Tim McDonagh Illustration

Hello chums,

Unveiled the other day was my new print for the guys at Skull & Heart. "Don't Feed the Birds" is a 2 colour screen print in a limited edition of 50, all signed and numbered by this guy.

The great Tom Newel produced the other print in series 4 along side mine, you can check it out below. It was awesome to have been asked by Skull & Heart as they've worked with some very talented people in the past and have produced some great prints.

You can purchase the print here and the original drawing (which you can see below) is up for sale in my shop

Below is a little bit about the process that went into producing the piece, I hope someone out there finds it interesting.

first of all I sent off a few ideas with a description of each one.

I was more or less free to do what I liked (always nice) so these were some ideas my brain had been chewing on for a while. Maybe the other ones might come to something one day.

Next up, it's time for pencils. I use a GraphGear 1000 Pentel mechanical pencil and draw on 280gsm Frisk Bristol Board. If you haven't drawn on bristol board before I can't recommend it enough. I've never been sure why they call it "board" when it's about the same weight as most papers but the surface it incredibly smooth and you'll find that ink tends to sit on top of the paper, rather than be absorbed.

I gather references from whatever I'm about to draw from all over and start to see what I can fit in where. It's a fun process and as time goes on I like to try and sneak in things that may not be visible at first. 

Now it's my favourite part, time to ink over the pencils. I use Higgins Black Magic ink with a selection of Winsor and Newton brushes. I'll touch up bits with Rotring isograph pens too. After having rubbed out the pencil underneath, I scan that into my pc in sections and stitch it together with magic.

After laying down the purple separation in Photoshop it gets sent off to the screen printers. Something I would like to do myself in the future but until it looks as good as this, it's best left up the professionals.

The End