Blogs Of Future Past (Part 1: Birthdays)

I got a bit lapsed with updating my blog in 2015 and only managed a paltry Thirty-three posts last year. Part of this was due to the good news that I was pretty busy with commissioned work, particular in the second half of the year, but regardless, I want to ensure that I'm more active with my blog posts in 2016! Before I get into the New Year though, I thought I'd better catch up with a bunch of stuff I never got around to posting last year. So these next bunch of posts will be a bit of a retrospective look back at 2015.

Surprising nobody, I made quite a few cards last year. And in no particular order, here are some I never got around to posting...

A birthday card for my friend Ivy...



A birthday card for my friend Janice. Who likes Star Wars and goes to Pole Dancing classes...


For the last few years I have been making Jess a birthday card based on a different Hanson album cover each year. Because she is a massive Hanson fan, not because I hate her! And as if that isn't enough, this year she commissioned me to draw a Hanson card for her friend Clare. So once again, I traweled through Google Images to find yet another Hanson album cover to use as inspiration for her birthday card and ended up going with the cover to (what Wikipedia tells me is) their third album Underneath...




Here's a card I made for my friend Anna...


And here's a card I made for another friend of mine called Anna. She told me a story about waking up to find a cat in her bedroom, which reminded me of The Cat Came Back...


This is a video game inspired card I made for my friend Richard...


And here's a card I made for my parent's wedding anniversary which is on the 31 December. When I was telling my mum about seeing a Full Moon in the sky during Christmas, she told me that the last time there was a Full Moon at Christmas was the same year that her and my dad got married in 1977. 38 years ago!

Happy Birthday Clare!

My friend Jess commissioned me to draw a card for her friend Clare's birthday. The last couple of years, I have made Jess a birthday card based on the covers of Hanson albums, because she loves Hanson. And it turns out (surprisingly!) that she's not the only one, and her friend's Tash and Clare are also fans of Hanson. And so Jess wanted me to draw a card for Clare, also including her and Tash, and based on the cover to the band's Shout It Out album...

Birthdays: Triple Deluxe

On Saturday my friends Anna, Lauren and Jess had a joint party to celebrate their birthdays. Which meant that I had three cards to draw!

I met Lauren through various events at Gosh! Comics and one of her favourite comics is the current run of Hawkeye from Marvel Comics, written by Matt Fraction with art by David Aja and Annie Wu. So I drew a picture of Lauren reading the first volume of Hawkeye...



For my friend Anna, I drew her as a 50ft woman stepping on a lizard. Because reasons...



And last, but not least, for Jess I continued the theme of the card I made for her last year, by re-creating another Hanson album cover, this time "Snowed In"...





Before I met Jess, I didn't realise that Hanson had more than one song, let alone multiple albums, but it seems that now I have consigned myself to drawing her a Hanson-themed birthday card year after year... Sometimes I really shouldn't start something in the first place!

Happy Birthday Jess!

It was my friend Jess's birthday the other day. She is also going to a Hanson concert. Therefore I made her this card based on the cover to Hanson's third(!) album, Middle Of Nowhere...