God rest ye merry, elephants, Let nothing you dismay...

I was asked by the Elephant Family – a UK-based charity working to protect Asian elephants and their habitat – to produce an illustration to use for their Christmas card.

They had enjoyed seeing the cartoons I'd produced during the Elephant Parade event in London earlier this year, and while they were coming up with ideas for their card, my name was mentioned.
I am very interested in the work that the Elephant Family do and pleased that they liked my previous drawings, so was more than happy to donate my time to create a new illustration for them.

They had come up with the idea of an iconic red London double decker bus, filled with some of the elephants from the Parade.
And because it is Christmas, I included a special bus driver for
the evening...



You can still sign the Elephant Family's online petition to help save the Asian elephant.

Elephant Parade London: Gerald's Groupies

Okay, so I've neglected to update my blog in quite a while. But this doesn't mean that I haven't been working! Anyway, I'm now going to remedy this with a series of blog updates...

First off, an Elephant Parade update. One of the unexpected results of the recent Elephant Parade in London, was meeting with other fellow Elephant Spotters, either pounding the pavements in search of those elusive elephants, or online sharing information and tips to track down those last few Elephas Maximus.

A bunch of us formed a Facebook group to keep in touch, and met up to go and see the elephants one last time when they were on display in the grounds of the Chelsea Royal Hospital. We decided to call the group Gerald's Groupies, as for many of us Gerald was the final elephant out of the 258 that we were searching for. I was asked by Petra who started the group, and was instrumental in tracking down Gerald, if I could do an illustration to use for the Group photo, with Gerald still being hounded by those persistent Elephant Spotters...



I'm also planning to continue drawing more of the elephants from the Elephant Parade London, so watch this space...

Elephant Parade London: #181 Kubella - The Seaside Elephant

London has been experiencing insanely hot weather over the weekend. The perfect time to head to the beach with Kubella – The Seaside Elephant. Here she is enjoying an ice-cream down by the sea...



Please sign the petition to save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #228 Mr Cameron, #230 Mr Brown, #257 Mr Clegg

When the final votes were cast in the Elephant Parade auction, the results of the Political Pachyderm Prizefight ended up mirroring the General Election with Mr Cameron coming out on top with £9750, Mr Brown in second place with £8270 and Mr Clegg in last place with £7400.

But just like the General Election, Mr Clegg ended up joining forces with Mr Cameron and poor old Mr Brown got the boot. Poor Mr Brown!



Don't forget to cast your vote by signing the petition to save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #167 Elephish

There were a number of species-confused elephants in the Elephant Parade. One of my favourites (and among the first elephants I found) was Elephish. Is he an elephant, or is he a fish? Whatever the answer, I think he'd have some trouble staying afloat in the water...



Don't forget to sign the petition to save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website!

Elephant Parade London: #9 Simply Gold, #11 Simply Silver, #40 Simply Yellow

Sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #53 Nana

I know some people didn't like Nana, but I thought she was rather sweet. Maybe because she reminded me of my own nan (...Because she always wore a scarf around her head when she went out, not because she looked like an elephant!).



If you haven't already, you can still sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #255 The City In The Elephant

So the Elephant Parade London is now officially over, but I've decided to keep on drawing members of the Elephant Parade.

The City In The Elephant is a strange one. From the outside he appears fairly mundane – a plain red elephant covered in plastic domes. But when you look through the plastic domes you discover his secret: inside is a miniature city with even more miniature elephants filling its tiny streets and buildings.

But he looks a bit like a Dalek...



Thanks to Michelle Lee for giving me the idea! And don't forget to sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Parade website...

Elephant Parade London: #77 Pit Bingko

Okay, first of all I have a confession to make, Pit Bingko is probably my least favourite of all the elephants in the Elephant Parade. There I've said it. Apologies to the artists involved, but he's pretty freaky looking, and reminded me of the melting Nazi's at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark...

But I took pity on the poor fella, and decided what he really needed was a good iron to get rid of those creases and wrinkles...



Don't forget to sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Parade website!

Elephant Parade London: #97: Saffron

If the movie Dumbo taught me anything, it was that elephants are scared of mice. So if you are an elephant made of cheese, you have real problems. Poor Saffron!



Please sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Parade website.

Elephant Parade London: #46 Bobby, #135 Gerald

There always has to be one. As part of the Elephant Parade which recently took place in London, six of the 258 fibre glass elephants were placed in Selfridges department store on Oxford Street. One of these six elephants was #135 Gerald, a bright blue elephant with a leaf pattern. The artist, Jonathan Yeo, said he was inspired by "an elephant walking through a park on a sunny Autumn day". So far, so uncontroversial. But after a few days on display, Gerald was removed from public viewing after apparent complaints that his "leaves" were in fact of a more adult nature.



After a prolonged absence from public view, and after a Facebook group was set up to "Free Gerald", he eventually was allowed to be seen by the public at the Elephant Family HQ, before finally being relocated to Chinawhite nightclub.

Having seen Gerald when he was at the Elephant Family HQ, I have to say that all the "controversy" seems to have been a lot of fuss about nothing. Even being aware of what was on Gerald's "leaves" I wouldn't say it was immediately obvious, and certainly wasn't the first thing you notice when looking at him. Still, at least Gerald didn't end up hidden from the public eye forever.

Please take a minute to sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #219 Cloudia

Cloudia is the wandering elephant of the Elephant Parade, constantly travelling to various locations all over London. I'm sure like most elephant-spotters, she made good use of an A-Z to plan her route...



Don't forget to sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Parade website.

Elephant Parade London: #19 Blitz, #20 Vroom, #21 Dart, #22 Bolt, #23 Dash, #24 Whizz

Here comes a herd of running elephants from the Elephant Parade. But one of them seems to be cheating...



If you're interested in running on behalf of the Elephant Family in the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon on 10 October, then contact Tim Ridgewell at tim@elephantfamily.org. Skateboards not allowed!

And don't forget to sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Parade website.

Elephant Parade London: #1 Spotty, #12 Polkadot, #58 Sunny

Don't you hate it when you turn up to a party only to discover that someone else has worn the same outfit...




Don't forget to sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Parade website.

Elephant Parade London: #68 Taxi Elephant

I've nearly completed my efforts to photograph all 258 of the elephants dotted around the city as part of the Elephant Parade, and I feel like I haven't done much drawing in the past couple of weeks, so I decided to combine the two and draw some of the elephants!

First up is #68 Taxi Elephant, which is outside The Royal Exchange near Bank underground station. Unfortunately this poor elephant had one of its eyes broken a few weeks ago...



More to come soon. You can sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Parade website.

Elephants on Parade!

So I've been a bit obsessed with the Elephant Parade London 2010. Raising awareness of the urgent crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephant, it is an outdoor art event featuring 258 fibreglass elephants decorated by an assortment of creative artists and designers, scattered across London. I have been fascinated with seeing the elephants positioned within the city, and also observing the way in which the public reacts to them. I've been out trying to photograph all of the elephants, and posting the results over on Facebook. There's still a fair number left for me to capture, but I'm enjoying the photographic hunt.

Anyway, all of which leads me to some rather exciting drawing news! Yesterday I was informed that Amelia's Magazine had been asking on Twitter whether anyone had any photographs or illustrations of the Elephant Parade, so I sent them an email with a link to my photo album, plus informing them that I was an illustrator who was very interested in the Elephant Parade and would really like to produce an illustration. A few emails later, and I was hard at work producing an illustration to send to them by first thing this morning. One slightly sleepless night later, and I came up with an image featuring a group of elephants from the Parade riding around in one of the many rickshaws that zip around Central London...



You can read the full article (which also includes some of my photographs) over at Amelia's Magazine, and also sign the petition to save the Asian elephant at the Elephant Parade London website.