out of the blue.

Just a quickie. I suddenly had the urge to draw a travel toothbrush. No, I can't explain it either.

all that you touch

A bit of kitchen kitsch. I've just noticed that this is my 250th post. That seems amazing to me. All those drawings I've drawn, all that rubbish I've written and all the fine folk I've met. Thanks for all the visits and encouragement.

They've been revamping the site over at Moo. I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but when I saw my work on there, looking so good, I felt quite proud. It's mad to think of how this adventure all started, all those posts ago. I'm excited to see where else it'll take me.

Check out Moos revamp HERE (the stickers are cute TOO).

shadow on the things you know

Well, when I posted this, this morning, I was really frustrated with the drawing. And myself. I'd worked on it most of the weekend and had a clear idea of where I wanted to go with it. However, I did not achieve what I'd started out to do. So, this morning, I wrote a really grumpy post. Now, I've had some distance from it, though, I don't feel so bad. It may not have turned out like I'd imagined, but hey, so what?

(I still don't love it, or anything, I just dislike it a less.)

once, twice, three times a table

As you might imagine, it is a rather sophisticated and professional setup here at AJ head-quarters. Recently, I have relocated my studio - from the armchair to the kitchen table.

Also, recently, I have been rediscovering the work of, a childhood hero of mine, Ronald Searle. His work had such an effect on me when I was a kid. It was around that time I fell in love with illustration. The magic of illustration. I was thinking about all of that when I did the bottom of the two drawings.

Anyway, you know the drill; click on image to view.

where the shadows come to play

I've made a deal with myself; I will not start my new Moleskine until I finish this, first, one. I only have a few pages left, but I can't seem to get it finished. This page had been depressing me for a long time. I'd put the bottle shaped bottle opener in months ago, and then didn't know where to go from there. I added a few bottle tops to the page, then some wood grain, but still it had no real direction. Finally, over the weekend I decided to finish it once and for all. I quite like the result.

Throughout this drawing, I was thinking of a night in a bar in Barcelona, where Andy, Tim and I decided to drink our way around the world. Not literally, of course (although, I did something similar in my 20s), the bar menu boasted 'beers from around the world'. I remember us getting as far as Asia, things get a little vague after that.

You can see the rest of my nearly finished Moleskine HERE.

for he's a jolly good fellow

I hope you'll all join me in wishing GrIfF a HaPpY sIxTh BiRtHdAy. It's hard to know what to draw a six year old boy, as I'm ToTaLly RuBbIsH at drawing SuPeRhErOs and CaRs. In fact, gRiFf is mUcH MuCh better, at drawing those things, than me. So, I settled, inexplicably, for AlPhAbEtTi on ToAsT. You've got to love aLpHaBeTtI, hAvEn'T yOu? And, you can wash it down with a lovely CuP oF tEa like ThIs OnE.

HaVe A wOnDeRfUl BiRtHdAy GrIfFy!!!

waitin' on a sunny day

I had been saving this for a rainy day. Well, it's been a rainy week. The thing, I find, with doing such labour intensive drawings is that you end up feeling totally wiped out when you've completed one. That's how I feel right now. So, I'm going to take a little break from drawing. Maybe just a week or two.

Anyway, I'll leave you with this. I posted the colour version a little while back. I, predictably, prefer this version.

over my shoulder

This is where I've been hiding all week - in this drawing. Do you know what ties all the objects, on the shelves, together? If you want to know, find out HERE.

(Click on image to view)

hurt

A while ago I asked you if anyone could guess the song that inspired the drawing you can see HERE. The answer was Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails single 'Hurt'. It's a stunningly gorgeous song, great album and, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful videos ever made. You can see that video HERE.

looking down on everything

I've been kicking about some ideas on the the theme of 'mail', which is how this drawing came about. I don't know how I feel about it. Well, I do, but I won't say! I'm trying desperately hard to be less self critical. I don't think it's very helpful, and sometimes, I think, it sounds like I'm fishing for compliments. Which I'm not. These are just the thoughts that go through my head. The habits of a life time are hard to change.

spring is born

Here is the first entry that I made in my little Japanese Moleskine (well, as much as I could fit on the scanner anyway) for the Moley Exchange project, that you can read about HERE. And, get this; yesterday this little book arrived at France Belleville's place in New Jersey and today Suzanne Buchanan's Moleskine dropped through my letterbox! How crazy, and fabulous, is that?

It's also given me a good excuse to get the camera out, so if you'd like to see this book from every possible angle, then you need to get a life. Only kidding, check out THIS.

Apologies to Gabi, whose surname I completely and utterly misspelled on the inside cover of my book.

on the couch

Welcome to my world. I'm sure that I really shouldn't be sharing these thoughts and abstractions, but I suppose once you've revealed the contents of your underwear drawer then any thing's material.

drawn to all things

I used to be a hoarder. Then some years back I decided to declutter my life. And was quite successful. Then I started drawing. Now I have boxes of stuff. Lots of boxes of little things. I have little boxes for red things, green things, and orange and purple things. I have boxes of badges, bottle tops and buttons. A separate box for novelty buttons. This is a box of tags, labels, tickets and bits of paper. Now I see everything as drawing opportunity. Now I say to people 'oh don't throw that away, I'll save it...' and they just go 'yeah, yeah, to draw'.

Illustration Friday; SAVE.

cool for cats

Wagonized and I are having a camera-off. It's like a face-off but with drawings of cameras. I lose, dismally, with this dull attempt. I obviously wasn't paying attention at cool school that day. However, France gets top marks for THIS very, very cool drawing of Tom's cool camera.

Must try harder.

your blog needs you

I'm sorry, my lovely little blog, but I've got a confession to make. You know I've been neglecting you recently? Well yes, it's true; I've been seeing someone else. He's called MoleyX and for a while, back there, he turned my head. I don't know what happened. You know, you and me were going through a rough patch. I seemed to be spending more and more time with him and things just happened. I'm over it now though. Really. It was just a silly fling. It's not like it is between you and me. We have too much history. I promise to make it up to you. I promise to pay you more attention. Will you forgive me?

jet set sigh

Just thought I'd tell you about a new, and exciting, project I'm involved in. I was honoured to be asked by Miguel Herranz to join the Moleskine Exchange group (also known as MoleyX). The idea is that a group of artists each purchase a little Japanese Moleskine, draw on a couple of pages and send it on. The next participant will then add a bit more before passing it on. This keeps on going until the books are full of lovely drawings.

Anyway, for a better explanation (!) and to keep track of the adventures of our little Moleys, as they jet around the world, check out the new blog HERE. Oh yeah, you can also see the list of artists taking part. At which point you will be able to fully understand why I'm so intimidated! Sigh.

back in the black

A few weeks back I was listening to my MP3 player on a long drive home. One particular track, which I've listened to a hundred times or more, was playing and this drawing just popped up in my head. Just like that. This exact drawing. From nowhere. I love it when that happens. It feels like a real gift.

There is, of course, always a downside and ever since then it has been niggling away at me. Saying 'draw me, draw me', 'you can't keep ignoring me' and 'I will continue to annoy you until you draw me'. I had been trying to avoid it. I knew there were just too many complicated little details. And I knew that there was to be a black background which would take a lifetime. Finally, I decided to commit it to paper. So, this is what I did over Easter.

The question is can you name that tune?