Shawn Gillespie Creations

"A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities." -J. R. R. Tolkien

recent work

What i do

Digital Art

There is something very unique about creating something as organic as art with something as mechanical as a computer. Having an entire range of tools at my disposal truly makes it mixed media.
My favourite programs are Photoshop, Blender 3D, Sculptris and ZBrush.

Tattoo Flash

I discovered the joy of drawing tattoo designs when I was still sketching (pretty crudely). It merged my passion for art with my passion for body art.

Illustration

This is a field I haven't had the opportunity to explore that much yet. Though I have done a few illustration jobs and should be doing some design for an international T-shirt company soon.
I'm hoping to see more commercial illustration work in the near future.

Sculpture

This is one of my true passions. I found polymer clay purely by chance one day and it was just one of those things I was good at. Since then it's evolved to creating figurines, jewellery, wall hangings, vessels and I'm sure much more in the future.

Industrial Nature

One of my newer discoveries is creating pieces that somehow merge industrial items with nature. I create bonsai trees with twisted wire. I also recently found I could make lightbulb terrariums with a living airplant inside a lightbulb.

Gallery

This is just a small selection of my favourite pieces. You can always findup to date work and news on my Facebook Page, Twitter feed and Blog. As well as any promotions I might be running. Just check my contacts section for where to find me.

Who is this Guy?

The short answer:
I'm just a guy who's life and passion is art.

The long answer:
My name is Shawn Gillespie and I'm a 35 year old South African artist. Even though I started my adventures in art with sketching I never really felt comfortable with traditional media. Probably because I never had any formal training. I guess that's why I approach my artwork so differently to traditional artists. I spent many years wandering the artistic desert aimlessly. It took me a very long time to find my passion but slowly and surely it fell into place. Although the evolution and learning never end.

When I discovered digital art would probably be when I found some direction. I started experimenting with Photoshop and pretty soon I found the joy in using a computer to create art from pure imagination. I later discovered 3D art with Blender 3D and I'm finding new tools all the time. This steadily evolved until I discovered that I loved tattoos and so I started designing tattoo flash. This is something that I'm now using to create digital art with a tattoo flavour.
Most recently I've been moving into full digital paintings.

I've found my place artistically and I regularly discover new and exciting ways to express myself. One of my favourite media is polymer clay. I mix clay with wire, lightbulbs and all kinds of other things. An extension of that is “Industrial Nature” where I mix industrial items with natural, livingthings like plants. Lightbulb terrariums and wire bonsai trees are just the beggining.
I have also recently discovered digital sculpture. Where I can work with virtual clay and sculpt it like a digital lump of clay. It's really a merging of digital art and sculpture.

More commercially I do illustration and basic graphic design such as logos and print layout. I'm also currently learning web design. While I can now do basic sites, I plan to offer more advanced services in the near future. When I am more comfortable in my skills I'll add a separate page for graphic and web design. But to give you an idea, this entire site is my handywork.

I'd like to mention some of my main sources of inspiration. Someone I'm lucky to call a friend and who I have the highest respect for. My personal tattoo artist and an amazing painter, Rowan Eva (Wide Awake Nightmare). An inspiration to me artistically but also an amazing person.
Another friend. Walt Viviers artist and web designer at 1985.co.za.
The master of dark art Paul Booth.
Bob Tyrell for his amazing black and grey and macabre work.
An artist who transcends realism Gottfried Helnwein.
An excellent Polish tattoo artist who is responsible for one of my tattoos Kamil Terczynski.
And some others who inspire me Piotr Deadi Dedel. Victor Portugal, Joshua Carlton, Joe Capobianco. And last but certainly not least I'd like to thank Joan Spaull from Country Crafts. If it weren't for Joan I never would have discovered polymer clay at all and it would never have fed so many other ideas.