‘le tour des Merveilles’ – On A Six Pence

I stumbled across the wonderful work of Artist/Illustrator and self confessed geek Johnny Joannou aka “On A Sixpence” recently and I thought I’d share with you all. I caught up with Johnny to find out about his work and inspiration.

So tell me about yourself?
I’d describe myself as a self taught geek artist, “On a Six Pence” is my first attempt to consolidate my all geeky interests. I’ve always loved sport, numbers and good design.

Why Periodic table artworks?
I collected wall charts as a youngster, I’ve always found them aesthetically pleasing. I decided to see if I could produce art versions of them.

What’s the design process?
I plan and sketch them out on paper before moving to the computer to lay them out. Next I learnt how to print with the help of a local group. My main goal was to produce a lovely piece of art that I would be willing to hang in my own home. Each image is a high quality giclée print, on a luxurious heavy weight Hahnemühle fine art paper.

‘le tour des Merveilles’ © On A Six Pence

What is your favourite piece?
My favourite piece, ‘le tour des Merveilles’, is a visual tribute to the Tour, using the iconic periodic table as the framework. My father is very keen cyclist (it’s his bike in the main photo), so cycling knowledge has always been around me, but it was the idea of a cycling twitterer who had seen my previous works covering football teams. The prints show every winner of the Tour de France, with distance covered and average speed. I used colours based on a beautiful Parisian poster from Meteore the bicycle manufacture.

I now make it possible for people to buy personalised prints by including an addition cell to include information about the client or recipient.

So what’s next?
Response from the cycling community has been wonderful, I’ve been amazed at what a friendly, positive and always supportive lot the cycling community are . At the moment I am finishing the Giro D’Italia print. I’ve also been asked to produce a Giro Donne print. I will be updating the Tour de France print when the current tour finishes. I’m hoping to produce a periodic table for every major sport! I’m always open to new ideas so if the Cycling Shorts readers have any suggestions I’d love to hear them!

I’d like to thank Johnny for his time and I suggest you check out the full range of his work at the “on A Six Pence” website: www.onasixpence.bigcartel.com
 

Competition

Johnny has also very kindly given Cycling Shorts. readers to win a signed Tour de France ‘le tour des Merveilles’ signed print when it’s been updated after this tour. So head over to the competition now and you could be lucky enough to win one of these beauties.

 
 

 

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