draw-a-rama

Welcome back...

2012-01-29T15:49:00.003Z

...chucks!

Happy new 2012 to everyone, even though it is now nearly February.
Me and the chickens have been busy, keep a look out!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-18T20:50:00.001Z

Merry Christmas readers! Ho Ho Holive!

Harvey's Beard

2011-11-26T14:25:00.005Z

...got me one of these today in the post from Harvey, and oh man it's a thing of beauty! If you want one of these A3, four colour Risograph prints click the links now before they sell out....you definitely need one. fact.

2011-11-23T20:44:00.001Z

Happy Olivee'en

2011-10-31T20:58:00.001Z

Olive is finally ready for trick or treating....happy Hallowe'en!

Wicked Olive

2011-10-28T13:34:00.000+01:00

Olive and her kittens are getting ready for mischief...

Autumn Splash

2011-10-26T16:38:00.003+01:00

Olive's had kittens!

2011-10-21T16:38:00.002+01:00

Olive got so excited about Hallowe'en she had some kittens! You wear them in your ears, not clip-on kittens.

Re-home them today!

A kitten is for life, not just Hallowe'en.

O is for

2011-10-07T17:03:00.002+01:00

...October. And Owl. Obviously.

e-i-p w-i-p

2011-10-02T21:09:00.004+01:00

e-i-p is back with work-in-progress. we will be updating our site over the coming weeks, to keep up to date please follow us HERE

new work...

2011-09-27T19:25:00.003+01:00

...can be seen HERE or HERE!

look what you would've won

2011-08-29T14:59:00.005+01:00

....courtesy of the Carnival at Sheffield's Fayre (re-enactment of the American Civil War*, anyone?) I failed to win a giant fluffy chicken and was told in the nicest possible way that I am, after all, a loser.

* nobody was hurt in the re-enactment of the American Civil War, it was just pretend.

the art of looking sideways at shaun tan

2011-08-26T15:01:00.007+01:00

yesterday was a lovely day in that London, after a meeting to discuss exciting projects me and Lee went to the Shaun Tan exhibition at the Illustration Cupboard, followed by the private viewing of Mind over Matter at Kemistry gallery. Very different exhibitions, Shaun Tan's exhibition can be seen here on youtube and here as well, but the artwork itself is is better seen close up as his use of colour to depict light is beautiful. My favourite piece was the Make your own Pet (above, top), the original image is on show, I especially like that to make your pet grow you need to water it gently with "warm herbal tea". Lovely.

Alan Fletcher is just cool, favourite-thing-to-buy-if-i-could-afford it is the ticket/logo Pizza, which is very cool, almost as cool as coming back to Sheffield in first class, which was very very cool indeed.

Doncaster Fringe Art, Craft and Design Conference

2011-08-16T16:16:00.001+01:00

The Fringe Arts Group will be holding an Art, Craft & Design Conference on

Friday 19th August 2011, which will include: seminars and presentations by

industry speakers; marketplace for artists' work and art, craft and design

supplies; creative workshops; an open art, craft and design exhibition and

competition; live art board and other interactive events.

If you are from an educational organisation, the conference will be an ideal

event for CPD & networking with artists who may be able to work with you.

The Fringe arts networking group are excited to be hosting such a fantastic

event for the region, the first of its kind in the Doncaster area.

Venue: Hatfield Visual Arts College, Doncaster

Date: Friday 19th August 10-6pm

Stands: £45 (Fringe members £30)

Tickets: £8 (concessions £4)

Open Art Submission: £5/entry (concessions £2.50)

Deadline for stands & exhibition entry: Tuesday 19th July

Seminars

Designers Republic

Arts Council

a-n magazine & artist Alice Bradshaw

The Hub National Centre for Craft & Design

Creative Partnerships Hull

Cape UK

WAK Studios

Babson Ajibade, Visual Arts School, Nigeria

Workshops (bookable on first come first serve basis on the day)

Lois Conlan – Junk Puppets

Sue Carter –Kanzashi Folded Flowers

Ali Graney – Pop-Up Paper Engineering

Jim Bond – Kinetic Drawing Machines

Ian Swales – Found Art Sculptures

Grace Smith – Screenprinting

Marketplace Contemporary art, craft & design sold to you by the makers.

Art, craft & design supplies.

Open Art Competition & Exhibition Enter art, craft or design pieces into the

open art competition. Entry is £5 per piece (per 3 pieces if Fringe member),

or £2.50 for students. Three categories are: Fine Art/Photography, Graphic

Design/Illustration and Craft. Each category winner will be awarded a prize.

Live Art Sue Caulfield, sculptor, will be producing body castings from a

female model throughout the day. Final pieces will be sold in aid of Hull

Arts, a non-profit organisation for artistic endeavour.

Live art board to make your own piece of art - doodle, write, draw.

it will be a great day, I'm on from 11 O'Clock with a paper engineering workshop!

if the contents of my head was a museum

2011-08-08T14:28:00.008+01:00

it would be this one....the Museum of Childhood in that London, full of pretty much everything that I like.

Favourite things:

St.George + the Dragon

Mr.Turnip

French automaton Monkey Hurdy Gurdy

and Blythe.

Me and Lee went to that london for a talk on the future of animation : creative advertising, part of the encounters festival the other week. We managed to fit in a visit to the V&A Museum of Childhood where I gave myself a headache with excitement at the contents of the museum and the Judith Kerr exhibition. We are going back down for the Shaun Tan and Sci Fi exhibitions in a couple of weeks. I will take some paracetamol with me.

school is out for summer...

2011-07-29T15:48:00.006+01:00

... and I am building on a portfolio section to go with the character design and workshop sections on my site, this is a section of a recent very long landscape illustration entitled Dog Walker. And for the googling person who is looking for 'how to draw Rama", sorry again, this probably isn't what you were expecting.

site update

2011-07-27T15:32:00.004+01:00

new character development section on my site, have a look here if you want...on another topic I am still regularly getting traffic to this blog by people searching for 'daffy duck getting his beak slapped off' so if you've been led here by google, sorry, this probably isn't the page you were looking for.

Art at the Chophouse - best of Northern Illustration 2011 - Preston Illustration WINNER!

2011-07-04T21:37:00.014+01:00

Update: 15th July 2011

Congratulations to Naomi Jones - WINNER of the Sponsor's Award Unleashed:Best in the North! Both Preston illustrators Naomi and Imogen went on to sell their work at the auction, raising over £750 between them (proceeds to be split evenly between the illustrators and the North West Air Ambulance Service). All the artwork from the future stars of (Preston) illustration are for sale at Mr.Thomas's Chop House it was a brilliant night and I even met mr paul crone, who in my younger days as a scouser was my tea time telly anchor man. I live in Yorkshire now; it's not the same croney, it's not the same.

Next Thursday will see the Auction and Prize winners announced at Mr. Thomas's Chop House, Manchester. Recent Preston Illustrator Alexander Barratt has provided the branding image for Unleashed - newly graduating Preston Illustrators Naomi Jones (who was Highly Commended at this year's Macmillan Prize for Children's Books) and Imogen Wood are shortlisted for one of the top prizes. It will be a fantastic night, come and support the Northern Schools and students, as well as buying some artwork from the future stars in Illustration - in aid of the North West Air Ambulance. Other future stars from Preston include Sam Wilson, Kyle Cline and 2nd prize D&AD winner Stavros Siamptanis.

Accept / Regret

2011-07-03T19:53:00.004+01:00

good friend to E-I-P Harvey Hartley has a lovely new publication out, get your mits on it here, you will regret it if you don't....

Preston Illustration Degree Show + New Blood

2011-06-08T14:45:00.003+01:00

...please come along and visit the Preston Illustrators from Saturday 11th June, Victoria Building, UCLAN and at New Blood from the 1st July, Old Truman Brewery, in that London.
Illustration copyright Stavros Siamptanis 2011.

Treasure hunt

2011-05-19T16:14:00.011+01:00

Tuesday was a sad day as my treasured copy of The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham was accidentally doused in water. It has dried out quite well but is looking a bit puffy, so today I tried to source a replacement.

This is where it gets exciting - Harry Willock illustrated an entire set of John Wyndham book covers (I have them all, my favourite is the Day of the Triffids), but he also worked collaboratively with Alan Aldridge on The Peacock Party.

The Peacock Party is a sequel to The Butterfly Ball, also in collaboration with Harry Willock - both in my possesion. Alan Aldridge also produced The Ship's Cat, and on the title page is Harry Willock as collaborator.

So yes, having had all of these books for years, today has been like discovering buried treasure on my own bookshelves.

Jaume Plensa at YSP

2011-05-02T18:11:00.008+01:00

Lucky enough to be treated to a road trip to the YSP to see Jaume Plensa's major exhibition. The sculptural pieces are achingly beautiful, the images above are pieces mounted on the wall and on the floor space of two of the most jaw droppingly emotive rooms I've ever walked into - they make you want to cry.

A Publishers Postbag

2011-04-26T13:03:00.002+01:00

How lovely!
Click here to see more.

a big splash

2011-04-11T15:20:00.005+01:00

....new splash page HERE

birdfest

2011-04-10T13:09:00.002+01:00

...sections of part of a series of some of the most complicated bird antics I've ever had the pleasure of drawing.

from pencil to penguin

2011-03-27T16:45:00.004+01:00

I work slightly bigger or to scale, re-drawing (and re-drawing ) until I'm happy - this is the most time consuming part of making an image, getting the drawing how I want it. This fishing penguin was roughed out in my sketchbook in pencil, then drawn over and over again in ink until I liked it. I don't often show the initial drawings anywhere as they are the bones that I hang the colour off, if you like, and are sometimes radically different from the finished piece.
The digital side of things is a pretty quick process for me as I'm basically colouring in shapes, which is very flipping fun.

the last best 20p ever spent

2011-03-19T15:34:00.010Z

I had trepidations about buying this one, I'm a little scared of the Hoop - La glasses wearing man. The halftones and the Scottie Dog won me over. Still, this is accumulatively the best 80p ever spent in the world. Fact.

Awesome

2011-03-13T16:40:00.005Z

...although we have decided amongst us preston illustrators that in the zeitgeist-swing-o-meter, skulls are definitely on the way down, skeletons are still pretty cool. Especially *pop-up ones.
*Not to be confused with pop up galleries/restaurants/gigs etc, which are also now on the un-cool end of the cultural barometer. Skull jewelry is, obviously, still cool.

New site section

2011-03-02T15:05:00.003Z

Can be seen here.
I am adding to it slowly, as I'm very flipping busy lately.

AOI Images in Blackpool

2011-02-27T14:43:00.012Z

Last Thursday saw us Preston Illustrators visit Blackpool for the AOI Images exhibition (until 6th March, Blackpool & The Fylde College Gallery). Some nice surprises including Noma Bar's screen print which was just lovely in the flesh, and the exhibition is hung well (by colour) so it was well worth a visit.

Especially as I got my fill of terrifying plastic characters and sea(gulls), and broke even on the slot machines.

Sketchbook pages

2011-02-16T16:00:00.004Z

I have a very long commute to and from work, over 5 hours a day, and so have begun to put the Metro paper down and draw more. This takes some prepping in my sb, as my practice responds to shape and line - as I work with ink I need an arc when drawing and normally work on over sized bright white listing paper as it doesn't buckle and scans well. A sketchbook is a little bit like working with my arms inside a cardboard box but I am slowly making friends with it. I make random shapes on the pages with ink and then develop them over time. There are over 80 drawings developed in this way so far, 5 of which I am happy with (above).

Hearts for Sale

2011-02-07T20:35:00.002Z

Buy them HERE

The next to last best 20p I've ever spent (accumulative spending = 60p)

2011-02-07T13:40:00.007Z

I love how happy they all are, especially the ducklings that are not at all freaked out by the no/face thing. This is dated 1972, titled 'Country Scene' and it's made in England by G.J Hayter & Co, Bournemouth. It's older than me. Fab.

A Tasty Garland

2011-01-31T16:52:00.010Z

A Tasty Garland was produced in conjunction with Museums Sheffield and is written by award winning Children's writer Dr.Debjani Chatterjee who has a forthcoming publication Let’s Celebrate! Festival Poems from around the World edited jointly with Brian D’Arcy, published by Francis Lincoln.

Over one hundred images were created by members of the Bengali and wider Sheffield community at a workshop run in Weston Park Museum. The book was launched on a very snowy 27th November 2010 at Weston Park Museum.

The images produced by budding illustrators aged 2 to 60+ form the basis and the inspiration behind the images.

Thanks go to Shahzad Khan, Athmar Abdulqader, Nazma Begum, Chloe Crouch, Mia & Ella Fidment, Erica Fidment, Sarah & John Roberts, Lois & Bee Roberts, Ruben, Issac & Simeon Marbridge, Bridget Kellett, Georgia Flannery, Sarah Gowers, William, Louis & Mrs Mitchell, Isabelle Walton-Hall, Imani & Shirmet Schawsmioth, Alfie Ryan & Claire Wilkinson, Ruth, Taylor & Maddie, Mary Jarvett & Mr Philips, Durga Chakrabarti & Tara Chatterjee for their contribution to the book.
My favourite thing about the book are the bits that I got to add. The story is about a little boy who is called Baagh - the Bengali word for Tiger, so on every page there is an homage to his name - stripy tiger t-shirt, tiger slippers, tiger pictures, (see above - the line drawings are part of the story, the above image isn't) and sleeping stripy tiger cat. I also liked coming up with images for Airlines - Koala Airways and Canadian Bearlines kept me amused, and still do, actually ; )A sneak peek at the first few pages can be seen here.

Happy New Year - (Rabbit)

2011-01-19T15:26:00.007Z

I've been updating the workshop section of my website - HERE the Summer School at The Lowry and the Working Drawings workshop at SIA Furnival are amongst my favourites from last year. Next task is the portfolio section, I've a lot to add. Happy New Year, dear readers!

p.s I haven't forgotten about the last two next-best-20p-I-have-ever-spent game, either.

Working Drawings conference + exhibition

2010-11-19T17:34:00.006Z

Image Copyright from top:
Jill Calder
Neasden Control Centre
Lee Ford

Sheffield Hallam University a 1 day conference and Exhibition titled 'Working Drawings', speakers for the conference are:

Neasden Control Centre
Jill Calder
Roderick Mills

Check details below for exhibitor information

Get tickets here: http://www.shu.ac.uk/ad/workingdrawings/

It will be awesome!

NB - This event is now postponed due to the Ice Age descending upon Sheffield. The exhibition will be open to the public from Wednesday 8th December.

the next best 20p ever spent

2010-11-14T16:33:00.008Z

I particularly like the blue cat playing the violin. I have a suspicion that there are some pieces missing from this one, as they don't quite all fit together, I should have tried to negotiate the price to 10p.

The best 20p ever spent

2010-11-12T20:59:00.008Z

A little while ago Heeley City Farm had a festival, and I bought four wooden puzzles for 20p each. So that's technically the best 80p I've ever spent. The above is a marching girl band, with some lovely offset printing. Bet you can't wait to find out what the other ones are....

Trick or Treat

2010-10-31T19:45:00.004Z

Hallowe'en is being taken very seriously in Sheffield, I'm nearly out of sweets...

Happy Hallowe'en!

2010-10-30T20:31:00.003+01:00

Conkers

2010-10-17T13:54:00.004+01:00

Look at all of my conkers. just. look. at. them. all.
(85 conkers, fact fans).

Lee Ford's 'Lonely Hearts' for sale...

2010-10-05T20:50:00.004+01:00

http://www.leeford.org/index.php?/shop/prints/

BUY THEM NOW!!!
Hearts For Sale
Limited edition Mr. Ford signed and numbered high quality digital prints.
'Lonely Hearts Club' digital print editions on beautiful Somerset Enhanced 225gsm 100% cotton stock 420 x 594 mm.
Strictly limited run of 20 editions of each Lonely Heart.
Only £40 GBP including postage and packing.
Which one are you?

Random sights

2010-08-26T14:52:00.012+01:00

...some stuffed, some alive, all cool. Things I've seen recently in and around Yorkshire.

E-I-P = E-M-G

2010-08-07T15:09:00.003+01:00

Super Sale!
Exciting news!

Everything Is Practice is marching onwards...

so we are super selling our previous Practices!
These are the last of our stock, once they are gone, they are gone forever,
we won't be reprinting any of them. Grab 'em now!

Book 1 and 2
Birdfest and Flight - £6 the pair

Time Passes - £6

Platform 14 and exclusive Lino print £4

Each purchase will come with one of our badges. Limited amount of stock, buy them now!

Our website is down for maintenance - to be launched in the Autumn with new posters, prints, books and projects, see you then!

Foraging in Sheffield

2010-07-26T17:21:00.008+01:00

...first draft of a booklet from a project that started a in May. If anyone is around Sheffield there are an abundance of free cherries at the moment around Heeley. Yum.

new...

2010-07-26T14:53:00.005+01:00

...ink, new studio, new work, same old cheese-plant (Cecil).

Collagraph workshops at t'Lowry

2010-06-18T13:51:00.009+01:00

...the last two Tuesdays I have been delivering hands-on desk-top printmaking sessions on Collagraphs as part of the Lowry's evening Printmaking course. Collagraphs are easy to make and print from, and I didn't spend any time worrying that they wouldn't print, honest! All materials used were 'found' and water based inks were used on 300gms wet paper. Lovely.

You're welcome...

2010-05-25T11:04:00.005+01:00

...to attend the Northern School of Design - Illustration - exhibition.

From 12th June - UCLAN, Floor 2, VB214 & 214a, Preston.

Northern Source group exhibition -

From 30th June - CUBE, Manchester.

Illustrations copyright Liz Dunning.

sketchbook chooks

2010-04-26T14:58:00.002+01:00

Duck season

2010-04-14T16:03:00.003+01:00

...my favourite cartoon ever is when Daffy Duck gets his beak slapped off his face by his wife because he leaves the egg she's forcing him to hatch. When it hatches it's a crocodile.
No relevance whatsoever to the duck (above) that I made, other than Duck Season is the title of a Bugs Bunny cartoon that has Elmer Fudd trying to kill both Bugs and Daffy, they confuse him by screaming "duck season!" "rabbit season!" at him.
But I don't like Bugs Bunny.

Easter etc

2010-04-14T14:59:00.006+01:00

...favourite things from the Easter workshops, in collaboration with Daisy Frossard. Stained glass drawings and model magic cat/pig. Model magic is brilliant stuff, it feels like marshmellow and sets overnight to ceramic. I made a collection of ducks and geese, I might post one if I can get a decent enough picture, they are all about 10mm high. Tiny.

Strange fruit and bad cop cake

2010-04-08T16:10:00.010+01:00

...jolly good t-shirt customisation at Jordanthorpe with Jess MacNair yesterday. Mine is the Pirate of the Carrotbean. Food theme covered by Colleen, Declan and Connor includes a Bad Cop cake, Good Cop carrot, Rock Star pineapples and lastly some strange fruit and a Beefcake (get it?). Lovely.

shameless promotion

2010-04-06T15:06:00.003+01:00

Lee's new blog HERE!

Koala duck pop

2010-04-02T16:31:00.002+01:00

...pop up Koala card by Alicia at Foxhill Primary School (and me).

Hold on to your hat..

2010-03-17T21:08:00.004Z

...everything is practice collaboration are exhibiting some work in progress at PR1 Gallery, Preston. From the 18th march you can hold on to your hat and watch as the images progress...

Half-term workshops...

2010-02-22T12:16:00.014Z

... at Newfield with Moya Sketchley, making a wire food chain (my favourite is the lion), and at Broomhill with Charlie Hill making paper sculptures and, of course, my wide-mouth pop-ups. My favourite is the toothy alien (top image), naturally. Am also fond of the worm poking out of the chicks mouth, that's clever. And a bit disgusting.

and finally...

2010-02-10T16:21:00.006Z

...checking if my drawings work when flipped. Often they don't - but in the case of the sheep, the reversed image is better than the original. So that's interesting, isn't it?

mistaken chickens and a wrong goose

2010-02-10T16:02:00.004Z

...continuing my occasional posts detailing things I've drawn 'wrong' (above) with one I've drawn 'right' (below).

So there.

2010-02-10T15:23:00.000Z

Super

2010-02-10T13:11:00.007Z

We've been making masks at the school for the last 4 weeks, if you were a Superhero, what would you be? Alicia (above) is Cat Woman. I'll put the rest on my site when I get a chance. I like to get a thankyou, too.

New Year, new work...

2010-01-19T18:24:00.002Z

...possibly. I don't know. Me and the cat have had a fight over the pastels and ink in an attempt to breathe some texture into my work. This year is already too busy and I don't know how I'm going to fit everything in, so maybe going off on a tangent is unwise. Fun though. Happy New Year readers!

last workshop of the decade

2009-12-22T14:00:00.008Z

Christmas bauble decorating and pop up card making in Parson's Cross. Thanks to Bradley (modelling his Sheffield Wednesday bauble earring) who said learning how to make a pop up Christmas tree card was, and I quote "wicked sick".

take flight

2009-12-16T19:17:00.002Z

this is my favourite spread from E-I-P Book 2 - as it would look in colour.

E-I-P Book 2 - Flight

2009-12-13T16:39:00.005Z

Launched at Fresh Leaf 'zine fair in Leeds on the 11th December 2009, Book 2 is a Flightfest featuring brilliant but useless inventions, a levitating homage to the wacky races, those pesky thieving magpies and a benevolent sun. Images can be seen above and the book purchased for £4 including postage on our website.

And if you haven't yet started to follow us, it's okay, don't panic, you can do it here!

Culture Lab Celebration at Graves Art Gallery

2009-12-06T16:08:00.013Z

I've been working with a group of pupils at Foxhill Primary School for Sheffield's Culture Lab, working around the theme of Identity in conjunction with the exhibition at the Graves Gallery in the city center.
Yesterday was a celebration of all the work being produced, and our life sized portraits were on display in the gallery. It was a lovely day and I enjoyed seeing everyone next to their portraits and making frames, eating cakes and watching the performance.
More images will be on my site when i get the time to update it. Third from the top is my favourite, made by Sam aged 8.

tractor wars

2009-11-28T15:51:00.005Z

...as usual the Red Tractor drawn by very brilliant nephew Alexander is better than mine. Although I would have done mine bright red, too.

drawing the line

2009-11-17T20:15:00.004Z

...at the Lowry. Recent workshops exploring drawing using ink, straws, twigs and wire. Some nice work and 5 stars out of 5 in the manchester evening news, so that was nice. The horrible cold I caught getting soaked in Manchester was not... and before anyone points out that 'flu is viral, I did catch it because I got wet. I did.
More on my website, click.

E-I-P Blog

2009-11-04T17:39:00.000Z

...follow us HERE...

E-I-P

2009-11-01T16:13:00.006Z

Well here we have it - launch of a new collaboration between myself and mr. ford, very exciting for us, and well received at Spike Island Gallery artists book fair yesterday.
Read about it here!
There will be more information and updates HERE soon, along with the ability to buy a copy of book number 1 - bird/batfest fun.

crow road

2009-10-26T16:30:00.002Z

...after some deliberation, this page isn't going to be used for the secret-something-all-to-be revealed-on-Saturday-project, so take a good look, as it won't be seen again...

birdfest fever pitch

2009-10-25T18:28:00.002Z

...coming very flipping nearly very soon!

...on a roll

2009-10-07T17:09:00.002+01:00

...and so here he is. Steam Roller mark 1. Dodgy wheels, still.

Roller convoy

2009-10-07T15:15:00.003+01:00

...quickly coloured up, with some reversal, the red and green may work, but the blue one is definitely out of the running....

Better..

2009-10-07T14:57:00.002+01:00

Am coming to the conclusion that the steam roller I raced down the street to get a photograph of is vastly different to the one the ink wants me to draw. The shape is better, but it looks like an old fashioned car with a steam engine bolted on the front....

Wrong v.2

2009-10-07T14:13:00.001+01:00

...now it's all a bit Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...

Wrong!

2009-10-06T16:13:00.003+01:00

...part steam engine, part hot rod and a bit of wacky races = the first steam roller I have ever drawn.

test

2009-09-29T18:37:00.005+01:00

...have been concentrating on flat colours for a while now, but have been encouraged to experiment with textures a little bit. They look a bit out of place within the context of the rest of my work, but am growing to like it. A bit.

speckled hens

2009-09-28T19:07:00.003+01:00

the corner of something exciting...

2009-09-15T16:45:00.001+01:00

...but it's a secret something exciting.

Toucan

2009-09-08T15:56:00.001+01:00

...another one that won't be used, along with the owl that looks like a beach ball (not shown).

meet Olive

2009-09-05T18:20:00.003+01:00

Hobbies:
Eating, sleeping, escaping and barging onto your knee when you are reading the paper and sitting on it.

Harvest Festival

2009-09-05T17:39:00.004+01:00

...favourite time of the year, Autumn is, not least as I can commence my yearly quest to find the biggest conker on the planet. Here we have the first harvest of beetroot, tomato and runner beans (over a foot long, fact fans) from our garden. Waiting for bell peppers, black cherry tomatoes, chilli peppers, cabbage (red and savoy) and potatoes now. So if I come round to your house expect me to laden down with produce and try and make you eat it all up.

news...

2009-08-14T20:50:00.002+01:00

..this little one hasn't make the grade. Feel sorry for him as it's the last time you will see him, unless you look at this post on occasion just to keep him happy. Anyway, happier news - SITE is up! Tomorrow the sifting through of over 200 drawings will commence. Feel sorry for me as well as poor badly drawn owl...

Birdfest

2009-08-06T20:28:00.002+01:00

...continues. All will be revealed soon as to why so many feathered lovelies.

Hitchcock would be proud

2009-07-30T16:10:00.003+01:00

...the studio looks like a scene from the Birds.

Also head over here and e-mail if you would like to (of course you would!) quite possibly win a print.

sneakie chook chooks

2009-07-27T16:04:00.008+01:00

...yesterday I hand fed some chickens (Barbie, Betty and Bertha), which made me really really want my own Silkies with a house with separate bedrooms for them even though I know we can't have any as there is not enough room in the garden and I'd never get any work done as I would just follow them round laughing at them. I would call one of them Elvis.

So anyway, more peekie at new spreads above, and flipping new website here (after about 70 hours of cramming GoLive into my brain).
Yay.

brew?

2009-07-21T12:51:00.007+01:00

...although every single spout on the teapots is upside down. I only noticed this when I looked at my boyfriends teapots during the drawing game in the studio and his were all perfect and the tea would pour out of the spout into the cup not back into the lid like mine. Other challenges included dogs, a cassowary, penguins (obviously), old blokes, chimney pots and rooftops.

Also after 12 hours of cramming GoLive, see my flipping new website here. Well, a bit of it.

...chucks away

2009-07-14T13:47:00.002+01:00

...a small selection of the chicks that didn't make it, for Kayleigh : )

sneaky peekie...

2009-07-13T20:10:00.005+01:00

I draw with a new straw

2009-07-08T15:43:00.005+01:00

...blimey I heart my new straw, it makes a great drawing on the paper noise, and helpfully flicks ink all by itself exactly when and where I want it to. Marvellous.

work is in progress...

2009-06-29T14:23:00.003+01:00

...this chap came out of three of the ink pots I was playing with during the drawing game in the studio last week. I like him.

Twitter

2009-05-20T16:53:00.005+01:00

...it's nearly time for the test card to go up again over summer while new website and new studio and new drawing gets done, so i won't be saying much from now on...have a nice summer *waves*!

holiday rooster

2009-04-24T17:19:00.005+01:00

...next exciting episode, holiday cowboy, holiday skull and cross bones, holiday sheeps and possibly holiday saxophone player...

holiday beach boys

2009-04-24T17:11:00.003+01:00

...a little bit of the good vibrations (bop bop) drawings...

holiday dawg

2009-04-24T16:57:00.002+01:00

...the bottom of a page of dogs, above him there are 5 more that he is dreaming about, all sitting on stools of various height. I don't want to show them to you, though.

holiday chicken

2009-04-19T16:45:00.002+01:00

lots of chicken, rabbit, heron, hare, hawk eating a wood pigeon, gnat, red admiral, ladybird, woodpecker, raven, swan, robin, sparrow, jay, cuckoo, moth, bee, wasp, bluebottle, duck, goose, parachute men, moorhen, crow, wood pigeon, dove, dog, sheep, lamb, cow, calf, bull and peacock on holiday. I drew most of them, this chicken hopped up the steps of the beer garden with us and messed around in the dirt for ages and would not eat a walkers crisp eat a worm instead.

The above is not a comprehensive list.

Funky sparrows

2009-04-01T16:37:00.006+01:00

Where The Wild Things Are

2009-03-27T16:23:00.006Z

...I actually started crying - am stupidly overexcited about THIS. It's been over three years people. Three years I've been waiting. I am very patient.

lions and tigers and bears oh my

2009-03-25T17:18:00.005Z

...am trying to find the time with other commitments to upload new work, but have only got as far as changing the holding page. Busy. And bears are everywhere at the moment. But I started drawing them ages before you did.

He is not - I repeat - NOT - a teddy bear, kids.

Pop - up escapades

2009-02-22T15:30:00.013Z

...just some of the lovely cards made in yesterdays workshop at the Lowry. Best use of a pop up chicken card demonstrated by the girl in the top picture.