Bye

This blog has seen me through my student years and now I am moving on up to tumblr. Follow me there for drawings galore hannahesimpson.tumblr.com

Thank you!

Orkney

Visit my website http://hannahsimpson.com/Orkney to see the spoils of my latest travels - a journey to Orkney. Big thanks to my mum for being the sort of person who drives 1,500 miles to look out to sea.

Cooking

My brother James likes to cook and I like to get in the way. 

Peek

Here is a sneak peek of a painting! I am working on a series of Columbia Road flower market.

The air smells green and my arms ache from the weight of cabbage roses carried home and thrust in noses.

The Jungle Book is published!

Top news! The Jungle Book has just been published, for which I illustrated chapter headings and  a bookplate. 

See more of my illustrations here: http://hannahsimpson.com/The-Jungle-Book

It has been published by Vintage Classics and is part of their new Children's Classics range. Other really good books as Peter Pan and The Wind in the Willows have been illustrated by my good friends. Check out Alice Wright's Wind in the Willows! 

It is available to buy at all good bookshops of course! 

Boxer

A quick portrait from Saturday's chessboxing training at Islington Boxing Club. This is Chris Levy who is fighting at the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday.

6am gym session

This morning I left before the larks to draw chessboxer Sean Mooney's daily weights session. A most interesting start to the day!

Over the next week I am documenting several fighters as they prepare for a big fight night at the Royal Albert Hall.

Chessboxing

New work is on my website now! 

http://hannahsimpson.com/filter/Reportage/Chessboxing

Chessboxing is a hybrid sport in which opponents play a round of chess, then a round of boxing, until knockout, checkmate, or timeout.

Drawings made at PrizeFightKnight - The Heavyweights at The Scala, London. September 29th. Featuring Ruthie 'Pink Machine' Wright and Ben 'The Veggie' Reid.

a poem by John Glenday

Etching of a Line of Trees

in memoriam John Goodfellow Glenday

I carved out the careful absence of a hill and a hill grew.
I cut away the fabric of the trees
and the trees stood shivering in the darkness.

When I had burned off the last syllables of the wind,
a fresh wind rose and lingered.
But because I could not bring myself

to remove you from that hill,
you are no longer there. How wonderful it is
that neither of us managed to survive

when it was love that surely pulled the burr
and love that gnawed its own shape from the burnished air
and love that shaped that absent wind against a tree.

Some shadow's hands moved with my hands
and everything I touched was turned to darkness
and everything I could not touch was light.

------------

from Grain by John Glenday, Picador £8.99 with a nice cover.

The best thing I've ever read about the process of print.

Out of Africa

Yesterday I went to the National Gallery to study the paintings. I was taken by these three men from a Velazquez painting. And there they were outside, by the South African Embassy, another time and place but maybe the same men. These ones weren't silent. Their protest centred on the killings of 61 miners from a London listed mining company by South African police.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/aug/21/south-africa-warns-lonmin-strike

Barbican

Scorching yesterday.

New altarpieces

We have at last moved out of Kingston and into London. The last picture is a painting of a glass dump. It's a big green hunk of glass, bulbous and full of flowers. My grandparents have them on the floor. 

Democracy

 

 Drawings of Michael Frayn's Democracy at the Old Vic.

Before

 

Here are a couple of drawings from the foyer of the Old Vic Theatre. We went to see Democracy by Michael Frayn there, absolutely fantastic. £12 front row tickets for under 26s! I have been working on getting more sense of depth in my drawings.

It has been a busy time since the grad show. I've been doing some teaching with Elly introducing sixth formers to visual communication. And I've been back at Hand and Eye letterpress, for a change not observing, but making some work playing with words on the proofing press. I have also been working in a dream team of friends and fellow Kingston grads, pitching for a most exciting project! A thousand plans and not enough days.

City of London

The tower is a man in pinstripe suit and bowler hat. An Irish man in hi-vis says that this view will be gone soon, and I feel guilty about the cupola I smudged, short changing the window panes, cutting corners and cornices. 

A building wrapped in a white shroud clinging to its ribs then billowing out, bristling with scaffold poles and fabric folds. 

Come round the corner and look straight into the belly of the beast. The child that will eclipse its stony mother stands stocky and still, steaming in its yellow cradle. 

Down by the dandelions I take the floor.

Little light giver

Today I went to the Science Museum. One boy said it was a good drawing but then another said 'No it's not, it's a lightbulb.' Opposite of Magritte.  

Rare private view

It was the Rare Kingston Illustration & Animation private view last night and what a night it was! Really pleased to show Phil, owner of Hand & Eye, my installation of the reportage drawings I made at his letterpress. Brothers provided delectable refreshments and there was quite a queue outside the Rochelle School. Brilliant night, spent with all the marvellous people dancing till morning. Such a good end to the three years! Thank you to everyone who came.

The show is on until 3pm Sunday, catch it while you can! Details here www.rare2012.com