Please visit the Tidy Blog for web development, free stuff, Tidy news and marketing posts. "Mike's blog" is my journal, a mix of art, adventure and content marketing experiments. All opinions are my own.
Yesterday evening I decided to grab my iPad Pro and get doodling. Sometimes I like to draw without direction, emptying my mind or processing my thoughts on a blank canvas. This illustration looks at social media and its impact on life. Let’s face it, our biggest commodity is time, once spent we cant buy it…
So this weekend I signed up to Rarible, a platform to create and sell digital artwork secured with blockchain technology. The plan is to create a selection of Ethereum themed artwork, offering my art collection to ETH investors. ETH, NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) and Art Non-fungible tokens contain identifying information, these are recorded in a smart…
This illustration was inspired by a poem written by American poet Mr Robert Frost. The poem is called “The Road Not Taken” and it looks at life, more specifically the decisions we each have to make. Over the past few months I have been drawing a lot, this illustration is something a little different, I…
Several weeks ago I got to work on some Reef Trust artwork, something they could use for merchandise and a T-shirt design. I wanted to capture their logo within an ocean themed setting, highlighting some of the many issues they aim to tackle. This artwork was donated to the project by Tidy Design. It starts…
Earlier today I created “The Mask”, some face mask artwork for social media. This was a quick illustration I did in Procreate, an image I had in my head. I guess I was thinking about “The Creation of Adam”, this is some famous artwork by Michelangelo, two hands almost touching. With COVID being front page…
Yesterday was the 10th of October, what is known to many as World Mental Health Day. With this in mind I wanted to draw something different, dedicating it to the people who battle mental health on a daily basis. This artwork is for the warriors, the brave, those who push forwards, often putting others first….
On Friday afternoon enough was enough, I’d had Snowdon on my to do list for too long, it was time! Sadly a combination of friend cancellations, bad weather and a UK lockdown resulted in a few trips being cancelled in 2019-2020. But… this weekend the forecast looked good and lockdown v2 had not happened yet….
Back in September 2019 I submitted a couple of oil paintings and a selection of pen sketches to the Haslemere Art Society exhibition. I had not painted with oils before, many years ago I dabbled with acrylics, I had also used watercolours. But oil painting, this was a new beast… The Stag – work in…
In today’s post let’s take a look at the term “creative agency” and what it means, symbolises and represents. To be a creative agency is to deliver awesomeness, thinking outside the box to produce quality graphics, content, media and marketing material. When looking to hire a creative agency, review a few case studies first, or…
This weekend I uploaded drawing number 100 to my Sea Life Art website – woop woop! It was a goal of mine that naturally evolved; in January 2019 the mission was “draw once a week”, then in January 2020 I said “let’s reach 100 sea life drawings”. Boom, job done! Now I am all for…
As businesses across Hampshire return to some form of normality following COVID-19, one question is; how will social distancing, our economy and the winter months impact business networking events? Now don’t get me wrong, I was never one for business networking breakfasts or golf club B2B events. My business Tidy Design has always been pretty…
The term flow state is used a lot in web development and design, I guess it symbolises a productive state of mind, often heavily influenced by caffeine! Personally I love to be “in the zone”, setting new challenges and difficult todo lists. Be it quitting alcohol for a year or drawing 100 ocean creatures, climbing…