Swimmer

Sketch for a painting.
Acrylics 9cm x 9cm. Click to enlarge.

Another cafe couple

Another couple painted in a London cafe.
Watercolour 19cm x 14cm. Click to enlarge.

Poetry Allergy

An illustration of a poem entitled My Poetry Allergy.
Scraperboard 14cm x 21cm. Click to enlarge.

Down at the Downcast Café

Two downcast people sketched in cafés.
Watercolour 12cm x 9cm and brushpens 8cm x 6cm. Click to enlarge.

On Goodge Street

A couple in a cafe on Goodge St., London
Watercolour 15cm x 21cm. Click to enlarge.

Bog Bike

Sometimes I get "caught short" whilst commuting to the studio. I have therefore registered a patent for the Bog Bike, the first major improvement in bicycle design since the heydey of cycle touring in the 1930's.
Pen and ink with watercolour. 13cm x 12cm. Click to enlarge.

Substantial model

We had a model of substantial proportions.
Pencil and watercolour 27cm x 13cm. Click to enlarge.

Harbinger

The thirteenth card in the current series.
Woodcut 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.

Foreshortening

One of those difficult foreshortened poses, not helped by a snoring model.
Pencil and a bit of brushpen 20cm x 30cm. Click to enlarge.

Butt compression

A study in buttock compression.
Pencil 38cm x 23cm. Click to enlarge.

De Bonio

Step 1: Wear a white hat to present the facts of the case.
Step 2: Wear a green hat to generate ideas on how to handle the case.
Step 3: Wear a black hat to state the drawbacks of the case.
Step 4: Wear a yellow hat to list the benefits of the case.
Step 5: Wear a red hat to get everyone's gut feelings about the case.
Step 6: Wear a blue hat to summarise and adjourn the meeting.
Step7: Wear a dog hat to bite your neighbour, and shit on the carpet.
Pen and ink with watercolour. 21cm x 13cm. Click to enlarge. With apologies to Edward de Bono

Open Days

The Open Studio weekend was a great success, lots of visitors and good reactions to the work. Made a couple of sales too, although it wasn't an exhibition as such. I've got tired legs and a hoarse voice from hours of talking.
Photo courtesy of speedofart.com Click to enlarge.

La Nouvelle Vague

In the shower this morning I suddenly knew that I had to paint a large isolated wave surrounded by a calm sea.
Pencil and watercolour 25cm x 17cm. Click to enlarge.

Alien ship card 3

Card 3 in my Spotters' guide to Alien Spaceships.
Click to enlarge.

The Seer

The all-seeing eye has been poked out by a sharp stick.
Pen and ink with watercolour 16cm x 14cm. Click to enlarge.

Card the Tenth

Card No.10 in the current series, hot off the press. The Hidden Mountain could be beneath your feet right now.
Woodcut 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.

Nude geezer

A life drawing I came across during a clearout today.
Pencil 27cm x 17cm. Click to enlarge.

The God Slot

The Gentleman's Sketching Klub Internationale de Londres met today on the steps of St.Paul's cathedral. Our esteemed leader chose the North Bank of the river to draw, but I preferred to do some people watching in and around the church. My first victim was a garrulous lady who was too busy chatting on the phone to notice me drawing her. I didn't intend to make her look 20 years older and it's probably just as well she didn't see it.

Nowadays you have to pay a large entry fee to look around the cathedral. Sod that. However there is a small chapel for quiet prayer and contemplation at no charge, so I took a pew and drew these guys praying. The chap near the pillar was the spitting image of Ricky Gervais. The insert is a blurred photo taken with my phone.

We met up in Paternoster Square for a sandwich and discussed the skills required to draw chickens.
Brushpens on A5 cartridge sketchbook. Click to enlarge.

Angel Stomachs

The eighth card in the current series. I've been told that angels don't have stomachs: I guess that's why you never see a fat one. I absent mindedly cut the "e" as a "c" but somehow it doesn't bother me.
Woodcut 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.

Military budget

Will this month's spending review impact on national security?
Pencil and watercolour. 24cm x 32cm. Click to enlarge.

More Café Bods

More odds and ends from the café sketchbooks.
Watercolour, brushpen. Click to enlarge.

Exiled to Cyberia

Back in 1995 Cyberia was London's first internet cafe....probably one of the first on the planet. My studio was on the same street, and one day I saw it was unusually crowded. They were holding a special introductory event about this new thing called "the internet". This businessman started chatting to me; he couldn't understand what the internet was for and yet he was terribly anxious about being left "out of the loop". He was so worried that he didn't notice or care that I was painting him.
Watercolour 14cm x 10cm. Click to enlarge.

The Black Hat

The Frog likes to sport a large Borsalino, which lends a bit of swagger to any situation. Unfortunately it looks ludicrous on me.
Watercolour on unsized paper. 15cm x 29cm. Click to enlarge.

Stairway to Heaven

According to The U.S.National Safety Council's data on accidents in 1,307 people died from falling down the stairs in 2000. An American citizen's lifetime odds of dying in this way were calculated as 1 in 2,739. Yesterday I discovered that one of my favourite singers, Sandy Denny died this way.

Of course none of this has anything to do with Card 6 (shown above) in the current series of woodcuts. See my earlier post for a different angle.
Woodcut 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.