Monday 24 December 2012

Merry Christmas

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This was my Christmas card this year. I called it 'Christmas Cheer'.

I'm sorry that my advent calendar slipped off a bit towards the end. I blame a terrific chest infection that knocked me off my feet for a few days. Hopefully next year I can do a full 24 days!

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to everyone that visits my blog and/or follows me on Twitter. You really are such an astoundingly lovely bunch of people.
For me 2012 has been a bit of a mixed bag. At times sad, and at others, full of joy and happiness. You can all count yourself in the later portion of that. You have all entertained me, inspired me and made me laugh. Your support for my work has been astonishing and I have appreciated every kind comment posted here or on Twitter.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, full of laughter, love and the company of family and friends. I hope the new year brings you excitement and adventures and I hope that you will continue to share them with me.  I have much to look forward to in 2013 and I hope the same can be said for you all too.

Have a peaceful and joyous holiday.
With lots of love and Christmas wishes 
from

Alex, 
Coco and Mr. Bongo the Chihuahuas 
and Lucy the Ancient Yorkshire Terrier.
xxx

Monday 17 December 2012

Monday 10 December 2012

Sunday 9 December 2012

Thursday 6 December 2012

Alex's Advent Calendar 2012 No.6


December 6th
An Important Letter.

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Monday 3 December 2012

Sunday 2 December 2012

Saturday 1 December 2012

Wednesday 31 October 2012

Happy Hallowe'en...

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I created this image for my agents Arena Illustration.
I hope you all have a truly horror-licious Halloween...

MWAHAHAHAHA....

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Edith...


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Friday 12 October 2012

A hearty hello!

Hello my blog reading pals!

Just a quick update to say that I'm still here! I've just been very busy indeed.(More about that soon!) In the meantime, here is a rather friendly pooch on his penny farthing bike. How he is going to work the peddles, I don't know! But he seems happy enough...



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I promise I'll be back with new things soon!

:-)

Sunday 23 September 2012

One Snowy Night...

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I'm being inspired by all things 1920s at the moment. I blame Downton Abbey...

Tuesday 14 August 2012

More Characters...


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From my sketchbook.

Saturday 11 August 2012

Characters



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I love people watching. Mainly because I'm a nosy parker, but also because I find it fascinating to observe what people do, especially when they don't know they are being watched. I don't tend to do much doodling on the spot in my sketchbook, instead I keep my eyes open all the time for interesting people or characters. When I spot someone I sort of take a photograph of them with my mind and mentally note their key feature and what it was that brought them to my attention. Then, when I have a few spare minutes, I remember them as best I can and get doodling.

Sometimes, of course, I just make people up!

Above are two recent sketchbook pages. The top image is of some made up characters that just popped into my head the other afternoon. I don't know who they are or where they came from, but that's quite fun. Perhaps they have a story to tell me...

The bottom image is of some real people I spotted yesterday evening on the train and in and around St. Pancras station. I always find trains and train stations are brilliant places to find new characters.
Try it yourself next time you are travelling somewhere!


Sneak peeks...





Typically shoddy photos of some work in progress. More sneak peeks of more stylish girls soon!

Monday 16 July 2012

New Things!

Hello lovely blog readers!

As you can see I've give this place a bit of a once over.
We have a nice new header up there (*points upwards*) and if you slide your eyes over to right, you'll find under the photograph two new pages - an 'About' page with my biog and information and then we have a page featuring doodles from my sketchbook.

Go and have a nosy...

Wednesday 11 July 2012

A trip under the sea with The Nephews...

The other day, Big Nephew (7) and I did a bit of sketchbooking together.
The night before I had started to doodle an underwater scene and that inspired him to draw one of his own.
We spent a good hour getting engrossed in our pictures and both decided that we'd quite like to have a pootle about under the ocean in our very own submarine. It would have to look like this one though and I would insist that we both wore fetching red hats (even though my ears stick out too much for me to wear those sort of hats usually..)

These are the results of our sketchbooking session.

Here's Big Nephew's busy underwater scene*. Can you spot our submarine? the the broken up pirate ship? And the message tucked into a bottle? And all the pirate treasure floating about? Looks rather exciting I think!


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And here is my effort. This scene features Big Nephew and his brother Little Nephew.


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If this were a scene from real life, I don't think they would have found the treasure at all. There would have been so much jumping into the sea, I doubt very much that there would be time left for them to go exploring at all. This I know from experience at the swimming pool...

Here's my picture all coloured in:
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 * sorry it's a bit blurry

Tuesday 10 July 2012

Saturday 7 July 2012

Miss Marple

Anyone who follows me on Twitter, or has met me knows that I am a bit of an Agatha Christie addict. I do like a murder, but only if it happens in a world of afternoon teas on the lawn, mysterious colonials, suspicious spinsters and unusual goings on in the Vicarage.

I've been doodling Miss Marple a bit this week and decided to finish one of my doodles up into a piece for my portfolio. ( This is a not very subtle way of saying "CAN SOMEONE HIRE ME TO ILLUSTRATE ONE OF AGATHA CHRISTIE'S BOOKS PLEASE"...)

Ahem...

So, here we have the finished picture of Miss Marple eavesdropping or contemplating something she's only just seen the significance of...



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And here we have a doodle from my sketchbook of Miss Marple observing from the garden...


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Thursday 5 July 2012

New Picture Book: CATCH US IF YOU CAN-CAN!

Well, it's here! My new picture book 'CATCH US IF YOU CAN-CAN!', the sequel to my book 'EGG'.

The naughty Foxy DuBois is back with another dastardly scheme which sees her trying to steal a golden egg that's the prize in a dance competition. This time though, she's not acting alone... she ropes in her old rival Alphonso, a giant alligator to be her partner in crime, but the terrible twosome soon find themselves dancing with danger...

Available to pre-order online here, or you should be able to pick up a copy in a month's time in your local chain or independent book shop.
(Try to support your local independent bookshop if you can-can!)


Here's are some sneaky peeks inside:









Monday 2 July 2012

This Little Pig...

Hello!

*waves*

Sorry I haven't updated this for a while. I have had the maddest month - non stop events AND trying to finish the artwork for CLAUDE book 5.
Aaaaaaaaannnnd...... Today I did it!
CLAUDE in the Spotlight is now complete and I've handed it over to my lovely designer for her to work her magic on it. I've had so much fun working on it, and I hope you all enjoy it when it publishes in April 2013. When I'm allowed to post a sneaky preview on here, I will.

In the mean time, here is one of the three little pigs. This one is the one who built his house out of wood, obviously. He started out as a doodle in my sketchbook, but I couldn't help colouring him in.
I'll try and put some of my recent sketchbook pages up on here this week and I promise to start updating regularly again starting from.........now!


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Thursday 24 May 2012

Tuesday 15 May 2012

The Borrowed Dog Circus...



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This is a picture I did for my little friend Nevaeh, to whom I am an Honorary Uncle because her mum is one of my best friend's from childhood.


The other day Nevaeh's mum Sophie got in contact with me to tell me that following the Britain's Got Talent final where a performing dog won, Nevaeh had formulated a plan which she (Nevaeh) believes will make her win next year's competition and propel her to SUPER STARDOM! 


The plan is as follows:


Nevaeh to her Mum:  


"I'm sure Uncle Alex will let me borrow one of his tiny dogs to train with for next years show?

Imagine what tricks we could do? Do you think the girly one would do some ballet with me? 

Nanny's Bailey is far to BIG and stinky!"

My dogs, as most of you know, are two tiny, very naughty chihuahuas. I say good luck to Nevaeh if she thinks she can train them, because I can't!
The image of this plan really made me laugh. I couldn't imagine my boy chihuahua, Mr Billy Bongo, being too pleased about squeezing into a tutu, so I decided to draw Nevaeh as a Circus performer instead.

It's Nanny's poor boxer dog Bailey who I feel sorry for. I'm sure a spritz of perfume and a jazzy bow would make the world of difference...

So keep your eyes peeled on BGT next year as you might see my two pooches sashaying around the stage with an excitable 5 year old. They'd certainly get my vote!

Monday 14 May 2012

The Swing...

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The swing at the bottom of the garden was a great place to start another wonderful adventure...

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Surprise (with light and shade!)


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As you'll see from the below post, I put this image online earlier today, but I couldn't help thinking that it wasn't quite finished. I am an awful one for tinkering about with my pictures - nudging things here and there etc, but I felt that this little boy's special surprise was missing a bit of light and shade. It needed just a little bit more drama, maybe. Some light coming through the (unseen) leaves.

Above is the 'tinkered with' image I'm happy with. The RGB jpeg format does flatten the colours a bit. The CMYK file is much richer than this, but that's Photoshop for you!

Now what I'd like to know is what is in those parcels...? Ideas anyone?

Surprise!





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Monday 7 May 2012