new building

Not one of mine! You can read all about the new arts centre proposed for Aberdeen on the Peacock Visual Arts website, now in danger of being shelved in favour of a design with no imagination or sympathy for the surrounding gardens.

Grays' School of Art graduate Katie Guthrie has started a petition in support of the project in Union Terrace Gardens, and to save the historic gardens (and not have them 'slabbed over', like Sir Ian Wood is proposing). Please sign and let others know about it. http://tinyurl.com/n9rdxm

here comes the sun

The lovely summer issue of Juno with my illustrations has arrived, as usual packed full of interesting stuff and, this time, my bio - not too embarrassing, although I wish I had the time to beaver away on my books! Instead the Growing Boy is languishing untouched while I finish the leaflet for the Woodend Music Society....

our glorious leader

Some photoshop nonsense for Lee's birthday on Sunday (luckily he does not know, or care!, of the existence of this blog...)

monkey and bear

A 20 minute illustration, literally. There is a reason - all will become clear when I edit this post shortly - but, if I'm honest, this illustration has been in my head for some time and I just needed a reason to do it. It's inspired by Monkey and Bear on Joanna Newsom's Ys album. I love this song, but have to admit the lyrics have troubled me for some time - something awful happens to that bear... Listen and see if you agree...

Edit: And as promised, here's why I did it. Mikka's is one of the saddest stories I've come across. Read it and I promise you, you will have to draw a bear (and I hope you do).... My spread for Mishkina Knizhka (the little bear's book and Misha's book) is above. Mikka's photographs are fabulous, what a pointless waste. Sometimes I really do wonder...

return of the pet portraits and Lee/Che

Well, just this once... I've been consciously doing less and less of the portraits, simply because I wanted to concentrate on my other work and the portrait site was becoming a little too successful. I love animals, but spending week in, week out drawing dogs was losing its lustre a little. This one is a special case however, its Lee's girlfriend's dog, Ben, who died last year and he wanted to give her a portrait as a birthday gift. How could I refuse!

It's Lee's 21st birthday this weekend... so scary how time flies. As he's obsessed with Che Guevara and his user name on everything is Our Glorious Leader, I'm making a spoof of the poster above for his birthday and getting a friend to print it out at A1 - will post my effort when I'm finished. I did think about using the iconic image, but it's just too obvious. There's even a site where you can Che Guevarize yourself! How sad.

the jumis tree

The Jumis Tree is heading to Italy as I type, now let's see if it is selected for inclusion (I hope so, I like it far better than the Fires of Beltane illustration in the current exhibition).

The colours in the hires scan are so much brighter than the digital pics I took with my camera in the previous posts! There will be a limited edition run of 30 giclee prints of the Jumis Tree on the painted forest.

nooks and crannies