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...

Life Drawing

I've started going (fairly regularly) to a Life Drawing class above the Royal Inn In The Park pub on Victoria Park. I've been meaning to get back into Life Drawing for a while, so it's good to finally be doing it on a regular basis.

5 minute poses...


15 minute pose...


30 minute pose...


30 minute pose...

CARD-MAGEDDON!!!

Forgive me Internet, for I have sinned. It's been over a month since my last blog post! And while I try to get back up to date with my assorted scribblings, I've realised that I've got a bunch of birthday cards and card commissions that I have so far failed to upload, so if you'll indulge me for a moment, I'm going to stick them all up onto the World Wide Web in one voluminous post.

Here we go...!

Sometimes an idea just pops into head and the only way I can exercise it from my mind is to get it down on paper! So after a slightly hysterical conversation about the character Bane in the film The Dark Knight Rises with my friend Arianne (you had to be there!), and finding out that it was her birthday, I drew her this card. With a ghost. Because there's always a ghost!



My brother commissioned me to draw a birthday card for his friend Kate...



Well, actually he commissioned me to draw an engagement card for Kate and her boyfriend James first, but because I was particularly busy at the time, the birthday card ended up being done first. Still, I made the engagement card eventually...



Also, Arianne got a Full Time job and so was able to spend less time at the gallery, meaning she doesn't have to wear the uncomfortable tie so much...



Somewhere along the way, Keare and Nile got married. Congratulations! And I drew this portrait of them both in a card that Andy Oliver organised...



More recently, it was Julia Scheele's birthday, and I drew her this card, based on the cover she drew for Summer Camp's zine Drive Past My House, which they released to coincide with the launch of their album, Bad Love...



And I think that about brings us right back to the present. For now! I'll be posting some other stuff that I've neglected to shove onto the Internet very soon, and then I'll hopefully be able to maintain a more consistent schedule. At least that's the plan...

Recipe Comic

Hmm...I haven't posted anything for a while. I have been working, but not on anything that I can post...just yet! But one thing that I have done is draw a comic based on a recipe for a competition. I decided to draw a comic about how to cook okonomiyak, which is a Japanese savoury pancake. The results of the competition will be released at the beginning of July, but for now, here's my one page comic...

(click to enlarge)


[UPDATE]: My comic got selected for inclusion in the book, and is available here: http://centrala.org.uk/shop/comics-cookbook/

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

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

Happy Unbirthday!

Sometimes things don't go entirely to plan...

It was my friend Saul's birthday the other week and while his initial last minute drinks gathering didn't go quite according to plan, fortunately there was some hasty reorganisation and Birthday Drinks: Take Two was a much more successful endeavour. And I finally got to give him the card I drew for him, featuring Saul cosplaying as his favourite superhero*, Captain Marvel...



My friend Chantel had her birthday earlier this week, and recently relocated to Hull for a new and exciting job. A bunch of friends went up to Hull this past weekend for birthday celebrations and drunken Mario Kart, which I was particularly sad to have missed, but unfortunately I was working over the weekend. But to make up for my absence, I drew her a card which I posted to her new address as a surprise!



*I'm not 100% sure if she's actually his "favourite" superhero, and he'll definitely correct me if I've got that wrong, hence this small disclaimer! But definitely Top Five, for sure!

Dirty Rotten Comics #4

I've got a one-page comic in Issue 4 of Dirty Rotten Comics, an alternative comics anthology, published twice yearly and committed to supporting small press artists from the UK.

Dirty Rotten Comics #4 will be released this Friday, 17 April 2015, priced at £4 and can be pre-ordered here: http://dirtyrottencomics.bigcartel.com/product/pre-order-dirty-rotten-comics-4

Here's a sneak peak of my strip that the guys posted on Twitter the other day...

Secret 7" submissions

I submitted a couple of designs for this year's Secret 7" show. The annual show has been running since 2012 and each year takes 7 tracks from 7 of the best-known musicians around and press each one 100 times to 7” vinyl. They then accept submissions from creatives from around the world to interpret the tracks in their own style and 700 sleeve designs are selected and printed, to create 100 unique copies for each of the 7 tracks. These are exhibited and then sold for £50 apiece to raise money for a selected charity.

Sadly none of my designs were selected to go into the exhibition this year, but with over 4,500 sleeve designs submitted and only 700 sleeves in the final exhibition, there was a lot of competition.

Still, I was pleased with the designs I produced, so at least I can share them here. However, in the spirit of Secret 7", I'm not going to tell you exactly which track they were for, although I will give you the list of the 2015 track selection so you can hopefully work them out for yourselves...

Let Forever Be by The Chemical Brothers
Reflections by Diana Ross & The Supremes
Go by The Maccabees
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel
Dead Flowers by The Rolling Stones
Digital Witness by St Vincent
Born Slippy by Underworld



The Secret 7" exhibition will be on at Somerset House from 10 April – 3 May, and the 700 copies will go on sale on the 4 May.

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...

Who Let The Dogs Out?

A few weeks ago, I was contacted about doing a pet portrait of a dog called Pirate. I was sent some reference photos of the dog and they asked if I could use all of the poses in the picture. I did a rough sketch, and once this was approved I went ahead and drew the final piece using a Zebra Fude brush pen. I then coloured it using Photoshop and added a grass texture before also adding some ink washes that I scanned, to give a bit more form to the dog.