Concertina Sketchbook

 I was given this lovely concertina sketchbook as a present from my agents Arena Illustration & decided to take a line for a walk...

Top Quality Nonsense!

Steve May - purveyor of TOP QUALITY NONSENSE™ at your service for all your illustrative & animation needs! You can see more work here & here & for animation go here

August, dinosaurs & ice cream

Dinosaurs AND ice cream!?!? What a combo! The August 2016 page for my agents Arena Illustration 

A glimpse of summer...

Well, with January shaping up to be pretty horrible all round here's a glimpse of summer from some newly arrived run ons from my agents Arena Illustration's 2016 calendar where I get to be Mr August! There's dinosaurs & ice cream in it- what's not to like?

Here's the original from way back when...

Steve May - Artist's Q&A for Arena Illustration

I had the pleasure of being (gently) interrogated recently by the Booksniffer for the Arena Illustration site about life the universe & drawing things for a living - read the Q&A here

My monster from The Big Draw at the Discover Story Centre

Had a great time at the Big Draw event at the Discover Story Centre yesterday, organised by my agents Arena Illustration & thoroughly enjoyed watching other people draw for a change!
Jonny Duddle, Adam Stower & Thomas Flintham all did a fine job & was great to meet author Timothy Knapman who I'm going to be working with on a new book for Scholastic.
(I drew a monster too)

I didn't win a prize. Upstaged by 7 year olds! ; )

Reading Agency 10th birthday party

My agent Tamlyn Francis & I were lucky enough to be invited to the Reading Agency's 10th birthday celebrations at the British Library after working on illustrations for this year's Summer Reading Challenge.
Jeanette Winterson made a very impressive speech about the importance of British Libraries & what a precious resource they are. You can read more here http://readingagency.org.uk/news/blog/happy-birthday-to-us.html

(Photograph copyright Robin Mayes)

Posing with my Gold award

Me posing with my Gold award at the Association of Illustrators' Images 36 exhibition opening at Somerset House, October 2nd.

You can watch my winning entry here if you so wish.

(photograph by Robert Chadwick)

'Anger' wins AOI Images 36 Gold award!

I was at Somerset House last night to collect the Gold New Media award at The Association of Illustrators' Images 36 awards showcasing the 'Best of British Illustration 2012' for my short film Anger a short animation I designed & directed at Picasso Pictures commissioned by Reach Out, an American

charity that supports young people with challenging issues such as anger management, drugs, bullying and teenage pregnancy. You can see the whole film here 

Very exciting to have won my second gold award - the previous was in Images 34 in 2010 for my film 'Rabbits'

The Images 36 exhibition runs from 3rd-28th October at Somerset House - free entrance - click here for  details

(big thanks to Picasso Pictures & producer Melissa Venet, the Association of Illustrators & my agents Arena Illustration)

Summer Reading Challenge certificates & medal!

I finally got my certificate & medal for the Summer Reading Challenge! There's some great photos of various kids from around the countries with their certificates here!

With a risk of repeating myself, I had great fun working on this project & with everybody involved so big thanks to Damian Kelleher, designer Helen Boyle & Tamlyn Francis at Arena my agents!

Superheroes Exhibition launch party

Our hero with assorted superheroes
Our hero modelling a very fetching cape (photo Sarah McIntyre)



Photos © Tim Mitchell

Me with the Discover team (photo Sarah McIntyre)

Great launch party last week for the interactive Superheroes exhibition that I just finished working on with the lovely folk at the Discover Children's Story Centre in Stratford so here's a few photographs of the exhibition (& a couple of me looking silly too!)
Big thanks everybody at Discover for being delightful to work with & for all their brilliant work in making the exhibition work so well

Images courtesy of  Tim Mitchell, Arena Illustration & also thanks to Sarah McIntyre, monster illustrator extraordinaire who has kindly let me nick some  photos from her blog

More images here

Superheroes comic strips

Here's a selection of the comic strips I produced for the Superheroes exhibition at the Discover Children's Story Centre in Stratford, East London showing the origins of the main characters. The superheroes A, E, I, O & U are battling the dastardly villain Y who is stealing all the vowels from Alphabet City!

I was commissioned to design the superhero & super villain characters & the the urban environment the exhibition is set in (including lots of fun with signs & animals! : )I also produced some animated clips for the interactive parts of the exhibition

The exhibition opened on Sunday 1st April & will run until 4th November - I haven't had a chance to see the finished piece yet, looking forward to it loads.

You can find out more details on the Discover website

Superheroes Exhibition

The Superheroes exhibition I've been designing with the Discover Children's Story Centre in Stratford is opening this Sunday 1st April!

(To celebrate the opening of Superheroes on Sunday 1st of April the centre will be free all day. Book tickets on 020 8536 5555)

http://www.discover.org.uk/whatson/event/superheroes

Economist Technology Quarterly

Had a lot of fun tackling this cover & insides for The Economist Technology Quarterly for an article called ‘Can The Scientists Keep Up’about drug testing in sport

(They also indulged my delving into the murky world of Inca coca leaf chewing, Viking psyllocybin abuse & other drug abuse in the ancient world which was alluded to in the article along with some gratuitous 'biros in lab coat' scientist clichés!)

For previous work for The Economist click here
Read the article here
http://www.economist.com/node/21548498

How many elephants can you fit in a double decker?

...aahh you do the maths (math for my American readers)
Illustration from Cartoon Kid by Jeremy Strong which also features as July's calendar image for my agents Arena Illustration