mr steve mccarthys illustration blog

LOOKIT #7

2012-01-25T02:27:00.001Z

LOOKIT is a series of short playlists put together while i work, of whatever music i'm fond of at the time, hope you like it .

CLICK HERE FOR PLAYLIST

Hey so i'm in australia... but don't worry i'm coming back, and i'm gonna hit the ground running, and you are too, yeah smart ass i'm looking at you, see i've seen how they do things in melbourne and its good, its really good. and i love it as much as i hate it, cause i'm not quite ready to give up on dublin... see that was the idea, move to melbourne. i left my home, my studio, my friends for a holiday... you generally don't move out of home and business for a holiday, and i'm not saying it was part of a big plan to sneakily emigrate when nobody was looking, but me and my missus decided we needed to feel like we were leaving, and then we could decide if we really WERE leaving, for good. but we're not. emigration turned into a 3 month summer vacation, and now as i see my inevitable return in march i realise why coming home makes more sense than staying home. when i worked from home, 3 feet from my bed, every morning i would get up, leave the house and PAY for breakfast in a cafe like i didn't have a kitchen, then return home and work. i just had to leave so i felt like i was going somewhere, you should too.

check out this great little video

2011-11-30T18:02:00.001Z

this is a session of live visuals i did with paul mahon of geppetto, great night.

Geppetto // Mr Steve McCarthy - Live Illustration Visuals from mrpaulmahon on Vimeo.

2011-11-19T15:26:00.001Z

this is a little embarrassing but well, i had put together a playlist for halloween, i'd even written a poem! but things got a little busy and it never got posted, and it was even number 6 (66)! and i guess i skipped it because i didn't have enough time to do it properly... thats been a snag in a lot of things i've done lately, i tend to lose interest in finishing something when i realise its not going to be as good as i hoped, and in this case it wasn't even that, it was just simply i wanted to do a great illustration, and i just ran out of time! so in the interests of continuity i'm posting the HALLOWEEN edition of LOOKIT 666.

click here for link

i haven't done a cover, but in the spirit of halloween i invite to explore the incredible "MARGOTS ROOM" by emily carroll -

I'm a big fan of Emilys work, i think she creates an incredible atmosphere in her comics, margots room is such a subtle story, but still gave me the heeby jeebys. cleverly the comic updated each week during october, new episodes were found by clicking objects within the image of margots room. i'm kind of cheating by posting each part, but i really hope the upside of this, is that you take the time to check it out, and get totally creeped out.

margots room

PART 1 (the flowers)

PART 2 (the doll)

PART 3 (the window)

PART 4 (the mirror/wall)

PART 5 (the blood on the floor)

100 bugs

2011-11-15T18:36:00.001Z

100 bugs, a set on Flickr.

100 bugs project. a simple idea on a large scale, i wanted to see how the bugs would develop over time, and how they might look after 100 alterations.

all the bugs will be up for sale this christmas, how much? you tell me. each one is hand painted on 7x5inch on fabriano 300gsm cold pressed paper(nice!)

location to be confirmed.

Christmas ideas

2011-11-14T19:31:00.001Z

I'm taking commissions for the next week or so, as i'll be away
from dec 12th, i want to make sure i have plenty of time. if you
would like me to create something special for your someone special,
then get in touch, i'm open to to any and all ideas and budgets.
so don't be shy.

say hello at stephenmcc@gmail.com

all the best,

your pal,

mr steve mccarthy

adam, joe & jarvis

2011-11-11T18:58:00.001Z

By now most people who know me, know i'm a big fan of bbc6 and especially the adam and joe show and jarvis cockers sunday service. their shows got me through a lot of long hours piecing together my first childrens book sally go round the stars (which is now up for a childrens book of the year award! whoop!) as my way of saying thanks for all the inspiration, i went and snuck them in the book. here's the proof. and if you'd be so kind, please vote for sally HERE

eleven facts about 11 for 11/11/11

2011-11-11T18:34:00.001Z

2011-10-10T17:17:00.001+01:00

this is great little video put together by albert hooi super film maker man, and wheely shoe celebrity person. there's me there doing a thing, with the pens on the thing with the bits, all massively, very, you know, all that kinda way. all the rage in north korea right now. lasers.

2011-10-03T11:33:00.001+01:00

Here's a podcast from an interview i did with the culture file, for lyric fm on irish radio.

DOWNLOAD LINK

2011-09-23T18:49:00.000+01:00

This is my cover for this fortnights issue of Stripe Magazine.

Ghostpoets one of my favorite acts, so i can't wait to see him play in dublin

LOOKIT # 5

2011-09-14T18:55:00.000+01:00

CLICK HERE FOR PLAYLIST

I've been pretty busy lately, but the whole time i've been thinking about getting another LOOKIT post together, i really love making these. since i last put one up I've played some music at electric picnic (imagine the least impressive outcome of whatever you think me 'playing' the picnic could be, add 4ft lobster arms and you're close) started the promotion of my first ever book, and put plans for a trip to australia in motion. I found it tough to come up with an image to stick with this post, and in a way i copped out (below is a sketch from ages ago, that no-ones ever seen) its not that I haven't been inspired, i have, i'm just a little directionless. as it stands i feel pretty busy, but im pretty broke. I'm doing lovely work with amazing people, but I need a little more purpose if i wanna put meat on the table, so I'm gonna try hard push things faster, and get more purpose. expect my meat on tables everywhere in the coming months.

all the best,

your pal,

mr steve mccarthy

2011-09-14T10:18:00.002+01:00

'sally go round' childrens book preview from steve mccarthy from steve mccarthy on Vimeo.
Hi,

this is my first children's book, its a collection of classic children's nursery rhymes and songs. hope you like it. if you want to see more of my work you can check out my website at www.mrstevemccarthy.com

the song is akara by beirut, from the march of the zapotec album

here's a wee video of a mural me danleo and redmonk put together

2011-08-26T18:05:00.002+01:00

thanks to darragh for putting together the sweet visuals, we spent two days on this piece in billy byrnes pub, I had a whopper time. we were taken good care of by the showrunner himself kilo, who kept the tunes coming thick and fast. cheers to killian 'nicest man in spray business - glitch core wizard' redmonk who was sharing a wall with me, and thanks to dan for inviting me down, keeping me nicely toasted, being an living institution of modern masculinity, bestowing regular pearls of wisdom and lore, curing cancer with beard growth...ect

www.danleodesign.com

www.redmonkswebsite.com

kilos myspace

INTERVIEW

2011-08-17T16:40:00.001+01:00

check out the interview i did with children's book blogger kim harte

music, news & illustration

2011-08-17T14:27:00.003+01:00

LOOKIT#4

"Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky;And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back;For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

I caught a documentary last year about rampaging elephants destroying villages, chasing and trampling people to death, and doing it regularly. apparently these elephants were juveniles, teenagers. the largest of the male bulls, their fathers had been slaughtered, often in front of them when they were calfs, while they were left sometimes to fend for them selves. the elephant's wouldn't get the life experience and guidance needed from older elephants and they became dangerous, unpredictable and frustrated. seeking what appeared to be vengeance for their early trauma, this coupled with the destruction of there habitat backed them into a corner where they felt they either lashed out, or perished.

london was over run by a bunch of mindless reactionary opportunistic bastards, twice. once from the people, and once from the people who claim to govern them. i paid close attention to what happened in london, because i see no reason why it couldn't happen in dublin. i feel frustrated too, i would never resort to selfish destruction of my own city, but i can't pretend to be surprised it happened. modern politics has lost its ability to sustain itself without constant upheaval, i hope if ireland hits tipping point, that we do it altogether with the same energy, but with a mindfulness very much intact ...everybody loves a protest

LINK TO PLAYLIST

music, news & illustration

2011-08-02T20:34:00.003+01:00

LOOKIT # 3

cleaning up my bedroom today i stumbled on an old notebook, in it was a note to myself that read "listen to more philip glass". like any hand written note it brings with it a whole lot more than just words, you get the memory with it. it contained a whole set of detailed instructions that only with the clarity of time, i could properly make sense of. "listen to more philip glass" was written in carefully illustrated hand drawn type, it was maybe the first day i realised hand written type was a kind of direction change for me, and i'm still sort of exploring it, but it was around that day that it became a... thing! also there was the day that was in it, it was a pretty shit day, i don't remember the details, all i remember was it was also the first time i listened to philip glass, and i felt a lot better. i could tell you why, or what it is in philip glasses music that i find so fascinating and inspiring, but i wont. i'd rather you listened to more philip glass.

PLAYLIST LINK

music, news & illustration

2011-07-15T16:15:00.007+01:00

LOOKIT #2

hello!

ok so its been a little more than a week, but who's counting? are there people counting??? i haven't had much to say, i've been a listless zombie creature for the last week, i'm working on a poster right now for HSSH a club night in twisted pepper in dublin, and i'm totally stumped, kinda felt like i was running on fumes, so out of desperation i turned to the great and wise google and asked(because now you actually can "ask" google) GOOGLE!! IS THERE NO NEW IDEAS??? and google googled as google does, and then it said...NO!!! There are only new ways of making them felt. (ok so audre lorde said it, but in my head, google speaks with morgan freemans voice so it had more weight)

all the best,

your pal,

mr steve mccarthy

CLICK THIS LINK FOR PLAYLIST

music, news & illustration

2011-07-04T13:37:00.004+01:00

LOOKIT #1

another excuse to post something fun on a weekly basis, every monday-ish I'm gonna post 11 songs i'm loving plus a quick topical illustration. hope you like it.

all the best,

your pal,

mr steve mccarthy

(ps if you don't 'get' the illustration, thats ok, im just not that funny!)

CLICK HERE FOR PLAYLIST

children's book illustrations

2011-07-03T18:51:00.005+01:00

These are some samples from a book of nursery rhymes i have just completed with O'Brien press. the book has been a lot of fun, and a very steep learning curve, i can't wait to see how the finished the product looks. the work was done very quickly so i had no time to second guess myself or doubt my choices, which turned out to be the best thing for me, i've been 'working' on books of my own my whole life, but there's no way to create an artificial deadline when the work is your own, i think i've now realized that my goal is to get a publisher excited enough about my own project so that i will have no choice but to deliver.

I think i've moved on from my old instinct of squirreling away in the dead of night for months on end in the hope that when you DO resurface everybody will take notice. I've always heard that every-time you share an idea you sap a little momentum from it, i still think thats true, but i think its important to share your excitement with everyone you can, so your own excitement snowballs until hopefully you end up hurtling towards an idea finally being realized.

style or substance?

2011-06-22T16:52:00.002+01:00

I'm an indecisive kinda guy... or maybe i'm not? maybe i know exactly what i want? and what i want is to not decide right away , so gimme a ruddy minute here! i feel like i know exactly what i like, but when i point my powerful cone of consideration at myself, i'm drowned in dawdle, i've been sitting on the fence so long i've gained squatters rights. what i'm talking about is personality, visual personality and my out right terror at having to settle on one, people will tell illustrators they have a distinct style and it sounds like they've one a medal! the truth is they been asked to do the same thing for so long its become a winning formula, a set of rules that work. and art directors and designers depend on illustrators having this predictable formula set in stone so they can almost predict the outcome. they know when they hire 'dr doodle gigglepants' that they will get a squiggly fun retro interpretation of their brief (apologies to anyone who is actually trading as 'dr doodle gigglepants', i am in no way demeaning your monicker, it just sounds like a suitably madey uppy name). i guess what i'm saying is just like up and coming bands who explode all of a sudden, when its comes to there difficult second album you really wish they had more time to develop there sound, but instead what you get is a carbon copy of there first album with out any of the raw creativity and fun. i think it takes a lot of courage for illustrators or ANY creative people to destroy there image on a regular basis, reveling as there fans cry and protest, because its "just not as good as there old stuff". yes get a style, but don't pick one, borrow and steal inspiration from everything, and let yours mature slowly and organically until it fires out of you one day without warning.

all the best,

your pal,

mr steve mccarthy

STEPHEN!

2011-06-20T14:37:00.003+01:00

i'm doing my own modest rendition of the seminal children's literature classic 'the wheels on the bus' and i decided to sneak in a cameo from 3 of my favorite bbc6 presenters, i feel a little bit silly harping on about radio 6, but i honestly don't know how i would get by without it, i've always needed music/background noise to work. i've gone through many phases, i know most people have music on while they work but after a long time i realized even that could become distracting, i would spend hours (and i really mean hours) compiling playlists to work to. recently i went through a period of playing movies from the 60s and 70s, have you ever noticed how movies had a slower pace back then? and they had great soundtracks? movies like bullitt, get carter, the french connection, the ipcress file, and madigan, madigan is the king, i swear that movie is a week long and perfect to work to.

hey diddle diddle

2011-06-19T21:55:00.003+01:00

i'm working on a book at the moment, not my own of course, i was commissioned by o'brien press in dublin to illustrate a book of nursery rhymes. there's 54 illustrations. its been a steep learning curve for me, i've never done a book before (although i think i've always said i was doing my own). i've learnt several lessons i hope stay with me. they only gave me 2 and a half months to do this, i've learnt that really is a ridiculously short amount of time, while totally possible, it still isn't realistic. i learnt to prepare the night before for what you will do the next day, i was spending way to much time just fiddling about, working out where to start. i found out its better to keep working, rather than dwell on a problem, i realized i saved a lot of time when as soon as i ran into trouble i dropped what i was doing and moved onto something else, without fail, when i returned to the thing i was stuck on, it made more sense. oh and drink fancy expensive beer, this helped late nights feel a little more human, and less like i was physically attached to my desk. i recommend sierra nevada pale ale.

bellow is a sample from the book due out for christmas.

all the best,

your pal,

mr steve mccarthy

change of tact

2011-06-18T13:53:00.004+01:00

I've had this blog now for 2 years, and its gone through little change since then, to be honest i've never given it much thought. i alway's thought of 'blogging' as something writers do, and since i worked in illustration (or at was beginning to) it didn't feel right to have a word heavy blog, when what i wanted people to see was my artwork. obviously the correct thing to do is to have a dedicated website, and although its simply something i haven't (but soon will have ) gotten round to, i like blogs! i read them every day, like the morning newspaper, every day i sit in front of my screen with a coffee and a sandwich and i read seven or eight different articles, and i most of all i love the ones that relate to me. the only problem is illustrators generally don't write about there work very often, but when they do its refreshing to hear about someone's process. i'm not announcing that i'm becoming a blogger/writer, but at least for the next few months i will attempt to keep an open diary on this page, with updates, step by steps insights and whatever else i can fill it with on a daily basis, all the things i appreciate getting from the blogs i read, which incidentally are as follows:

thefoxisblack, slashfilm, alwaysreadthesmallprint,fucknfilthy,matthew-lyons,mickbuttonminogue,sambosma,illustrationmundo, iso50, nialler9, and BBC6 music which has carried me through the night on more than one occasion.

all these blogs i read every day, they're written by people who really love what they do and genuinely care about the content they post, its difficult not to feel inspired when you can so easily tap into like minded people doing what they're great at every single day.

i look forward to posting more regularly, and less carefully,

all the best,

your pal,

mr steve mccarthy

2011-04-11T17:29:00.000+01:00

2011-03-09T14:08:00.001Z

Surrounded - Mr Steve McCarthy from mrpaulmahon on Vimeo.

this video is a excerpt from paul mahons film in progress "surrounded"

SOUVENIR

2010-11-17T01:16:00.010Z

hello, this is what i'm currently working on,

SOUVENIR a visual mixtape that i plan to send out to all you nice people at least
every two weeks, but hopefully i can find the time to put them together weekly. these SOUVENIRS will begin with two parts, one
by e-mail, and the other by post, but will expand into a collection of projects. the e-mails will be every one or two weeks as
they come together, and the post will be monthly. each issues will contain artwork by me and collaborations between me and other,
writers, artists, photographers and musicians, the photo below is by mr steve o'connor ( www.mrsteveoconnor.com ). so maybe you've joined in already, or maybe you haven't, but if it sounds
like fun pass this on to anybody who likes getting fresh music, and post!

UPDATE: SOUVENIR WILL LAUNCH WHEN ITS GOOD AND READY (very soon)

SUBSCRIBE by sending your postal address to : sendmeasouvenir@gmail.com

all the best,

your pal,

mr steve mccarthy

photo - steve o'connor www.mrsteveoconnor.com