Keepin it real down Bristol way again!

Spread the word Bristol peeps, spread the word...

Elementary....

Another picture for the lovely people at Ashton Gate School library!

Talking of the middle ages..

Sorry folks, if you'd read the last post that was almost a link...

I am dead excited.
I have feathers (...it is handy working in a zoo).
I have oak apples (procured from the one oak tree i could find in my local park...much undignified jumping to reach high branches...it wasn't pretty).

Now what in blue blazes do I want with those?

  

Well dear reader, inspired by trips to Durham, talk of the Lindisfarne Gospels, and my trip to see Leo (Da Vinci, not Sayer), I have decided to go old school; making my own 'iron gall' ink, and then making my own quill pens (properly this time!!) to draw with.

I now need a few extra ingredients for the ink, such as iron sulphate (I'll let you know if I get arrested asking for this at the chemist), gum arabic (which I must be able to distill from a packet of Wrigleys), and tincture of myrrh.  I will be calling for a lot of assistance I think on my mum and dad, who are medical herbalists, but also know a thing or two about making plant dyes etc, and found me the recipe for the ink...check the Herbarium - it is a mine of information for anyone with even a passing interest in herbal medicine and the use of plants.

Not only do I get to nerd out over pens and ruin at least one of the kitchen pans, but it's made me come over all botanical too.  The only time I'd really seen oak apples was in autumn...hard brown dusty things with an exit hole or two in the side.  These ones I are kinda squashy.  And then I found some that had no case and were all fuzzy...were they the same thing?

Now I know that oak apples are formed as the result if an insect making its home on the tree and then the 'apple' is formed around it, but I don't know if the apple is formed by the insect or the tree.  And what kind of insect  lives inside?  Hard to say at the mo, but there were lots of eggs...although when I cut this one open I did have one little grubby thing waving back at me.  And it's fairly clear that the apple and the fuzz are one and the same....

I will let you know how my research goes, whether I win any prizes for it, and what the bill for clearing any subsequent infestations of my house comes to...

Durham!

Last year I was lucky enough to be asked to do a kid's guide book for the World Heritage Site of the lovely city of Durham.  I kinda fell in love with the place...hopefully the pics below give an idea why...

 Even luckier, they keep asking me back!  The most recent trip was a couple of weekends back, when I was asked to muck in with the WHS Visitor Centre team for a weekend of family workshops.   I worked with the kids (and parents and staff!) making illuminated letters, mythical beasts and most popular of all ....BADGES!

I bought a badgemaking machine, which turned out to be a very shrewd investment ... people could do their own designs, get me to draw something for them or do their initials in swanky medieval calligraphy (all with optional gold detailing as I had gold leaf too...).  As you can imagine that was me pretty much taken care of for the weekend!  Look at the photo above...not even P Diddy can boast of gold dandruff.

As you can see, in addition to drawing I also got to indulge my twin passions for looking gormless and wearing tudor hats..below you will see me just about managing to make said hat levitate..

Also, much to my amazement people starting asking me to sign their guidebooks....finally my moment in the sun!!  I would like to say a massive thankyou to all at Durham World Heritage Site Visitor Centre (staff and visitors) for a cracking weekend, and for making me feel so welcome...again!

A slight return..

Nearly forgot..on Tuesday last week I got asked back to Ashton Gate by my son's teacher to do a picture of Zeus for a display in the classroom (Greek Myths and Legends being their term project).   All in all a fun way to spend a lunchbreak!  Thanks son for filling me in on what Zeus looks like, could have been messy otherwise...

Brillustration and Ashton Gate do book week

Dammit I've been itching to tell you about this for ages, but time has been against me (so many cartoon lemurs to draw!) and photos have been like hens teeth (massive thankyou to everyone that had the presence of mind to take a camera and let me use your photos!) .  A couple of weeks back I organised for a bunch of my Brillustration chums and me to descend on Ashton Gate Primary School in Bristol to help them celebrate book week.  

I've posted about it at length on the Brillustration site (and will do again as more pics come in) so I won't  go on about it too much here, but suffice to say there was a bit of this...

 ...a bit of this (I'm nothing if not a paper nerd...I also have thumbs to be proud of)..

a fair bit of this..

And a lot of this!

 It was mad week, but an incredibly enjoyable one.  The good folks at Ashton Gate are probably getting bored of me telling them how great they are, but I'll say it again...you're ace!  Of course I should also gently remind the kids not to get too good with the drawing...some of us have a living to make you know.....

When you're tired from a day's swordfighting, poisoning and double dealing...

..why not relax with some pictures of cartoon dogs.  This little chap was from a grammar book I did for Cambridge University Press last year.

I've Almost Forgotten What You Did Last Summer

Most phone conversations I have will have at some point the phrase 'not much to report really' in them, but actually looking back I reckon I've done quite a lot this year dammit!  And then I've realised that being as it's been a bit of a whirl (and when it hasn't I've enjoyed the break from my computer..), I haven't really told you guys about any of it.

So in small bursts I'm going to tell you where I've been.  There will be MONKS!

TINY DOGS! (larger when I've found the right file!!).....

 MEERKATS (in case you're not sick of them already!!)....

AND A PR PHOTO MASTERCLASS...

I'll bet you can't wait...

Meerkats

Eyop!  Sorry I've been a while away - I've been feverishly drawing (can't tell you)s for my a story I wrote about (shouldn't say) for another episode of Driver Dan's Story Train.  I am dead excited as this the first story I've written to have been published, aired or more or read by a cartoon lion.  Watch this space!
I meant to post some groovy location sketches from my travels around Bristol (erm, walk to work) today, but I realised I've left my sketchbook in my car which the lovely Mel has now driven to work.  So to fill the time here're a couple of pics that I did recently to illustrate whimsical facts for the new meerkat enclosure at Bristol Zoo  (if you want to see the rest you'll either have to visit or wait till I leave my sketchbook in the car again).