Happy Birthday Tadhg!

My friend Tadhg turned 30 today. Here's a card I made for him!

Happy Birthday Richy!

While I'm continuing to post my daily look back at 2017, I also want to keep up with 2018.

Last night, my friend Richy had some drinks for his birthday, and I made him this card

Happy Birthday Will!

While catching up with blogging about all the illustrations I drew in 2017, I also want to try to keep on top of posting about 2018. So here's a birthday card I drew for my cousin Will, who turned 15 today and got a guitar as a present. He's also obsessed with London Transport, so I decided to draw him trying his hand at busking on the Underground...

Blog-Me-Do Part 2: House of Cards

Another thing that I don't get as much time to do as I once did, is making cards for friends and family for birthdays and other special occasions.

I still enjoy being able to do it, and it's always a fun challenge to come up with a new idea for a card for someone that I've known for a long time and already made a bunch of cards for, but it's also quite time consuming, so isn't always possible when I have other work demands and deadlines. But I did manage to still make more than a few cards in 2017. I've already blogged a few of them at the start of last year, but here are the others...

My Mum really enjoyed the all-female Ghostbusters reboot in 2016 (and so did I), so I drew her this card for Mother's Day:


My friend Saul is a big fan of My Little Pony, especially Pinky Pie, so I drew this card for his birthday:


I'm not sure I can really explain this card for my friend Jon. He loved it though!


This was a slightly odd commission that I received last year, where someone emailed me and asked me to recreate a Venice-themed birthday card that I drew for my friend Jess in 2013 that they'd seen online, but with their son in Jess's place...


My friends Anna and Paul got married last year, and here's a card I made for them:


My Dad loves cutting the hedge in the garden, and wants to do it most weekends, so I drew him this card for Father's Day...


My Mum was 70 last year! And here's a card I made for her:


This was a commission to draw a card for friends of my brother's fiancee, who were gettting married in Spain...


My friend Kate was 30 last year and enjoys playing the banjo, so here's a card I drew for her:


A birthday card for my Dad:


My parents celebrated their 40th Ruby Wedding Anniversary on New Year's Eve, so I drew this Red-hued card for them:


And finally, my Christmas card that I made for 2017:

New Year, New Birthdays!

Hello 2017! Last weekend, my friends Anne and Anett celebrated their birthdays together. The problem with drawing cards for my friends' birthdays is that sometimes I find it really hard to come up with a new idea that is better than the last year, and (not to sound too big-headed about it) I think that I really excelled myself with both of their cards last year! Anyway, accepting the fact that I probably couldn't better myself, I decided to go for a fairly simple approach and draw a portrait of each of them enjoying some ramen (as we often meet up to go for ramen together):





The same weekend, it was also my friend Tadgh's birthday. Tadgh has been doing some excellent screen printing work recently, so I drew a picture of him producing a screen print of a birthday cake...

Happy Birthday Anett and Anne!

As well as sharing the first two letters of their name, my friends Anne and Anett also share the same birthday. Last year I made them both individual cards that joined up to make a larger image. This year, I decided to go for more of a mutual thematic response.

After Anett posted a photo on Instagram of herself standing next to The Wilton Diptych, I came up with the idea of drawing a card of her in a similarly angelic style...



Anne also recently posted a photo of herself and a fluffy cat belonging to her in-laws, and I took that as inspiration for drawing a card for Anne based loosely on Leonardo Da Vinci's Lady With An Ermine...

Happy Birthday Mum!

Today is my Mum's 68th birthday! She's started joining a walking group recently, doing weekly walks around London. So I drew a card with a picture of her walking and reaching 68 miles...

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

It was my friend Elizabeth's birthday yesterday. Here's a card I made for her...

Happy Birthday Tadhg!

It was my friend Tadhg's birthday last week and here's a card I drew for him...

Happy Birthday Anne and Anett!

My friends Anne and Anett share the same birthday and last night went out for drinks to celebrate together. We all work at The National Gallery and because they were celebrating together, I drew them each a card that joined up to form a larger image...

Happy Birthday Cathy!

It was my friend Cathy's birthday the other day and I drew her this picture based on a photo from her Facebook profile.

Happy 70th Birthday Dad!

My Dad celebrated his 70th Birthday on Friday! And here's a card I made for him...

Happy Birthday Sarah!

It was my friend Sarah's birthday the other week and she had some drinks which I was a bit late too, so the bar had stopped serving by I arrived. Fortunately we went to another bar! Here's a card I made for her...

Happy Birthday Janice!

It was my friend Janice's birthday a few weeks ago (exactly one week before mine!). This year Janice started doing a pole dancing class and got very excited when she managed to hang upside down, which gave me the idea for this drawing...

Happy Birthday Cristina!

My brother recently commissioned me to draw a card for his friend Cristina's 30th birthday. He was very specific that it should feature her, a cake and a giraffe...

Happy Birthday Priscilla!

I just realised that I hadn't posted this before... A few weeks ago it was my friend Priscilla's birthday. Here's a card I made for her based on a cool photo from her Facebook page!

Happy Birthday Cristina!

Today was my friend Cristina's birthday! And here's a card I made for her...

Happy Birthday Chantel!

It was my friend Chantel's birthday the other week, and she finally got around to celebrating this past weekend. Here's the card I made for her, featuring her ever-changing hair colour...



And here's an animated gif I made of the card in action...

Happy Birthday Mel!

It was my friend Mel's birthday on Sunday. As well as going for burgers at Shake Shack, I made her this card based on a Facebook photo of her amidst a bunch of Minions from Despicable Me...

Happy Birthday Camilla!

It was my friend Camilla's birthday the other day and here's a drawing I did of her as Finn from Adventure Time...