Open Studios at Coburg House - 11:00 - 17:00, 1st & 2nd December

I'm taking part in my first open weekend at Coburg House Art Studios in Leith. If you're knocking about Edinburgh today or tomorrow between 11am and 5pm, why not drop in and take a look at the great work on show...there may even be a free glass of wine in it for you.

"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain..."

I recently decided that I could make use of a better showcase for my work and set about creating a portfolio website, which went live today. The quote from A.A. Milne sprung to mind because I approached the task with spectacularly little technical expertise and in spite of that have managed to create something, which is near enough to what I aspired to.

Naturally most of the credit for this achievement lies elsewhere, with the excellent foundations Wordpress provide and the community of developers creating tools such as Nextgen Gallery and Ultimate TinyMCE. I marvel at these folks, who seem to dedicate their free time to helping those of us with analogue brains.

Thanks awarded, this blog will still be the destination for updates. Such as the illustration below:

Inspired by Jeff Smith's incredibly elegant linework in his Bone series, this marks my first effort using a brush in place of a fine-liner or nib-pen.

Stripped to the bone

A boat I'd seen beached on a shingle bay in a small village in the Scottish Highlands provided the inspiration for this image. It's innards were all brazenly on show, including the porcelain throne that perhaps once was the only sanctuary from the cramped conditions on board.

Colour is something I'm continuing to practise. In a recent interview the excellent Glyn Dillon mentioned a blog by comic colourist Jordie Bellaire who extracts lovely, harmonious colour pallettes from movies and the like. Well worth exploring.

Jack's Amazing Journey

I recently had the good fortune to be involved in a project to encourage oral story-telling throughout Europe. These drawings are from the tale Jack's Amazing Journey, which continues the scrapes he of the beanstalk fame frequently finds himself in. One of the project's highlights were some beautiful Icelandic folk-songs of which I'd like to hear more.

The Hairlet

Many moons ago a posted a quick sketch of a young lad cowering beneath his bed-sheets with an ominous presence at the window. That idea has since percolated through my grey matter, to become a very short story set to appear in David O'Connell's sure to be excellent Ink and Paper volume II. He released a preview of the cover just the other day and I'm sure there will be plenty more tasty morsels to follow.

A character sketch

A character developed for a four page story in David O'Connell's Ink+Paper 2, due out in June. He's got the oversized school blazer, I just need to work out how to include the obligatory nose-trails on the sleeves.