Thomas Barwick

Eve - Cathedral at Autun

This is a drawing from a stone carving by Gislebertus, who worked at Autun from 1125 till 1145 carving many beautiful sculptures.
This drawing is a detail of a carving he made of 'Eve' i am really enjoying the process of turning a photograph of a carving into a drawing. I wonder if Gislebertus worked with a model and in some way i am drawing a real woman from the 12th Century. Here is a great quote from Denis Grivot's book ' Twelth Century Sculpture in the Cathedral at Autun' about Gislebertus. " The precision of his method, his discipline, moderation as well as boldness, his deliberate distortions, and his sweetness, when considered necessary." Not a bad prescription for what i want my drawings to hold inside them and they are certainly developing in the right direction. BUT imagine the skill required to invest this level of subtle expression of human traits into a block of stone, quite remarkable.

Bamboo pathway at Trebah Gardens Cornwall

Nice page in the new 'Visual Dictionary of Illustration'

Its published by AVA, i love that i am illustrating 'Interpretation' this is great for me as i am trying more and more to work in this way and respond to text, especially the Chekhov short story i want to illustrate, but haven't as yet. Though i am building up some great Russian angst about not having got around to it yet, so that OK so long as i do eventually take it on.
Here's the image as it appeared in my own book 'Ratio' it was done as a series of illustrations that where an interpretation of the work of the visionary Sci Fi author John Brunner, of whom i am a massive fan, specifically a book called 'The jagged Orbit'.

Image published in 'Retro Design'

ACHTA design   

MICROSITE

Achta Design = have published one of my images for a book that makes connections between new digital approaches to image making and the way that this work is informed by the illustration/design of the past.
Its pretty vast and i am in there with some really great illustrators and designers from the past, so i was really pleased to have this work published.

This is the image, the book is in German so i'm not sure what they had to say about it, but i was looking at a lot of VOGUE covers from the 1920's at the time, basically these guys HERE .

Sunday Telegraph (UK) Beauty Page spot illustration

Because the book is in German i was curious to know how my work had been written about, Sara Hausmann wrote back to me to say that...

 "We see a connection to the style japonism, especially to Aubrey  Beardsley's illustrations with the importance of the contrast between black and white and  between line and plane area"

This is pretty accurate, its the languid qualities of both Beardsley and Japonisme that i wanted to capture, and of course the pale skin is a direct influence, but as i said i was also looking at a lot of slightly later work by the illustrators that worked for Vogue.

 

Lower Treave by Sennan Cove

Drawing here from a recent camping trip, this tree was right outside out tent, so i could take my time on it, though i ended up finishing it off by drawing it from a photo on my mobile phone inside the tent with a torch, cos the nights were chilly over on the west coast last weekend.

Profile - Star Trek

RED Mask of the BLACK death

Girl in Dream

I Find profiles really tricky, i actually did this about three times as you can see, i had to stick a bit of card over the top in the end with sellotape. I wanted it to look like the girl was sneaking a look at you while pretending to look away and that was what made it additionally tough to pull off i think.

Stonemason

The Anchoress 'Margaret of Thornton'

This is my depiction of a famous anchoress from York in the 1300's, it's inspired by a brilliant essay called ' YORKSHIRE’S SPIRITUAL ATHLETES:HERMITS & OTHER SOLITARIES. by Frank Bottomley. The medieval period is often imagned to be rather brown and grey apart from the odd splash of blood, but this is far from the case, and so i'm really taking that on board at the moment. Imagining a book that is  somewhat psychedelic in colour.