RCA Secret 2014

This year I was delighted to be asked once again to donate three original postcard-sized pieces for the Royal College of Art's Secret Auction. As the website says ...

The Royal College of Art’s annual ‘secret’ postcard exhibition and fundraising sale is celebrating its twentieth birthday in style this year. 2,900 postcard-sized artworks by over 1,000 artists have been donated to help support young art students. Contributors including Grayson Perry, Paula Rego, Yinka Shonibare, David Bailey, musician Jarvis Cocker, architect Zaha Hadid, fashion designers Sir Paul Smith and head of Burberry Christopher Bailey have all produced mini masterpieces that will be up for sale at just £50 each.

What’s the secret? Each year, the Royal College of Art asks professional artists and designers, plus up-and- coming art students and graduates to make and donate a piece of work. Artists may choose to paint, draw, sketch or even produce a 3D sculpture as long as it’s postcard-sized. Each postcard is signed on the back, so collectors don’t know the identity of the artist until they’ve handed over their cash.'

Last year I did a series of terrible insect-based puns. This year I've done some Warhol spoofery. Behold:

You can see all of the postcards here. Roll on next year!

RCA Secret (No More) Auction

Well, the bidding is over and the big reveal has happened. All of us who took part in this year's Royal College of Art Secret Auction can now tell the world which ones were ours. Some people camped out overnight in the freezing sleet to get their bids in first.

Picture credit: Daily Telegraph

'An RCA spokeswoman counted 50 tents outside the site at Battersea, south-west London, on Friday night and said there were at least 300 people queuing when the doors opened at 7am on Saturday morning', reports the Telegraph here: 'But even those at the front were taking something of a gamble on getting their hands on a famous artist's work as the designs are all anonymous, with signatures on the back only being revealed after purchase.'

This is the 20th year of the RCA sale, and organisers hope it will raise more than £120,000 for a fund to support emerging artists.

Here are my three cards (and three bad puns) - Numbers 337, 1392 and 2272. Enjoy.

Secret Art

This evening I met up with artist Angela Lamb to go to the Royal College of Art's Secret Auction exhibition at their new building in Battersea. It's the second year that I've been asked to take part (Angi's done a few of them before) and it's good fun. What happens is that lots of artists - some final year RCA students, some jobbing artists, some very famous people indeed - get sent three postcards on which to create three original artworks. However, they must not be signed or give any overt indication of who did them. Then the cards go up for auction and, if you're lucky, you could get a Nick Park or a Maggi Hambling or a David Bailey for a song ... or you could pay way over the odds for one of mine. Poor you.

The exhibition looked great ... and seemed to go from largely empty space to being packed with people in just half an hour of opening.

You can see the full range of postcards from this year's auction here. Be warned though ... there are 2700 of them ... and some are very rude (not to say disturbing - I worry for the mental health of some of the exhibitors).

Bet you can't spot mine!

365 Doodles - Day 332 - RCA Secret Special

I can now reveal the three postcards that I did for this year's RCA Secret Auction. Every year, artists are invited to donate these original artworks that are then sold off to raise much needed funds for the Royal College of Art. The mix of artists includes current RCA students, working artists like me and more than a few celebrity names. The idea is that the cards are anonymous and cost £45 each; you don't know whose work you're buying so you could find yourself with a Stevyn Colgan or, if luck is with you, a Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, Manolo Blahnick, Nick Park or Yoko Ono (they all took part this year). Here are my three:

They are Cards 625 (Page 13 of online catalogue), 1524 (31) and 2566 (52). All three are quick watercolour pencil sketches of people I've seen in real life. The large chap was eating chicken in Regents Park and inspired not only this doodle but a full painting in acrylics (see it here). The lady pensioner was someone I saw in Ayr, Scotland in 2006. She was struggling to stay standing up and eat an ice cream during a gale on the seafront. The gale won. The third card is of an absolutely huge bloke I saw not so long ago in Notting Hill. I'd just had lunch with writer and director Graham Linehan and was walking back to the tube station when this guy - he must have been 6ft 6ins easily - came walking along the road with his Staffy on a lead. Well, I say walking. Mincing is was the word. He was very camp and the incongruity of the whole image made me smile. I have no doubt at all that, if he wanted to, he could crush most homophobes' skulls like an egg. The Union Flag cap sleeved T-shirt - so often misused by racists to represent their foul agenda - was the icing on the cake.

I enjoyed taking part this year and was honoured to be asked.

365 Doodles - Day 321

An exciting day today as three of my postcards have been selected for this year's Royal College of Art Secret Auction 2011. They go on display this evening and online here. Each of the 2900 postcards - some by famous people like Manolo Blahnik, Nick Park, Tracey Emin, Mike Leigh, Grayson Perry and others - is for sale at £45 each but they are anonymous. You pick a card, you take a chance and your £45 could buy you a Stevyn Colgan or a Yoko Ono. The money goes to keep the RCA providing courses for up and coming new artists. Do have a look at the site ... can you spot mine?

Meanwhile, here's today's doodle, drawn in a pub in Soho this afternoon. A guy looking quite like this came into the Dog and Duck handing out cards advertising an adult pantomime called Snow White and the Seven Poofs. Only in Soho.