Advent of unwanted gifts #4

Unfortunate socks.

(my sister & I always dreaded the 'soft parcel' at Christmas)

Advent of unwanted gifts #3

New aftershave.

Advent of unwanted gifts #2

Nice tie.

Advent of unwanted gifts #1

Xmas jumper

Reading Agency 10th birthday party

My agent Tamlyn Francis & I were lucky enough to be invited to the Reading Agency's 10th birthday celebrations at the British Library after working on illustrations for this year's Summer Reading Challenge.
Jeanette Winterson made a very impressive speech about the importance of British Libraries & what a precious resource they are. You can read more here http://readingagency.org.uk/news/blog/happy-birthday-to-us.html

(Photograph copyright Robin Mayes)

Happy 49th birthday Doctor Who!

#Geekfact: The first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast on Saturday November 23rd 1963 (even though he's supposed to be about 900-ish or something really)

Compendium of Useful Things #2 Cheese Hat™

Yep, that gnawing, yawning emptiness you feel inside will be easily dissipated by this cheese based millinery treat!*

*although there is a chance that your life IS completely empty & futile & even cheese can't help you... have a nice day!

Compendium of Useful Things #1 Cat Pants™

Cat Pants™for the more prudish pet owner

BOOO!

Happy Halloween folks! (& yes guitar geeks, she's playing a Vox Phantom of course! ; )

Hurricane catcher beastie

Beastie with ACME hurricane net™ - drawn for all my friends in NYC - that'll stop Sandy... probably...

Purple beastie

A beast with a purpose...

Fish-y

Some shark pics on a Monday morning

Pumpkins, the disappointment...

Pumpkins were always one of my big childhood disappointments. '70s Hastings seemed to be fairly bereft of them, the only ones impinging on my existence being in American picture books. Therefore I had imagined from their beautiful rich orange colour that they'd taste like an incredible magical mélange of peach, tangerine & melon or somesuch. Of course the reality was far duller...

Noir bar

Noir bar - with disembodied gangster & moll.

Posing with my Gold award

Me posing with my Gold award at the Association of Illustrators' Images 36 exhibition opening at Somerset House, October 2nd.

You can watch my winning entry here if you so wish.

(photograph by Robert Chadwick)

Monster town!

Suited & booted for a good night out!

(to be sung to the tune of Lips Inc.'s 'Funky Town' of course!)

Mouse.

Wine, women & song...

Inspired by my friend Lisa's cats Norman & Stanley during my stay in New York last week

'Anger' wins AOI Images 36 Gold award!

I was at Somerset House last night to collect the Gold New Media award at The Association of Illustrators' Images 36 awards showcasing the 'Best of British Illustration 2012' for my short film Anger a short animation I designed & directed at Picasso Pictures commissioned by Reach Out, an American

charity that supports young people with challenging issues such as anger management, drugs, bullying and teenage pregnancy. You can see the whole film here 

Very exciting to have won my second gold award - the previous was in Images 34 in 2010 for my film 'Rabbits'

The Images 36 exhibition runs from 3rd-28th October at Somerset House - free entrance - click here for  details

(big thanks to Picasso Pictures & producer Melissa Venet, the Association of Illustrators & my agents Arena Illustration)

Man eating tiger

The 'oldest joke in the book'™ brought to you from those nice folk who brought you Wet Sketchbook!

Wet sketchbook (slight return)

Chicken hatted shenanigans incorporating damp book & Tesco bag

Wet sketchbooks, cats, balloons & other stories

My sketchbook was left in a damp tent & seems to have remained irrevocably soggy

Summer Reading Challenge certificates & medal!

I finally got my certificate & medal for the Summer Reading Challenge! There's some great photos of various kids from around the countries with their certificates here!

With a risk of repeating myself, I had great fun working on this project & with everybody involved so big thanks to Damian Kelleher, designer Helen Boyle & Tamlyn Francis at Arena my agents!

Vikings!

Have been drawing Vikings today, well aware that horned helmets were almost certainly a historical fabrication (see also 'Raquel Welch & pterodactyls' & 'Margaret Thatcher & compassionate nature' etc.) but they're such fun to draw! To blazes with historical accuracy I say!

Hairball of Horror!

Just received this through the post I was commissioned to re-cover the Space Mutts series of books by Michael Broad published by Macmillan a while back so I designed the main text & drew the mean cats, bewildered poodle & the eponymous hairball(!)

Note to publishers - it really keeps a humble illustrator happy if you actually send copies of the books / magazines we've illustrated to us - unfortunately there's plenty of you out there who don't bother (you KNOW who you are!) - it's really nice to have the actual book in your hot little hands!

Sore rabbit

Part of a series of sick animals ( see also 'The collar of shame™' )

The collar of shame™

poor kitty : (

Cats & dogs

A (fighting) cat & dog rescued from a sketchbook left in a tent in a rainstorm - there is a moral here somewhere re. camping & illustration...probably. A memento of a particularly British summer.

sleeping dogs doing what they do best...

Drawing a new book full of dogs, here's one of 'em for your canine delectation.

Hot Dogs

Mmmmm... some tasty new seaside-based work served with a healthy dollop of sauce 'n' pomade

(click to view closer as usual)

(not many animals were harmed in the process)

(honest...)

Monkey Theremin (niche publications we have loved)

I love a specialist publication me! (apparently if you give an infinite amount of monkeys theremins eventually they'll compose all of Beethoven's...oh wait, that's typewriters & Shakespeare isn't it?)

See also Zombie Arcade, Victorian Authoritarian

Skellington Ice Cream

this seemed appropriate today (again!) but you can't have too much Tom Waits can ya?

'When it gets too hot for comfort
And you can't get an ice cream cone
T'ain't no sin to take off your skin
And dance around your bones'

Tom Waits

Cartoon Kid book 4 - Emergency!

Jungle whales

Tiger / kangaroo cake fight

Cow wars!

Disgruntled fairies

Hungry chameleons!

School catering...

The new Cartoon Kid book by Jeremy Strong which I illustrated has just been published by Puffin. You get pictures of vampires, cows, fairies, unlikely whales, arguing tigers & kangaroos & more! How can you resist?
I'd humbly suggest you employ shanks' pony & purchase it from your local independent bookshop or else be a lazy a*** & get it off the interweb

bird hat

These are going to be EVERYWHERE in 'London'strendyDalston'™ by about next week - you saw them here first kids!

Gold medals for Story Lab!

We got there first with the old gold medal malarkey with the kids (& cat) in Story Lab for the Summer Reading Challenge! Yay!

Olympic facts #3

Seeing as we just got our first gold in rowing I thought it'd be pertinent to mention how swimming & rowing were intertwined in the 1900 Paris Olympics where the swimming events took place in the river Seine including an obstacle race which swimmers had to clamber over & under rowing boats(!)

(& don't get me started on ducks!)

Olympic Facts #2

Ok, we just got a silver medal in equestrian thingies - as I remember showjumping was on the telly ALL OF THE TIME* in the early / mid seventies - FACT!

*Apart from when the creepy test card girl was on

Olympic facts #1

At the 1900 Paris Olympics they used live pigeons for the shooting event. 300 birds were released and Leon de Lunden won gold when he shot 21 of them. 


(surely London 2012 definitely missed a trick here - certainly give old Nelson a break?)


(from Fitter, Faster, Funnier Olympics: Everything You Wanted to Know About The Olympics But Were Too Afraid to Ask - by Micheal Cox, A & C Black Publishers Ltd)

KAPOW! FREE Superheroes in Newham!

Get your capes on! If you're a Newham resident you get FREE entrance to the Discover Children's Story Centre until Sunday 12 August - including the Superheroes exhibition I illustrated & designed for! How good is that?

Olympics for TFL

Breaking all the health & safety rules known to man for TFL's in-house (station?) magazine (now will you PLEASE stop those annoying Boris announcements on the buses?!?)

The Summer Reading Challenge - Story Lab

Here's some more of the Story Lab artwork I produced for the Reading Agency's Summer Reading Challenge which launched across UK children's libraries on July 14th 2012 - (click to enlarge as usual - there's lots of little details on this one!)