Diet time for ponies...

Now this irritates me. Ponies are generally quite round and robust, it is part of their charm. My Little Ponies used to be cute, round little beasties with big eyes. These days they have legs up to their armpits and a nipped in waistline. They look more like gangly foals than ponies, why oh why? Is it not even acceptable for a toy to be curvaceous?

Dae Ye Ken? Blog

I've just finished creating a blog for my book Dae Ye Ken?. You can view it here...

Experimenting with lettering...

This week I have been looking at lettering (one of my passions) and trying out some new fonts. Here is one of my favourites so far. My Hand Lettered text has appeared on bookjackets, billboards and taxis. I'm a huge fan of hand lettered text in general and many of the illustrators that I admire also use lettering in their work.

Oh and Happy Birthday Alex!

My little brother is 22 today!

Fifty-three days until Christmas!

Hello All. I'm back and ready to get creating. Yesterday I had a sudden compulsion to design and make an advent calendar and here is the result. The image to the left is the front and the image to the right contains the little pictures under the flaps.


And here are some photos of the finished thing...

I'm off to Spain next week!

I'll be leaving on Sunday for a week in Ampurias, an ancient Roman town complete with ruins and a beach! I'm taking my sketch pads (and Linn) so I'll be posting images when I return.

My Desk

My new prize possession is my Dell LCD 19" Monitor. This beauty has freed up a huge amount of desk space as well as improving my digital workspace too! Anyway, I drew this in response to a brief titled 'Wish You Were Here', the idea being to depict a place where you meet people, talk to friends and get inspiration. Well sorry guys but my PC is my access to the world. I have every visual reference I could ever require and my best friends from all over the world can be reached via the click of a mouse (hooray for Skype and Messenger). Plus I've been a little under the weather this week so I haven't strayed far from my desk.

I'd also like to link this piece to a website that I find fascinating called 'On My Desk'. Here creatives share photos of their workspaces and give a little insight into their inspirations and methods. I warn you it is very addictive...

I'm everywhere!

We popped down to Waverley Train Station today to take a few pictures of the barrier arms with my images on them. We also happened upon one of the taxis! Once we'd spotted one we kept on seeing them everywhere!

It is finally here!

My book arrived from the publishers this morning so it is now available for all you lovely people to purchase. You can get it on Amazon, W H Smith or straight from my publishers. You know you want to....

An ancient horse

My grandparents had one of these at their house, whether it was real or not I don't know! I love the way these statues stand and I had a compulsion to draw one.

My Business Gateway poster in Glasgow...

Thanks to Lex for pointing this out and providing a map! I took this photo this afternoon. If anyone else spots one please feel free to let me know. I saw a few more of this particular one but I'd like a photo of one of the green ones!

Business Gateway

I've been reliably informed that my posters have been spotted in Glasgow! Well here they are anyway. If you haven't seen it already I've just re-built my website so please take a look.

Riding under the influence

A 'cowboy' rode his horse into a number of bars in the German town of Geseke whilst drunk. He was eventually arrested and his horse spent the night in the police stable.

Another animal encounter!

Okay, according to the news Zhang Xinyan, a construction worker, drank four pints of beer and then climbed into the cage of Gu Gu, a seven-year-old panda, at Beijing Zoo. He then attempted to hug Gu Gu and was rewarded with a bite on the leg. He responded with equal force but failed to get his teeth through the panda's thick fur. A zoo worker used a hose to seperate the pair with jets of water. Zhang claimed to have seen panda's being hugged on TV. He will be off work for a month recovering from his injuries and Gu Gu is off his food.

A brief look at the news headlines...

And I came upon this beauty yesterday. Apparently the groom was caught in an intimate position with said goat and a group of officials decided that this was the correct course of events. He paid the animals owner a dowry and both he and the goat haven't been seen since. I actually thoroughly approve of this logical outcome!

Lemmings Don't Leap!

I forgot to mention that I received a copy of a book I drew images for the cover for a few weeks back. It is called 'Lemmings Don't Leap' and is a collection of '180 Myths, Misconceptions and Urban Legends Exploded'. Well worth a read actually!

CBBC Website

Busy day today creative-wise. My image 'Breakout' went up on the CBBC website today so take a look!

If you live in London...

...go see my work which will be part of the exhibition at Magma Books...

MAGMA EXHIBITION, LONDON
Before we officially go live at www.noisefestival.com on Tuesday 3rd October, a month long exhibition of NOISE artwork will begin at Magma on 27th September, in collaboration with media partner, Grafik Magazine, the leading journal of the best in international graphic design. A selection of graphic design, photography, illustration, film and fashion talent will be on display at Magma’s London store on Theobald’s Road, between Clerkenwell and Holborn.

It is due to run from 26th September until 29th October.

Just an excuse to draw a woolly mammoth...

Woohoo, book finally finished and going to print this week. I've had an idea for another one though and am beginning work on that. I'm off back to college on September 28th to do my Masters. Hopefully being able to dedicate my entire days to my artwork I'll be able to experiment more and get some personal work done. It'll be fun learning to balance my paid work with my studies and I look forward to the challenge!

Today's efforts...

The image of the animal band was something that came to me last night as I lay in bed. It has been a while since I had the time to indulge in a bit of drawing for myself. I've had a lot of work on- but I'm not complaining mind you!

I've just finished three posters for Business Gateway that should be going up on buses, taxis and giant posters. I'll post them here once they're sorted.

The other image is something I'm working on for the CBBC 'What's Your Picture Story?' competition. It is for younger children who write in with stories about what is happening in the picture. I hope they use it as I'd love to hear some different interpretations of my work!

Next week will be all about my book. We're starting on the final layout and going to press pretty soon!

A Native Species...

From a suggestion by Steve that Scottish wasps are tartan coloured. I just love that idea for some reason...

Naturally Beautiful

I read this somewhere on MSN and thought I'd illustrate it. It is disturbing to see people in the limelight, such as Victoria Beckham, begin to look disturbingly similar to starving children. Life is for living, not for worrying about looking like someone else. Beauty is all about confidence and character anyway.

Gang oot on the toon...

One of today's creations.

Look familiar?

Here is my latest illo for my book 'Dae Ye Ken?'. This one has been submitted to the FlairIllustration competition and you can view my entry here.

It is raining cats and dogs and various other animals in Edinburgh today. My cat is curled up under our duvet laughing at me for braving the outside world.

I'm on a roll...

...despite the fact that it is Sunday and I should be taking a break. Funnily enough I don't seem to be able to do any of my more pressing work, just doodling these odds and ends instead. But hey- its the weekend!

The perils of facial hair...

I wonder how they worked that one out? Did they just have a one-off charge or was it staggered according to bushiness and length? Another fascinating fact from Vicki...

Glove Thief

I was reading about this one year old cat in the U.S. that has brought home 9 pairs of gloves and five singles in the last seven weeks. His owners have created a little stall outside their front gate asking people to take back any gloves that they recognise and apologising for their wayward kitty's behaviour!

On another note, I've started experimenting with creating my own patterns and placing them in my images. It started with polka dots and now I've recreated the rose pattern on the pair of garden gloves in the image above. It seems to be working and in keeping with my use of flat, bold colours.

You Know You Want to Take a Peek

A classroom scene

Another image for the folks at Storlann. Their site is coming along nicely and I'm pretty happy with the designer's treatment of my work. He has animated bits of it and added sound effects! I'll publish a link once it is up and running. Talking of websites, I've just finished work on my brand spanking new site and will be launching it this evening. Feedback and constructive criticism gratefully received...

A musing moment

As you may or may not know by now, I have recently become responsible for a rather loud, utterly gorgeous siamese cat called Morrisey (AKA the Schnarf). His dinner of choice is Kitekat's Chicken with Gravy and this set me off thinking about how you'd actually pronouce the brand.

Also worthy of note- last week we found a congealed screw in his dish and I wrote a bitchy letter to those people at Masterfoods...

Images from Dae Ye Ken?

Work on my book, due to be published this year, is now in full swing. Thought I'd let everyone take a quick look at some of the images I've been working on today.

A sneak preview of a current project

These images are for the Storlann website I am currently involved with. They were coloured using Illustrator and are intended to entertain children and parents (quite a wide market!).

I love this photo!

From a studio session we did in May. We booked our whole family in for two hours and Adam took the photos. We're still waiting on the colour ones but here is one of my favourites.

And while I'm here...

Here is another. I'm using Adobe Illustrator for this project and I'm able to work my way around the palettes now. Seems quite a few clients are keen on Illustrator rather than Photoshop so the skills will come in handy.

Long Time No Write

Apologies for my no show. I've been a busy person. This is a good thing but a tiring one. I've also been off galavanting around the Alps on holiday.

The image above is part of a series I'm doing for a clients website. Once the site is up and running I'll post the link.

Monogamy

Sounds like the beginning of a rant or serious discussion but actually it is a series of images I'm working on for a wedding card. My cousin is finally marrying his long term girlfriend and I decided to look at monogamy in the animal kingdom.