Submission to Mail Me Art

I bought a copy of the Mail Me Art - Short & Sweet book about a year ago. The "Mail Me Art" project is co-ordinated by Darren Di Lieto, the brains behind The Little Chimp Society and Hire An Illustrator, and involves illustrators the world over posting postcards they've illustrated which will then be published in book form. Short & Sweet was the third such Mail Me Art project, and the current one is "Open All Hours" - not that the illustration has to be on that theme at all. 

I've been meaning to get round to submitting an image ever since, but I was a bit daunted by the one-shot nature of it - each submission must be on an official card, and must be hand drawn or painted rather than printed. Not much room for mistakes! I finally committed myself to it this week though, and the above image is the result. 

Below are the cover of the MMA Short & Sweet book, and the required photo of my postcard being posted. Here's hoping it arrives in a reasonable state!

Indecision - illustration

The Cow of Desire - an alternative butchery diagram

It think the title says it all.

Awkward First Meetings - #QuickDraw submission

Each Thursday at 7pm OFF LIFE magazine posts up a topic on Twitter using the hashtag #Quickdraw - the idea being that illustrators and comic book artists produce and post up an illustration by 8pm, ie within the hour. 

Yesterday evening the theme was "Awkward First Meetings" and I submitted the drawing above.

F C Schadenfreude - the football club we ALL really support.

The "official" badge or crest of FC Schadenfreude, with the club motto "We sing when you're losing!".

Because let's face it, a huge part of being a football fan is the sheer pleasure of gloating at another team's dismal performance and humiliating scoreline.

Consider it the visual equivalent of Nelson Muntz's laugh and feel free to use the image above to taunt friends, colleagues and opposition fans on websites, and in forums and twitter feeds. At some point I might even look into getting it made as an embroidered patch.

Hackney DIY Art Fair - 31st August 2014

The Hackney Flea DIY Art Market took place on August 30th and 31st, in Abney Hall, just off Church Street in Stoke Newington London N16. It was the first time I'd taken a stall at an event like this, and I wasn't sure what to expect so I shared a table on the Sunday with market regular Caz of Beetle and Wilde.

All in all it was a very good day - a steady stream of visitors, some great feedback and a fair few sales (my smiling chicken head print in particular sold well). I also met some great people, including Hastings-based illustrator Georgia Sawers, and Julieta and David from Stokey-based Pixel Press letterpress studio. 

It was certainly worthwhile enough to make me think I'll do it again and probably take a table to myself next time to be able to display more of my screenprints. I'll post details here and on Twitter when I know when that might be...

i-SPY Apocalypse - 7 mundane signs of the end-of-days

We all know about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right? Famine, War, Pestilence and Death. Well here are seven slightly more mundane signs of the impending end of days. How many have you seen?

Festival Nightmare - #QuickDraw submission

Each Thursday at 7pm OFF LIFE magazine posts up a topic on Twitter using the hashtag #Quickdraw - the idea being that illustrators and comic book artists produce and post up an illustration by 8pm, ie within the hour. 

I'm not particularly fast at illustrating, often drawing an image two or three times before I'm satisfied with it, plus I'm often busy at that time on a Thursday. But last week I found the time to have a go and the picture above is my submission on the theme of Festival Nightmare.

Chasing invoices

Taking part in "The Great Invoice Chase", a tedious but necessary event in the life of every freelancer.

"Fights of Fancy!" a book of illustrated comic verse.

Who would win a fight between a potato and a halibut? If a beagle squared up to a cockatoo, who would be the victor? What would be the outcome if a pirate fought a parrot?

The answers are all contained within "Fights of Fancy" - a small hardback book of illustrated comic verse that I collaborated on with my friend Steve Redshaw over the past few months. It's my second venture into publishing (the first was my Football Phrasebook, "Do you speak football?") and was printed by Ingram Spark.

It's currently on sale from my Etsy shop for £6.

"Let it rain!" - new screenprint

Hand pulled limited edition two colour screenprint of my "Let it rain!" illustration. So what if it's raining, you won't melt. Put away that umbrella and dance! Live life! A print for all of life's optimists and non-conformists in an edition of 10. 

Available as always from my Etsy shop.

"I'd kill for a coffee right now!" - illustration

Mid-afternoon slump? Coffee's your man. Just a quick mid-afternoon doodle.