Selling baozi
May 14, 2012 · China
Baozi are meat-filled dumplings eaten at breakfast, those big metal things are steamers. This is a watercolour painting.
I’m excited about this painting even though it looks a lot like previous pictures – it’s the first watercolour I haven’t altered in Photoshop, and I’ve tried out a few things that I’ve been thinking about for a while:
The whole picture was built up first with just two colours, a yellow ochre and prussian blue (dark, very staining). And then when I added colours (the red of the lanterns etc) I used the ochre and blue in the mix. So there’s a cohesion in the colours as well. I think you could probably make any image out of two base colours like this, even if they were bizarre – violet and lime green say. I always have problems with colours being too chaotic, so this two colour base is a great shortcut for me.
All the colours are muddy, except on the focus point (the girl).
There are lots of different whites – reddish-whites, bluish-whites etc made with washes, the only pure white (=paper) is on the focus area – the table, the girl’s face, the steamers.
I worked hard to make sure all the perspective is off :); there are no parallel lines, if you follow the lines of the wall or the table they don’t quite meet up, to grab your attention a bit more.
The apex made by the hands passing the baozi is supposed to echo the apex of the steamers.
My promo book covers for Penguin Books China: 1984, Metamorphosis, Pride & Prejudice, Moby Dick
May 7, 2012 · Penguin Books China
The idea was to give Western classics a Chinese twist to make them appealing to a Chinese audience, to put them in a Chinese context. So here’s the first batch…
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Orwell’s 1984: Taking 1984 to be a hell on earth, with Big Brother as a Chinese devil…. 
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Kafka’s Metamorphosis: This is a longhorn beetle, which I found in my garden. I’ve never seen a bug like it in the UK, so for me it is a very “Chinese” beetle. The Characters on it’s wing case spell out the book title. 
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Melville’s Moby Dick: I have another version of this which looks more “Chinese”, the calligraphy making up the whales tale. Unfortunately that image was too dark for the series, so we’ve got… 
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Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: Chickens occasionally appear in Chinese ink painting, and I think the birds themselves have a certain arrogant, disgruntled look about them so…. 
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My talk on Penguin book covers, Chongqing [photos]
May 3, 2012 · Penguin Books China
Just got back from giving a talk on Penguin book cover designs in Chongqing. It was hosted by Sisyphe Books, a lovely European style bookshop and cafe. Thanks to everyone who came and the warm welcome…
My picture book Three Monks and a Bad Apple now on Kindle Fire
April 3, 2012 · My books
My picture book, Three Monks and a Bad Apple: Equivalent Sayings in Chinese and English is now available on Amazon for the Kindle Fire. You can find it here:
Amazon.com and here Amazon.co.uk
Supermarket sketch
March 31, 2012 · Personal work
Just tidying stuff and came across this – a sketch for a magazine cover (I can’t remember which, it wasn’t used in the end anyway).
Chinese penguins and pond
March 31, 2012 · Personal work
This was a sketch for Penguin Books, but it wasn’t used in the end.
Bookmark designs
March 30, 2012 · Penguin Books China
These were rejected (the final design was a vector picture of the Great Wall, you can see it here), but I like these a lot.
This one has the signs for the five Chinese elements (water, wood, fire, metal and earth):
… And books as the Great Wall:
