Live Mural for Joseph, 77 Fulham Road

Last year the wonderful people at Joseph asked me to contribute a window display at their Kensington flagship store, they gave me the freedom to curate and design the entire space, so I suggested painting them a huge mural live in front of the general public. At the time I started this project winter was drawing in and Halloween was around the corner, it was a great excuse to embrace the darkness of the coming season and paint something brooding, gothic and gleefully weird.

The most thrilling aspect of the project was the danger of it, the fact that I had absolutely no idea what I was coming in to paint was so exciting, the risk involved really interested me. The only thing I had to go on was black, white and red, the rest was totally improvised. The decision-making process that would normally happen in private was happening in front of the public and every mistake was there in the open, for the world to see, so there was great pressure to make every brush stroke count. that pressure informed my approach to the painted. The public also became part of the creative process with me, tapping on the glass, cheering me on, sometimes coming into the store to talk to me about what I was making. The support and encouragement from passers by was really heartening.

Live Mural for Joseph 77 Fulham Road

Dazed and Confused Birthday Present and Time Capsule Contribution

I really am terrible at updating my blog these days, I have literally 30 projects on my desktop ready to be uploaded, and yet still they wait, impatiently glaring at me from my desk top wondering why I haven't deemed them worthy of posting. Well I'm sorry, I've been busy okay! Anyway, I finally thought I'd put this guy up, he's a suffocating torso! I made him for Dazed and Confused's anniversary issue celebrate their 25th year of publishing, it appeared along side loads of other contributions from the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace and Kate Moss. They later auctioned off the entire collection for Oxfam. Here's my blurb that appeared in Dazed-

''Masking tape and me go back a long way, we discovered we could make wonderful things together at college. It was only when we met dazed that our relationship truly blossomed, sadly though I started seeing other materials like polystyrene and masking tape grew more and more distant. But for dazed birthday we decided to work together again and make him a present. What could be more fitting for a time capsule than a suffocating man gasping for air for eternity. I loved the idea of him glowing underground forever with no one to see him.''

GQ Style - Hipster dissection

What is a Hipster? What does that even mean? Am I a hipster? Do I have to come out all over again?! I thought about this question a lot over the period of working on this little project. The guys at GQ Style asked me to illustrate an exploded diagram of the modern hipster to go along side an article about the same topic. No easy task really since its so tricky to define what it actually means. There are so many kinds of hipster these days its hard to pin down its exact characteristics. Two things seem to be certain- if you live in East London and do anything remotely creative for a career you are, through no fault of your own, by the modern definition.... a hipster! God knows I must be, I mean I wear colourful socks, Brogues, bright shirts, I'm creative and live off Broadway Market, so by default that makes me a hipster, right?..... maybe not. The sad truth is I'm probably too old now to qualify.

Anyway, I thought to myself before taking on this job that I'll only do it if I can have fun with it, this meant brutally lampooning one of my dearest friends. My wonderful flatmate Will is a stylist, an occasional model and is in huge denial about his hipster credentials, ''easy prey" I thought and immediately got to work mercilessly dissecting my buddy. All the favourites are there, the fix wheeler bike, the 'pretentious rock band t-shirt with the ripped off sleeves', the 'Supreme' cap, even a little dog.

So here it is- a playful poke but ultimately loving homage to my mate Will, the modern hipster, (whether he likes it or not.)

My Egg for 'The Big Egg Hunt' London

The big egg hunt is currently in full swing around London, I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute my own egg to the festivities.

I had 2 words in my head when I started thinking about this project, psychedelic - creature. I was immediately drawn to the idea of turning the egg into a jolly (if slightly bonkers) animal of some kind, 'the shape is a bit like a frog' I thought and set about drawing him, 'but what to do with the back of my frog egg?' I wondered, 'if he's so ecstatic on the front wouldn't it be fun to paint him a woefully sad side on the other, creating a sort of ying yang character', this allowed me to play with different colour palettes for the oposing sides and gave me a great excuse to paint another funny face. but what to call him? in the end, out of shear desperation and lack of anything better I went with the ludicrous title of 'the happy sad frog egg', although it really should have been 'the eggony and the eggstasy'.

I had tremendous fun painting my frog egg for a few days, I've grown quite attached to him. You can visit him at his new home in Carnaby Street, say hi from me.

My Egg for 'The Big Egg Hunt' London,

These were taken at night my friend Jasonyao Yao. The colours really seem to pop at night.

Lady Gaga / Nick Knight / Ruth Hogben - "Bone Tattoo''

This one is a bit of a mystery to me, I was recently on some ones tumbler and found these little gifs of Gaga wearing head and arm pieces that i made her a while back. So I googled 'Lady Gaga bones' and discovered that it was used in a film for show studio and as an intro for her Monsters Ball Tour. The film also features Gaga getting 'Dad' tattooed on her back. I made a little gif montage a the bottom... just for fun.

POP with Daniel Sannwald and Tamara Rothstein

POP with Daniel Sannwald and Tamara Rothstein

Styling: Tamara Rothstein

Hair: Tina Outen @ Streeters

Make Up: Inge Grognard @ Jed Root

Manicure: Rebecca Jade Wilson @ Jed Root

Model: Frida Gustavsson @ IMG

Casting: Angus Munro @ AM Casting

Set Design : Gary Card

Set build: Russell Beck Studio's

Set Design Assistants: Penny Mills, Miguel Bento and Alice Kirkpatrick

POP with Daniel Sannwald and Tamara Rothstein

Crazy Wedding Cake Still Life for POP with Lily Vanilli and Daniel Sannwald

These pictures are part of a huge story for the latest POP. Loads of Cake and Ice cream inspired set was made for the shoot (the whole story will appear here in the next few days.) We thought it would be cool to offset some of the fashion shots with pictures of wildly adventureous wedding cakes, almost as if a cake maker from 'my big fat gypsy wedding' had totally lost their mind. 'who better to make my insane cake fantasies a reality', I thought 'than Lily Vanilli' and immediately called her. Lily is truly remarkable, putting up with my infuriating requests and suggestions for days. This is the result of our magnificent collaboration. Sadly a few of these didn't make it to print so Mr Sanwald very kindly sent over these for my blog, so you could say this is a Daniel Sannwald - Lily Vanilli - Gary Card Exclusive! Ooooooowww!