently to create a poster promoting cycling in London. Time got a bit tight, and I went a bit minimal with it. There's still something in the idea I like though.

FFFFINDS!

2010-05-31T12:26:00.001-07:00

Gurafiku

2010-05-31T11:48:00.000-07:00

Gurafiku - A collection of visual research pertaining to Japanese graphic design. Assembled by the designer abroad; Ryan Hageman.
Some very nice stuff on here- I love the yummy colours, simplicity and mysteriousness of these designs.
Here are a few of my favourites.

Curious Pages

2010-05-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

"Recommended inappropriate books for kids" at Curious Pages.
Some favourites below.

"That's the only thing I truly envy Jim for. Deep envy. I think The Stupids Die is the best title ever. . ."
–– Maurice Sendak

"We will always be courageous. We will always be potatoes."
Stirring stuff!

Mythfits

2010-05-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

Love these cartoons featuring Unicorn and Robot over at Mythfits.
I can't decide who to like better out of the two though!

Letters

2010-05-26T13:42:00.001-07:00

A little preview of some illustrated letters I've been working on at ilovedust.
S for Spanish (the bull and medieval knight go with this one)
B for Big Easy
R for Roman.

Jamie Lidell - Little bit of feelgood

2010-05-26T13:15:00.001-07:00

2010-05-21T06:23:00.000-07:00

Some more backgrounds I've been drawing for a thing...

FFFFRIDAY FFFFINDS!

2010-05-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

Magnificent Maps

2010-05-20T09:05:00.001-07:00

"The exhibition include large-scale, impressive maps from the 1400s to the present day, including the largest atlas in the world, the Klencke Atlas of 1660. It suggests the settings in which they might originally have been seen – from the palace to the schoolroom and the home – reveals the themes that unite them, and highlights the sheer artistry that was involved in their production.

Magnificent Maps will also explore the reason behind the construction of these visually arresting works of art. Which range from maps used for indoctrination or expressions of local pride to irrefutable statements of power and illustrations of rulers' spheres of influence."

And an interesting article from The Independent.

Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art is at the British Library, London NW1, from 30 April to 19 September.

2010-05-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

Up There - hand painted advertisments

2010-05-10T14:41:00.001-07:00

UP THERE from Jon on Vimeo.

Shhhh...

2010-05-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

Sneaky peak at some things I've been working on at ilovedust of late. This has been sorta a filler project to work on while awaiting client feedback etc, but I'm thinking the awesome animation team are gonna make this look really nice in the end.
So for now, these are just a couple of the initial sketches and then backgrounds I've been working on for our little project.

FFFFINDS!

2010-04-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Presets - If I know you

2010-04-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

ilovedust

2010-04-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

ilovedust motion department (where I keep my pencils sharp and fill my coffee cup during the week) has just launched a whole bunch of exciting new stuff and an interview on Motionographer. The new ilovedust site is here.

Marian Bantjes: I Wonder

2010-04-12T01:50:00.000-07:00

Oh wow! A new book by Marian Bantjes.
Her work always amazes me, and from the pics on her site, this project is going to be inspirational.

Lyrics and Type - Verse 2

2010-04-12T01:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the opening night looked like a big success, with the gallery being really packed out and people spilling out onto the street, and on a Thursday night! Prints are now also available to buy online from Wooden Toy Publishing Co, here.
View all the posters rather larger here.

Kuky Se Vraci

2010-04-09T01:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know anything about this film, except that I'm pretty sure I like where it's going.

Spike Jonze - "I'm Here"

2010-04-09T01:32:00.000-07:00

Aaaaaaaah, looks real interesting. I love how fresh his work looks, so personal and unique.

Holly Miranda

2010-03-27T04:05:00.001-07:00

Lyrics and Type Exhibtion

2010-03-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

Yay!
So this poster I made for ilovedust for Lyrics and Type exhibition is gonna be exhibited and sold at East Gallery, London, from April 8th. It will be a nice A3 screenprint in 3 colours.
The exhibition is curated by Wooden Toy Publishing Co. and VNA.
Here's a little preview.
Oh, and the song I chose is lovely Sea Legs, by The Shins. Love it muchly.

FFFFINDS!

2010-02-28T06:26:00.001-08:00

Alexander Girard cycles via Popwuping

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland via The Guardian

Evgeny Parfenov

via ISO50

Adam McCauley (via Dutch Uncle)

Tavis Coburn (via Dutch Uncle)

Samurai Jack

Stef Choi

Paul Julian via(Lou Romano)

Made in England

Pierrot Le Fou

2010-02-28T03:35:00.000-08:00

Film by Jean-Luc Godard.

Circus Alphabet!

2010-02-27T01:56:00.000-08:00

Another alphabet made out of stuff (a follow up to my Animalphabet).

logo for The Cartel

2010-02-27T01:52:00.000-08:00

Quick little logo I made at work this week for an Australian company called The Cartel. They wanted a sort of modern slant on a family crest and they went with a hand-drawn version in the end, but I still quite like this one.

Monster tights

2010-02-25T02:47:00.000-08:00

Excellent hosiery by Les Queues de sardines.

Happy New Year of the Tiger

2010-02-21T12:38:00.000-08:00

Lion and Dragon dances and chinese lanterns aplenty in Chinatown, London this weekend.

Friday FFFFINDS

2010-02-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

My weekly best-of, from FFFFOUND!

Lion cup

2010-02-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

A cup I designed, featuring a lion and a mouse...

A Bout De Souffle

2010-02-17T13:49:00.000-08:00

This week, I made this little homage to the brilliant Jean-Luc Godard film "A Bout De Souffle."

i-phone photography

2010-02-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

Gorgeous i-phone photos from Nick Maggio