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!

click to enlarge

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

click to enlarge

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:

click to enlarge

 * sorry it's a bit blurry

My Saturday Morning

click to enlarge

On Saturday morning Jemma went to have her haircut so I decided to go for a mooch up the road and have a look in the shops. Above is what I saw.

(I also bought two really delicious sandwiches from the deli for our lunch. I wasn't allowed to buy two exactly the same - they had to be different - Deli rules according to the very happy, very friendly,very chatty owner!)

Attention! C'est une patinoire!

click to enlarge

Translation: WATCH OUT! It's an ice rink!

When I was in Paris before Christmas, Jemma and I went to have a breakfast picnic in a beautiful little park near to where she used to teach. It was a very bright, but cold and icy morning and we enjoyed eating out croissants on a bench by the duck pond. All of a sudden a troupe of nursery school children marched down the path and the above happened. I felt a bit sorry for their teacher - I think he had his hands full with his chic, clumsy little pupils!

I sketched the scene in my sketchbook when we were having a warm up hot chocolate in a cafe nearby. I couldn't resist colouring it in.

... and she carried her home...

click to enlarge

I don't know where the line '... and she carried her home...' came from. I doodled the lady with the cat and the line of text floated into my head.

Above is the final illustration, taken from my original sketchbook page.

Sketchbook Update 2

click to enlarge

More sketchbook doodles!

Sketchbook Update 1

click to enlarge

A selection of my recent sketchbook doodles.

Mostly drawn whilst on holiday recently - a good way to pass the time on a 10 1/2 hour plane journey!

More to follow....

Murphy

My parents came up to York last week for a visit, bringing with them their two dogs Murphy and Barney.

Barney is a big, tubby border terrier with a sweet little face which looks like he's run very hard into a brick wall and Murphy is a Westipoo - half West Highland White Terrier, half small poodle.

I couldn't resist sketching Murphy over the weekend. He has such a strong character. I don't know whether it's the combination of his long ears and bushy eyebrows, or just the way that he is a big baby (encouraged by my mum!), but I just find him hilarious. He's a massive fuss pot, can't bear anybody playing with his toys, likes to be involved in everything that's going on, loves to be dressed up in ribbons and bows left over from Christmas presents and absolutely refuses to eat his lunch unless it has a light sprinkling of grated cheese over it.

The thing I find most funny about Murph is that when he's had his haircut he reminds me of Anna Wintour! But I think he's a lot nicer...

Pet Lovers

I'm not sure why this hasn't scanned very well....?

In other pet related news, my sister-in-law-to-be is coming to visit today. I don't think I am ready for the level of hysteria and excitement this will create amongst our dogs. They will literally not calm down for the entire time she's here.

Gingerbread

Blimey I've been busy. I've spent the last couple of weeks shut up in the studio hunched over the light box working on the finished artwork for the next couple of books I'm illustrating. They are two brilliant young fiction stories written by the very talented Anna Maxted and I can't wait to tell you more about them but unfortunately it's all TOP SECRET at the moment but as soon as I can I will. What I will say is that the stories are action packed, very exciting and extremely funny, which makes working on them a lot of fun

Because I've been so busy my sketchbooking has been a bit neglected. However I have managed to do two new pieces which you can see above and, of course over at my flickr page.

In other exciting news, an ad campaign I worked on before Christmas has launched! It's for the charity GINGERBREAD and it was a fantastic opportunity to work in a field outside of publishing and experience a different way of working. Follow this link to see the ad in full at the campaign website.

Love!

It's been wedding crazy around here recently. Jem and I are getting married later this year so I've been busy designing our Save the date cards as well as designing invitations for a friend of mine who is getting married in June.

The above mouse picture is an illustration I did quickly the other afternoon for a wedding my parents are going to... I'm wedding-ed out for the time being, but I did hear rumours that I might be required to do some wedding cake tasting soon so I am getting myself rather excited about... can't wait!

Further Mysteries...

More sketchbook images.

The top one is of a little boy I saw last Wednesday in Scarborough Station. He was bundled up against the cold and wasn't really having a very happy time.

The second image is once again a mystery. I'm not sure where this picture came from or what is really going on. All I know is that it's called 'The Surprise Party' and that that house belongs to someone not very nice at all...

In other sketchbook news - my sketchbook has been hijacked by my four year old nephew. I left if on the table at my parent's house over the weekend only to find later that day that a few pages at the back of the book have been doodled on by The Phantom Doodler! I'll post some of his pictures soon!

Tattoos and cake

This is a half remembered quote... but I have know idea where I heard it...

 We had a really nice weekend being new gadget geeks (Hello iPhone! Hello new camera!) and rooting around at a vintage clothes and homewares fair. I bought a framed picture featuring four  victorian ladies in their sunday best. I also had a lovely slice of raspberry sponge from these lovely people. Mmmmm...cake...

Mysteries ( of all descriptions!)

Another image from my sketchbook.

A mystery story seems to be developing within the pages of my sketchbook. Firstly there was the siblings following footprints across a frosty moor, then the rabbit and mouse investigating a doorway in a dark alley and now this - stern faced Victorians and a little boy and his uncle following a thief  in a jungle temple who is making off with some treasure. I think a story might be brewing  and that's exciting.

Talking of mysteries and treasure look what I found at the weekend:

Jem's parent's were up to visit us this week and after having afternoon tea in Betty's tearoom we went for a rummage in an antique fayre. I got the above - it's a child's film star scrap book from the 1930s and it's incredible. The effort put into cutting out these images and gluing them in is fantastic and this will be a brilliant resource for my artwork... but I'm just wondering who created it??

And here is something else I've been meaning to show you:

A while ago we bought a chest of drawers from a vintage furniture shop and all the drawers were stuffed full of brown paper and card - I'm assuming to protect the drawers whilst it was being transported. Once we'd got the chest of drawers into position I cleared the drawers and found this tucked into a crack at the back. It was actually a negative, but a bit of photoshop magic revealed the picture - a family portrait from I think, the 1930s. Isn't it brilliant?! But what I want to know is who are they? Where did they live? What did they do? 

I'd love to know... but maybe the magic comes from the mystery of not knowing.

Down a dark, dark alley...

Above is a painting which I worked up from an image in my sketchbook (pages of which you can see over on my flickr site.)

I'm really enjoying painting more and relying less on photoshop to colour in artwork. There's something incredibly satisfying about sitting in the  ( newly tidied!) studio, painting and humming along to the radio.

Yoga

Sadly this is true! I always fall asleep and I'm now wondering if I'm *that* person who wakes up with a jolt and a snort at the end.

Dancers come in all shapes and sizes

Jim'll Fix It

Dear Jim,

 Please fix it  for me to illustrate 101 Dalmations. It has everything I would love to draw - dogs, exciting action and a wickedly stylish villan. I would set it in the late 1950s/ early sixties and would have the best time ever.*

Thank you,

Alex

Above pictures are doodles from my sketchbook for Cruella DeVille's wardrobe as well as some pictures of the pooches. In other news I am very excited to find that this sketchbook which is not my usual brand, allows me to draw with my dip pen and paint with out it bleeding all over the place or soaking through- brilliant!

* I retain the right to take this last statement back if I do ever get to illustrate this book and find drawing 99 different puppies  all the time just a little bit irritating...

BEAR SUIT.

Last night it was minus eight in York. Outside the snow lay deep and crisp and huge flakes tumbled from the sky.... AAAANNNNDDD.... our boiler stopped working!! HOORAY!

We tried everything we could to get it going but, alas, nothing worked. There was nothing for it other than to bundle up in our warm clothes, strap the chihuahua to us to stop him shivering. This morning however, we realised that the problem was that the condensation pipe outside had frozen, so we quickly defrosted it, fired up the boiler and now it works! 

The sense of accomplishment is, sadly, immense!

The above is a page from my sketchbook and my goodness that bear suit would have come in useful last night. The only problem is that if I had one, I don't think I would ever take it off...

Get your own bear suit here:

The All-in-One company

Snow! Snow! Snow!

We are under a thick, thick, thick blanket of snow here which is making me want to roll myself up in a blanket and sit by the window drinking frothy coffee and scoffing cake.

No change from normal really....

Above is a little sketch I did of Bella, our middle dog ( middle in age, but the biggest of all three) who is a gentle little sausage and finds an enormous amount of things in life of which to be scared. At the moment snow falling from the sky is bothering her immensely. Instead she is choosing to spend the day curled up like a doughnut on our bed  slowly blinking and occasionally going cross eyed as she watches the snowflakes tumble by outside. I don't blame her.

I've started a brand new sketchbook for the new year and will be uploading images from it most days ( along with other things) at my new flickr page. Go here to have a nosey!

What's Hot + What's Not...

Click to enlarge ( got that problem sorted now!)

Well it's Wednesday which means, according to the brilliant Loobylu,  it's time for a post about What's Hot and What's Not with me today. 

Here goes:

What's Hot:

* Autumn!

I'll be honest with you, this was almost resigned very firmly into the NOT category. Yesterday was revolting here - wet and rainy from morning until night, thick grey clouds everywhere and our heating decided not to work, then suddenly kicked in and the boiler made a horrendous clanking, shuddering noise. I thought a Borrowers reenactment of the First World war was going on in the airing cupboard. 

Today, however, Autumn has redeemed itself - beautiful sunny skies, a brisk chill in the air and a great big fat orange pumpkin is sitting on my kitchen unit waiting to be whipped up into a spicy soup! YES. PLEASE! 

*Finding the 3 Moleskin Sketchbooks I bought Ages Ago Then Promptly Lost.

Horray! I've found them! 

I'm new to the world of Moleskins and I'm really enjoying working in them. ( see image above) That soft yellow colour of the pages is a beautiful surface to work on and for some reason a lot less scary than a bright white page. Usually when I start a sketchbook I shyly start scribbling on the back pages, but not with my new/newly found Moleskin - I've jumped straight in at the beginning and am loving it!

*Radio Four.

Something else which I'm new too. In the past I've been a bit of a flitterer - diving about here and there to different radio stations during the day whilst getting increasingly irritated either by the presenters or by hearing exactly the same collection of songs  pretty much in the same order, every hour ( I'm looking at you Radio one...). Either that or I gave up and either popped on Spotify or worked like a hermit in silence. 

Now, I've discovered Radio Four. The  Home-Workers Companion. The Deliverer of Knowledge, Culture and Opinion into my Very Own Ears from morning until night (well until Jemma arrives home). It's just brilliant - a variety of different programmes covering a multitude of subjects and no music to either get bored with or distract me in terms of having to chair dance whilst I'm grappling with a difficult picture or a problematic paragraph. JOYFUL!

*Properly Waisted Trousers.

Low Riders - BE GONE! 'Sits low on the Waist' - you no longer seduce me! I am no longer your friend or slave! I will live a life of hoiking up my waistband as I walk or worrying about my botty being exposed when I sit down no more.  I am now (and I pray this isn't a sign of age or an on coming quarter life crisis) a fan of the properly waisted trouser (I hear a ripple of applause from Jemma, my mum and my grandmother who have been nagging me for ages to get some proper slacks and put my botty away) I am now converted to the charms of vintage styled trousers proudly worn on my wait. The comfort is delightful and the slightly rakish look of a 1940's spiv it gives me is an added bonus!

What's NOT:

*Worrying abut the Owl in our Street.

 The other evening whilst strolling down the street whilst walking the dogs we noticed an owl swopping from the rooftops. It's moved in somewhere down the road we think and we are now very concerned that it might mistake our Chihuahua for a mouse when the poor little thing is outside doing - well - you know what. Unfortunately, I don't think Mr. Owl will be swayed by The Chihuahua's winning smile, big googly eyes or  his likeness  to a certain easy listening legend and leave him alone.  I am now forced to stand out side of an evening like a minder for the dogs, glaring at the rooftops  whilst armed with something to throw incase of an Owl attack.

*Cold Mornings.

These are not fun. Anything which makes me leap out of bed and slam the windows shut like Nanny in the Eloise books is absolutely NOT HOT in my book.

* Glade Plug -In CHRISTMAS Air Freshener Adverts Being on TV in OCTOBER

Not hot, Glade... Not. HOT.