Happy Birthday Nadia!

As well as enjoying the amazing sunshine we've had in London this weekend, I also went to my friend Nadia's birthday party in a bar next to the river in Richmond (even though her birthday is actually on Wednesday, so it was all a bit premature...). Anyway, here's a card I drew for her...

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.

Illustration Friday: Fearless

So I decided to take a break from shamelessly online promotion of my new website (paulshinndraws.com!!) to tackle this week's Illustration Friday topic which is Fearless. After a bit of head-scratching, I eventually came up with a slightly tenuous solution, featuring Daredevil, The Man Without Fear, riding on a Ghost Train...



...well, it made me laugh!

www.paulshinndraws.com

Cue the sound of trumpets and bring on the dancing girls!!! My website is now official online! Head on over to paulshinndraws.com and have a look!!

I've given my blog a lick of paint as well to mark the occasion, and have also created a Facebook page to help promote my new website as well as providing another way for me to keep people updated about my illustration-based activities. If you're on Facebook you can go and join my page over at http://facebook.com/paulshinndraws.

Pauly Pauly Shinn Shinn

Wow! This is my 200th post since I started this blog just over two years ago. Happy Blogday to me! Let's all have some jelly and ice-cream!!!

Anyway, last week, my talented friend Thomas Flintham decided to leave a series of rhyming messages on my Facebook page, all about me! So, in the spirit of collaboration, I decided to illustrate them...



As I said, he wrote rather a lot, so I'd like to come back to this little project again later. Watch this space...