The Swimming Lesson

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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!

The Swing...

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

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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Goodnight Mr.Pigeon...

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A day out with Grandad...

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Little Umbrella Girl

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Uncling

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Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I love being an uncle. I also love books and drawing.
The other day whilst listening to a discussion on the radio about whether too much technology is damaging today's children, I mentioned that I felt my Little Nephew (who's 3) who had trouble initially to connect with books and reading and drawing, had been helped hugely by learning to use the iPad and particularly the gorgeous Nosy Crow apps that we downloaded for him.

Then Kate, the lovely MD of Nosy Crow only went and asked me to write a guest blog about it didn't she? So I did. I also drew the above picture to go with it. So go ----> here<-----  if you'd like to read my opinions about the eBook vs the 'real' book debate, how the iPad created an artist out of my Little Nephew and about a tap dancing gorilla who makes a lot of noise....

Illustration Friday: Jump! Or The Pig Family on Holiday at the Mud Pool

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