James Flowerdew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s57t1FoBd8

A big long video about one of the things I did last year.
A bit of life in there too.

Unboxing A True Relation of the Great Virginia Disastrum Last year I spent a lions share of my time illustrating this RPG.You can but it here:https://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=446

Thanks to Everyone.
I've got it back, someone handed it in at epoca.
Wow what a day!

This just got Robbed today on Iona street outside my house.
One of a kind.
Please get in touch if you see it.

Dogs

A reverse halo. The rather pretentious idea is that the imperfection that shakes the boat may also be what keeps it afloat.
Drawn in cherry bay cafe on leith walk.

Either an angel, a valkyrie, or the first bird women, Ishtar, Isis/Wset.

Done with watercolours, watercolours and I have a strange relationship, where we both end up pretending to be something that we aren't.

Painted at cherry bay cafe
,

This post hopefully explains at least in part why I've been quiet of late.
A project for superpower agency. Perhaps unwisely I choose to really free up, and to return to ink for this one. I'd done some really scribbly stuff in art therapy a few years ago and it looked gritty as hell, so when asked for a horror cover it seemed an obvious option.
However, being this far out of my comfort zone meant that I had to work way harder before I got anywhere near what I wanted. I also felt very aware that the book was written by schoolkids, some of whom are likely to be emerging as very talented artists in their own right.
I'm happy with the result which sits somewhere between a humble nod at early book illustrators and something quite rough and punk feeling.
After years of digital art making I feel that I'm at last learning to use digital design tools without letting them use me, or force me down certain paths.
decisions like "I have 300 fonts at my fingertips, but I'm going to scrawl the title with a brush that's too big for the job", and "I can easily mark out a perfect box, but hell, I'm going to scribble a squinty one". Writing this, it doesn't feel that brave but somehow it feels like a big deal to me.
I never actually feel that happy with my own free mark making, but truly appreciate it in other artists. Part of me wonders how many artists never really appreciate their own scribbly bits, and need the divorce of not having made them to appreciate them. Certainly when I do manage that scribble that I like it's frequently several months later when I realise it.

I'll probably go quiet again for a bit, as I still have some tarot adjustments to agonise over, but I suspect that my next painting will be acrylic and tight as hell, or at least tight as hell for me.

And now for something completely different...
Just a short project to design a label for a prize bottle of whisky including space for signatures.
II actually had access to the bottle literally minutes before it had to go out.

https://youtu.be/9UDe3MekzDM
a little something to break up the taroty runey stuff

ladyofthepasture I'd call this a meditation. It's meant to feel like a temple or ritual. I don't like my voice and have nothing that feels interesting to say in a song, but I...

just finished this very mucky tutorial for the ostrilator
https://youtu.be/5QLHZu3njtk
If anyone fancied doing a better one I'd frankly be over the moon.
I hate my voice in it, just aren't at the level to wing an amazing tune, etc.

ostrilator tutorial A tutorial on the features and howtos of the ostrilator, a not bad free software synth emulator that's touchscreen friendly.www.jamesflowerdew.com/ostrilator...

https://youtu.be/PUIMg5ylOYY

starry yup... more lyre/zither stuffSome stars to go with it, and a foggy night round town with some paintings.I don't have much to say about it, despite it being o...

my latest

here is the 'equally cheerful' image as promised.
It should have appeared here automatically but that went to my personal page instead.

my next post will be equally cheerful, but probably a painting !

almost ready to dive into phase 2 of the Tarot, but still "holidaying" it was needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO7lmu4LtAk&ab_channel=RMTransit

Terminus Terminus... the end of the line. I'm not actually a fan or a believer in apocalyptic thought of any form, but I can certainly do a good dystopia.Recorded usi...

I'm not at all happy with this, but I think it's interesting, and that stuff might go as I'm likely to tighten up.
So here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq2d-dEEhKE&ab_channel=jamesfforthemasses

Yes, I know it's weird, and pretentious? guilty as charged.
I like that sort of stuff though, to be honest.

lament Had this song in my head a while. I think I'm also moving away from effects, whiich is annoying because I like effects rich music.The footage is a mixture of...

still having a break from the tarot, so I think this sketch is going to be a painting.

I'm umming and erring about Tarot, and would love opinions.
Traditional imagery versus grab the meanings and go wild with them?
Stylistically basic versus going to town and doing full on paintings, or digital stuff?
I don't know anywhere near as much about the tarot as I do the runes, so an obvious question is am I missing or misunderstanding key stuff?
Whether it's a good idea at all? There are already lots of excellent tarot artists out there, most of them are are skint (even the famous ones), and weirdly just painting my own random stuff has thus far worked best for me.

I don't always mark things out on camvas before I paint, but I did here.

And now for something completely different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FahpJYsO_o&t=5s

hurrian jamjam A few years ago my son really wanted me to learn the hurrian hymn. Way above my talent remit, but I took the tune and played with it. I added complexity here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDmdM8kFykM

More promo material for my book on the runes. A look inside my creation process, what do you think?
The soundtrack to this video made my day, by the way. Thanks to Peter Burnett for that extra mile.
I was allowed great freedom with this project and chose a very simplistic ex*****on method.
I could go full colour but that would be fun in print and I wanted lots of art. For full colour, we also would have had to charge alot for the book.
I could have done a huge trawl of either gathering free or purchased images of genuine artifacts, but I think that this has already been done before. Done before, and with greater ability and resources than mine.
I've been doing a lot of pretend woodcuts recently and could have done that, but they would have been just that; fake woodcuts.
A simple style like this allowed me to give as much as I could with out hiking up the price. It also allows me a degree of frankness. This is a genuine 21st century rune book, written in biro by a practitioner who lives in a 2 up 2 down in Leith, Edinburgh.
Here comes another link to the book:
https://leamingtonbooks.com/books/the-magic-road/the-runes
Now you know a little more of what you are getting :)

The Runes by James Flowerdew - illustrating The Runes James Flowerdew shows his illustration method, as he draws a picture that sums up some of his feelings about the messages in his book THE RUNES: A GROUNDING ...

I'm bringing out a book, it's true.
It is about fortune telling and mysticism.
I suspect it will shock, entertain, confuse, and amuse.
I'll be over the moon if it inspies.
You can preorder it here for about a tenner.
https://leamingtonbooks.com/books/the-magic-road/the-runes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr2CPB9aw-E

greywhispers, the exhibition that ran for 8 months thought I'd do a video to herald the end of the show.Having a show in the doubtful 2021 felt quite odd. For many points this show was either cordoned off or ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XhmhQBV1AU

that this happened now is quite ironic as I'm currently worrying about whether the large wooden painting/art thing that I did fr the St James Centre is soaked by the flooding.
Water is one thing that is pretty much exciting and on the move in all forms, so when I think video water is frequently my first call. It even gets excited in the sink.
My most recent paintings are almost hidden in here, I'm not exactly shouting from the rooftops, but that felt right.

purringintheicehouse water, paintings, lyre, some effects, and some mucking about.

this is what the final piece looked like.

What was it like painting live in public?
Genrally good.
Anoyying that I did the piece that really grabbed people first (the green one).
Wow it's scary, the side panels really reminded me that I couldn't and shouldn't sketch/prepare. They were the least rewarding bits.
Really good to hear people getting excited about what I was doing, as an artist you spend alot of your time living in a bubble fueled by faith, frequently scant faith. In a way the most fun ones are when they don't know that you're there and you hear them just quetly saying "wow" or "look at this" to a friend.
Really nice just being around lots of people. If anyone is wondering, the staff at the St James Centre seem to be exclusively nice people.
It ws also great to learn that both in terms of scale and in terms of public, that I could do it. I think can do it.
I certainly had points where it looked bloody awful, and there are certainly things that I'm not happy with now. At one point a group gathered round just in time for me to wreck the central character of the rear panel, and I found myself covering it up with my body, "please don't look".
The one negative thing that I strongly felt was that it does now take me a while to do stuff, and I left off not at the point where I felt finished but at the point where I was in part satisfoed, and yet knew that the next stage might require another week before I reaped the rewards. I'm glad I asked foe the extra time, and know that double would have been reasonable.
Will it lead to anything else? I guess I'll have to wait to find that out, but I guess that I know at least that I can say "yes" if the offer comes again. I guess that one thing I am left not knowing is what to do with an event like this to make it lead onwards to more and better things.
Thanks to the Leith Collective for this experience, I am definitely glad of it.