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.

"Nelson, Nelson every where..."

"...but plenty a drop to drink."

This perversion of Coleridges's Rime of the Ancient Mariner refers of course to the stellar launches of British comics anthology Nelson at the Cartoon Museum and Gosh comics (covered here) last week.

For the latter event I had a great time scrawling all over Gosh's windows with Sarah Macintyre, Jake and Woodrow Phoenix, the results of which are pictured below:

The source illustration for my window adornment was the character sketch I sent to the editors of Nelson (Rob Davis and Woodrow) prior to drawing my five page chapter for the year 1999.

Yoho ahoy

After several single panels posted, I thought it only right and proper to post a couple of panels in sequence. It may not be apparent from the various images I've posted, but I've seen my style develop quite a lot over the course of the book - I think mainly for the better. However I am prone to torturously examining my drawing, so it's just as likely that no-one will notice any difference when the book is available to read in February 

Stormy, stormy skies

It's certainly high time I posted something, so here's an establishing shot, which kicks off a (hopefully) dramatic section of the book.
I have to thank Warwick Johnson Cadwell for the doom laden clouds as I used a photo he'd taken and posted to Twitter as visual reference. On the off chance you've not visited his blog, I'd hot-foot it over there for a bevy of extraordinarily dynamic drawing.

The Silver Darlings cover & MA show

First off, apologies for the distinctly spartan nature of blog posts lately. I have been furiously drawing, painting and making imperceptible tweaks on Photoshop to prepare for my MA show (more on this later) and to get my book The Silver Darlings ready to print later this year. The book is being published on Blank Slate's awesomely diverse Chalk Marks imprint and I'm delighted to be in the company of some mega talent there. All credit to Kenny Penman and the team at Blank Slate for supporting new creators with such a luxuriant platform...On that note if you haven't already I'd recommend picking up Joe Decie's book The Accidental Salad, his off-key observations brightened an otherwise dismal tube journey and beyond. 


The illustration topping this post is for the wrap-around cover to my Chalk Marks book and below is the hardcover mock-up for my MA show, for which I liberally borrowed from the style of European graphic albums.

Finally on the subject of my MA show, it kicks off tomorrow (2nd September) and runs all the way through to the 8th. Please come on down to Camberwell to take a look and in case you want a preview of some of the work on show saunter over to this link.