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.

Capello's vuvuzela solo! World Cup 2010

So the 2010 World Cup is currently underway in South Africa and apart from the rather unexpected results on the pitch, the main conversation topics has been the vuvuzela – the 2ft plastic horn that has been providing a constant background hum to the first round matches.

With England's pivotal match against Slovenia coming up, somewhere in my brain I had the idea to draw a picture of England manager Fabio Capello playing the vuvuzela...



Come on England!

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.

Get Well Soon Mister Flintham!

My friend Thomas Flintham has been in hospital to have his appendix removed. Today I went to visit him and made a card this morning to help cheer him up...



I got a text from Tom this evening to say that his nurse liked my card. So I'm now officially NHS-approved... Get well soon Tom!

Happy Birthday Agustin!

Yesterday I went along to the private view of my friend Agustin Coll's solo exhibition, Built-Up Characters, which featured his ongoing project illustrating unique architectural creatures. Afterwards we had a picnic in the nearby park and had an early celebration for his birthday which is today.

Here's a card I drew for him, inspired by his work in the exhibition...

Amelia's Magazine - Zandra Rhodes

Here's an illustration of fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, I produced for Amelia's Magazine to accompany an article about the Graduate Fashion Week Gala Show.



The pattern in the background is based on one of Rhodes' textile patterns from her Spring/Summer 2010 collection.

Fan Art Friday 2: Super Mario

A quick drawing for today's Fan Art Friday entry, in honour of the fact that Super Mario Galaxy 2 is released on the Wii today. No real meaning behind this drawing, it just made me smile...

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.

Fan Art Friday 1: Scott Pilgrim

Okay, so I can now bring you the first in what I hope will be a semi-regular series of posts featuring my own drawings of some of my favourite characters from movies, television, comics and videogames, which I've cleverly decided to call Fan Art Friday!

I'm kicking things off with a homage to Bryan Lee O'Malley's awesome comic book series, Scott Pilgrim...



Scott Pilgrim seemed a suitable choice for this first installment as there's been quite a buzz online this week about the release of the latest trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation, directed by Edgar Wright (Shawn Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz).

But while I'm excited about seeing the film when it comes out in August, I'm possibly even more excited about the release of the final book in the series coming out in July. Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour is the sixth book in Bryan Lee O'Malley's excellent series of graphic novels. It's been among my favourite comics since I read the first volume in May 2004, and subsequent volumes have only made me love the series even more!

Finally, I should also mention that my drawing was loosely based on Jack Kirby's cover to Marvel's Fantastic Four #4.