Murals at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London

I was recently commissioned to produce two large scale mural works to go on the side of a new purpose built cinema for patients in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital by the CW+ Charity. I was asked to create two colourful murals on either side of it that would be uplifting for the patients to see. They feature lots of local landmarks to spend time looking at and are in the shape of animals. The patients and staff at the hospital helped me to come up with ideas for the places to include and which animal shapes to choose. On one side of the cinema there is a mother and baby rhino made up of buildings such as the Natural History Museum and the Albert Hall and on the other side is a leaping fox made up landmarks from Fulham, Earls Court and Battersea. Below are the digital illustrations of the Rhinos and Fox and also the building sketches I made in researching the pieces along with two initial design ideas.

We. Are. Back.

This is the very latest piece of artwork I have done - 'Bristol Blue', mixed media on paper based on a feathered raptor type dinosaur. It will be on sale on my shop soon. It's unusual in that I'm not doing dinosaurs now.....and I also don't do blog posts now! I just checked in on here and noticed that I haven't posted since 2011. My art has changed a fair bit since the last post, so thought it would be good the put something current up for people to see if they come here. I seem to remember I stopped doing this blog as it was taking too much time. Sizing all the images, writing all the stuff and publicising all the things I was doing was getting on top of me and getting in the way of doing the actual artwork. I think that also social media like twitter became a faster way of putting news out there. These days I tend to share an image on Instagram via Twitter and Facebook and that's it - job done. Is that enough though these days? Are there people not on those networks who don't see any of this? Does anyone bother much with blogs these days? It might very well be another two years till I post on here again, so in the meantime might be a good idea to look me up on the aforementioned social media sites. Signing out...... Andy

Pond Illustration

Thought I would stick up this pond illustration I have done for North Somerset Council. It's for a nature reserve information board at a place called Locking Castle. It's quite a straight up illustration job, but I am pleased with the end result. Nice Carp!

The Unholy Grail, Southampton

I have a few bits of work in this groupshow at Goblets Gallery, Southampton. Address is 180 Above Bar Street, Southampton, SO14 7DW. Opening party, 4th Dec. Show runs from 5th Dec - January 14th.

Mayfair Pop Up Show By Inkie

I have some work in this Pop up show (they seem to be all the rage right now) in London coming up soon. It has been sorted out by Inkie and it’s running in Mayfair for a short time only, 8th to 12th of December, and the line up includes;

Goldie, Shoe, Inkie, Eine, She One, Mysterious Al, Sickboy, Insa, Zeus, Hush, MauMau, Kid Acne, Steff Plaetz, Shazer, Chu, Shok1, Xenz, RYCA, David Walker, China Mike, Part2ism, Ben Allen, Andy Council, Pure Evil, George Morton Clark, Milk, Dora and Don.

Shantysaur

This piece is, as you might have guessed, on cardboard. I used a combination of spraypaint, chalks and acrylics.

Shantysaur is based around shanty towns and Favelas. It is my submission for this years Cardboard Shelter exhibition.

Bubo The Owl!

My latest poster for London club night Play It By Ear is a turbo charged, pimped out version of Bubo the Mechanical Owl from Clash Of The Titans!

In the film Zeus commands Athena to give Perseus her owl, she instead orders Hephaestus to build the mechanical owl Bubo as an aid for Perseus. I really enjoyed Clash Of The Titans as a kid. Harryhausens animated monsters were great and I loved Bubo. I have heard that he is not going to be in the remake, which is a shame.

Here's an interview with Harryhausen about the creatures in Clash Of The Titans, including Bubo.

Bartonhillasaur

A few days ago I painted this beast with the help of some of the local yout at Netham Park, Barton Hill, Bristol. The dino has flats and houses on similar to those in the area. The wall wasn't as tall as I thought, so the beastie looks a bit less like a Stegosaur or Dimetrodon and more like a bloody big Newt!

Still needs some work doing on background bits - took this pic before the sun went down.

It was quite a chilled spot to paint in a way - nice chip shop round the corner!

Shouts out to Rowdy who was in charge of this project and Cheo who painted also. Also hello to Cheo's brother and everyone else who showed support.

Here's the original design drawing I did of the piece...

Drunk Drawing For Weapon Of Choice Magazine Party!

This is the piece I did live at the Weapon Of Choice Magazine launch party on Friday. Wobbly, sketchy style and wonky photo......I was very very drunk!!!!! I like the piece though mind, little tanks, cars and diggers amongst the junk. It was good to use a bit of charcoal as well as just paint markers like I would normally.

The magazine is available as a hard copy around Bristol, but can also be downloaded.

There are more pics of the night up on Lokey's Blog. Some of the pics might be of me looking in a bad way....laying off the booze for a bit.

Council Is Doing A Talk!

I'm going to be doing a talk at The Watershed, Bristol UK on November 5th as part of SweetTalk 38.

Nevermind that it clashes with the fireworks - Council will have a slideshow of work and will no doubt be talking about his detailed drawings of dinosaurs, his involvement with the Bristol Street Art scene and maybe the beast of Bodmin!


The other speakers at the event are -

Gabriel Solomons / Designer / Editor / Decode Publishing

Maria Mochnacz / Photographer / Video Maker

Ian Anderson / The Designers Republic (!!!!!!!!)

Tickets are £10/£8 student
Available from Watershed Box Office
0117 927 5100 www.watershed.co.uk

Mega City Fauna

Coming to Weapon Of Choice Gallery, Bristol UK 15th January 2010....


Megacity - A city and/or metropolitan area with a very high population or average density.

Megafauna - Large or relatively large animals of a particular place or time period. Saber-toothed tigers and mastodons belong to the extinct megafauna of the Oligocene and Pleistocene Epochs.

Glyptodon!

For my latest Play It By Ear club nite poster I have decided to go for a giant prehistoric mammal rather than a dinosaur. The beastie is based around a Glyptodon that was a bit like a huge Armadillo. It has a bit of a Pokemon feel to it and is very seasonal with its autumnal/fall/halloween colour scheme!

Animal House Exhibition, Ipswich

I have some work coming up in an illustration group show in Ipswich, Suffolk. The private view is on 9th October and it runs until 18th October 2009.

Really good line up of artists in this show including my mate China Mike and fellow Boys Who Draw collective members Simon Corry, Simon Wild, Steve Rack and Mister Millerchip.

An Alternative Portrait Of Edward Colston

Invada Record's label boss and Portishead member Geoff Barrow is to curate a days worth of music, film and art at Bristol's legendary Colston Hall venue, which has recently been extended, adding a brand new 30 million pound building onto the existing structure. The 'Invada Invasion' takes place on Saturday 26th September...

As part of the days events there is to be an exhibition entitled 'An Alternative Portrait Of Edward Colston'.

This is my take on the man who, amongst other things, became extremely wealthy, mainly from slavery...

I have to say that I was quite stuck on this one and in the end did this pretty weird looking piece where his wig is made of skulls and cables and his head of speakers.

I quite like the colours!

Acrylic on paper, 297 × 420 mm

Dino Head At Bristol Festival

I popped down to Bristol Festival today with baby Felix and saw that my dino head I had painted for it had been carefully cut out and installed. Is that you in the photo?! Sorry if the pic is not flattering!

We also noticed that there were Andy Council Bristol Fest Tshirts available also. I hope they manage to flog a few!