Life under the microscope

I'd love to have had the brains to be a microbiologist, studying minute life forms and cells and all that cool stuff, instead I just have to make up my own little guys

I'm Back...

Ok, I've been away from base all week and unable to post so to make up for it here's a few larger scale pieces I'm working on, kind of enlarged doodle paintings...

It just gets stranger and stranger...

Ballpoint pen on a plain old sheet of white paper...

Cardboard Drawing

Coffee and Doodling

Not a lot can beat relaxing with a good cup of coffee and a sketch pad, drawing and doodling whatever is in your head. A lot of the time you don't even know what's in your head until it starts taking shape on the paper in front of you.
This was taken to a new level not too long ago, when I found myself on a three hour train journey with nothing to entertain me but a takeaway coffee and a ballpoint pen.
Being late for the train, I had a choice between queuing for a coffee or queuing for a newspaper, the coffee won. Anyways, having finished the coffee, I had a wakeful two and a half hour journey still ahead. I spent an enjoyable ten or twenty minutes surgically removing the printed outer layer from the cup and the rest of the journey sped by as I feverishly doodled my way around its freshly peeled surface. This, I discovered, is also a great method of ensuring that nobody in their right mind is going to sit next to you.
Pictured here is the final result, from a few different angles. I sold this piece on EBay shortly afterwards, so it now (hopefully) takes pride of place on a shelf or mantelpiece somewhere in the UK. I have since found a few local coffee shops that serve their takeout coffees in beautifully white non- branded paper cups, so expect more to be posted in the near future...time for a coffee.

To my hordes of fans...

It's Friday and I won't be uploading for the weekend so I'm uploading a batch of doodles to keep all of my imaginary blog fans happy! Looking forward to blogging to myself again on Monday.... have a great weekend! Thanks, you too! Thanks!.... YOU hang up.... NO! YOU Hang up....

Here are some I prepared earlier...

To get the ball rolling, I have decided to upload some doodles I've done in the past. They weren't doing much anyway, just hanging around waiting to cause trouble, so this'll give 'em something to do for a while. All these are biro (black ballpoint pen) on paper, I think there are some napkin drawings in there too, napkins are particularly nice to draw on with ballpoint, particularly when you have a cold or are a bit sad.
I'd like to some day be able to pay for a meal by doing a quick doodle on a napkin and handing it to the waiter, (think Picasso used to do that), whatever about the money you'd save on eating out, it would just look really cool... won't be trying it any time soon though. Anyway, I digress, here are the doodles...

Well I had to draw the line somewhere...

At last I have arrived in Blogsville...I had been thinking about setting up one of these things for ages, just didn't realise how easy it was. I am a freelance Illustrator/cartoonist and I also do a bit of flash animation and graphic design. It's hard to decide on one term to cover it all, sometimes I use 'Multimedia Designer' or 'New media Artist' but that just confuses some people, so depending on who I'm talking to or pitching to, my job description is usually customised to suit.

Anyways, I have a portfolio site (linked opposite) where I display my creative wares, but I wanted somewhere different to show my doodles. They can be a little weird and dark or sometimes just completely ridiculous lookin', and I was afraid I'd scare off potential clients for the more mainstream commercial work upon which I depend so much. Being a bit thick, I also like the simple upload function of the blog. A friend of mine did all the backend stuff for my website (I don't do technical) and shortly afterwards he and his partner had a baby. He's a cute little feller and all, (the baby that is) but I'm now left with a website that I can't really get my head around. I am in the process of designing a new Flash based site which is looking great (can't wait to show it off) but it will be completely idiot proof since I will be doing all the action scripting!

So the plan is, from now on, first thing each morning as I'm siphoning coffee into my veins and politely replying to my spam, I shall upload a new, oven fresh doodle for the whole world to admire, debate and analyze. After a year or so, I'll pick the best Coffee Table Book deal from the pack of hungry publishers - who will be baying at my heels by then, retire and just draw whatever I feel like, wherever I want to draw it.

I should perhaps also mention that I tend to draw on stuff other than paper, I like to draw on cardboard, coffee cups, beer mats and inside out packaging (I've actually even sold a couple on EBay). So in a way I like to think of myself as an ‘Extreme Doodler'. Namby pamby white paper or Bristol drawing board with a vellum finish just aint gonna cut it with me, no surface is too rough, too cylindrical or too corrugated for me and my stable of supercharged pens and biros. So with that, I give you the first of this year’s 365 & a quarter Extreme Doodles.......

A friend of ours bought us an IKEA lampshade, this is the box it came in (turned inside out and reconstructed) I drew this with black ballpoint pens (or 'biros' as we call them here). The white is Acrylic paint.

Just to show the depth (it was a collapsible lampshade by the way.)
This piece sold on EBay and I miss it now.