Wednesday 3 December 2014

Neither water nor air.



Ménage à trois

Personal work.

Mixed media: pencil, ink, acrylic and digital.

Thursday 16 October 2014

Shop!

My shop is now open, please feel free to browse, it's a little shop but one you can peruse without feeling awkward if you want to leave without buying.

darrenhopes.bigcartel

Bye for now x



Monday 29 September 2014

The Serpent Path




A chance to let my dark half loose. Album artwork for the prog rock band Incurvatus. For their forthcoming release The Serpent Path. I also produced an illustration for the inside booklet ... I'll post that soon too.

Bye for now x

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Nature Magazine








Two of five illustrations for this weeks Nature magazine in the Autumn book review section.

More soon! Bye for now x

Thursday 5 June 2014

The Silkworm



One of four illustrations I made for yesterdays T2 in The Times. Illustrating Extracts from The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith. It does not take a one legged detective to find out that Robert Galbraith is actually J K Rowling.

A very enjoyable job, did I ever mention I love illustrating literature? I think I probably did.

More soon, bye for now.

x

Friday 9 May 2014

Burden



New personal work.

Mixed media: pencil, ink, acrylic and digital painting.

More soon! x

Friday 4 April 2014

Green Waltz

Here is a piece of flash fiction I wrote recently. I am hoping to illustrate it when time allows and when I have decided whether to go down the strip route or illustrated story path?


Green Waltz.

Slender fingers carefully cutting. Outside in deep red, the sun rising, a slow charge against the retreating night. Slender fingers cutting shapes. Outside in red, deadwood limbs sway as light strengthens. Her little fingers, snipping scissors, busy cutting. Red orange sky with hints of encroaching blue now, dry limbs swaying, waving the passing time goodbye. Little fingers collect the cutout shapes, discard offcuts and pick up a crayon. Outside blueness prevails. Busy green crayons colour shapes. Through the window upright and bare against the clear blue sky, the trees. Little hands brush green coloured shapes from the table into the mouth of a sad old leather bag. She goes out, amongst the parched copses under the cloudless blue sky.

A short walk over the hill flanked by the tall, long dead stick men. To the one she chose some weeks before. He stands naked, alone, not the biggest, small, just a little taller than herself. From her pocket a ball of string, old and yellow. Little slender fingers go to work. A paper leaf from the tired old bag, snip the string, slender fingers deftly tying. Again and again, reaching, bending, engrossed, consumed in her repeated work. The sun high in the clear sky burning, watching, a fiery eye witness to the solitary little figure. Steps back from her task.

Finished.

She stares. And stares.

She stares at the little green dressed tree swaying, a rustling dance in the soft rolling air with the hot sun rising. Mesmerised. The high fiery eye staring like it to was mesmerised by the little green tree in it’s waltz with the breeze. hypnotic and strange. She had wondered you see, she had never seen and had to know.

What they had looked like.

Before.



By Darren Hopes

Friday 14 March 2014

Popshot - Journeys



My cover artwork for the latest edition of the ever inspiring Popshot magazine. Theme this issue is journeys and it was a pleasure to illustrate.

Popshot is a truly fascinating magazine of contemporary Poetry, Short Stories, flash fiction and Illustration? it's like they made it just to suit me!


Monday 3 February 2014

Mixed Media Experiment i



This started out as oil on board, it was just a monochromatic underpainting which I was going to paint in oil but instead I decided to scan the oil underpainting and work on it with digital painting and some scanned ink brushstrokes. not sure if it's finished, just an experiment really it's sometimes fun to have no plan as to where a picture is going.

More soon, bye for now x

Monday 27 January 2014

Little Miss Geek



Two recent illustrations for the Telegraph Magazine illustrating a feature on the website Little Miss Geek which was created to inspire and encourage girls into the currently male dominated field of technology. Quite right too! (that girls should be going for it in technology … not that it should be male dominated)

Bye for now x

Tuesday 14 January 2014

Happy 2014



Sorry for the belated new year wishes I got a bit bogged down early on, three commissions in already so nothing much to post but here is something that never saw the light of day. It was a version of the Owl Service cover that never got used (I made a few for the AD to close from) The one they went for partly incorporated this but I quite liked this one as well.

More soon, bye for now x