He wins with just his hands...

This is the first in a series of portraits I've started, featuring people I admire. 'Heroes' it could be called. I conceived this Jackie Chan image in context of an article about him in a magazine. I wanted the text & image to work together more effectively than the usual rectangle spot or 1/2 page illustration, although I could've pushed this a lot further.

There's a lot of dichotomy within JC and his films: 'East' and 'West', violence verses pacifism, the fact that his US-made films are beloved of audiences yet strongly disliked by Chan himself. I tried to express the contrast between, on one hand, the fighting and shooting in Chan's films and on the other his distaste for violence and love of comedy, hence the pistol becoming a water pistol. The talisman is from the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon, in which Chan is tasked with preventing these 12 magical chinese zodiac charms falling into evil hands. The tiger talisman has the power of dividing the user into two people: a good side and a bad one, ying & yang. That seemed very appropriate. 

The cartoon is awesome, check it out if you haven't seen it. At the bottom I've posted up the ending theme, which is possibly the greatest song EVER. Even if it is a Wheatus song with the lyrics changed...

Shoes

I painted a pic of my new running shoes to use along with the older painting I'd done as illustrations for a running magazine article. Wanted some new contextualised illustrations for my portfolio. The article is in The Ultimate Guide to Marathon Running. I made sure this painting was cleaner and slicker than the older one, befitting the old shoes/new shoes theme.

New

I've uploaded my new website finally. It's a lot more sensibly designed, and a lot easier to update now, so I'll be able to keep it topped up with my latest work a lot more. Hopefully it's a lot nicer on the eye too. Also given this ol' blog a facelift to fit in. Pleased.

I'm very keen to hear what anyone thinks?

Shows

I had a couple more exhibition-heavy days a couple of weeks ago. Swung by the Brighton Ill. & GD London private view at Rochelle School in the East End. They made very good use of the space: it's pretty cavernous and spread over two floors, but they managed to fill the walls, which I found impressive. Good open rooms and well-lit also, especially on the bottom floor.

I also made a morning visit to New Designers in Islington, to check out my friend Chris Parsons' graduation exhibit. He's a product designer and belt-wearer and also my old running buddy. We wandered around and had a good look at the product design shows- some really good new creations, and some really weird ones too. Didn't have the time to look around much of the Illustration stuff though.

I would also recommend the the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery. This wasn't my favourite year, but it's always ace. And the National Gallery's Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries exhibtition was really good too. Equipped with the accompanying leaflet and its glossary of obscure art restoration terms, it was fascinating to nose at the broad range of paintings and read their stories, trying to guess the fakes from the real deal. It made me want to be an art restorer a little bit. And the Portrait Award always makes me want to run home and paint portraits.

Pat sleeps while I watch The Fugitive.

Jack Bauer