i heard it in the wind last night

Oh well, I didn't get around to a new Christmas drawing this year, so the sprouts are getting another airing. For those of you from outside of the UK who might be wondering why sprouts, well, I'll tell you why. In the UK it is the law that on Christmas day you must have Brussel sprouts. Honestly. You can be locked up unless you have at least one on your plate. And nobody wants that.

Hope you all a have a wonderful Christmas (assuming you celebrate it). Thanks for all the visits, follows and comments. They are much appreciated. I'll be back with loads more drawings very soon.

And, once again, a big thanks to those of you who have bought my drawings, zines and prints. You keep the wolf from my door.

Merry Christmas everybody.

the craziness begins

I'm sorry to bang on about this again but a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. So here's a little more promotion, and some photos, of my new zine 'How to Draw Like a Nut'. This zine contains the answers to the most frequently asked questions, some ideas to get you drawing and a mini tutorial. Plus lots of nonsense.

A HUGE big thanks to everyone who has ordered so far. I hope you enjoy them when they do arrive. I look forward to hearing your feedback on this new (compared to my Molezines) format. I shall keep my blog updated with all updates(?) - I ain't great with words.

So thanks again.

Buy your copy of 'HOW TO DRAW LIKE A NUT' HERE.
Cheers, my dears.

i've been whistling down the street

It wasn't until the day I was leaving Clermont Ferrand that I realised that I hadn't bought any souvenirs of the trip. We'd been so busy at the exhibition that I'd forgotten - which is ironic as I was there to exhibit my travel sketchbook that was themed 'souvenirs of my travels'. So on our final day we had an hour before we had to be the airport to find some souvenirs.

Luckily my stadar (a kind of radar, or gaydar, that detects stationery outlets in the vicinity), which had been going off for the whole trip, pointed me in the direction of a great big stationers close to our hotel. Now, for me, stationery plus souvenirs ticks so many boxes I couldn't have been happier.

So, here are my souvenirs of Clermont Ferrand; a half blue and half red pencil, two stencil maps of France and a ruler. Mission accomplished.

I'm not so happy with the blue and red drawing, above. No doubt I'll mess around with that some more in the future.

Of course, there are also all of the sugar packets, napkins, tram tickets, receipts, bills and business cards I also collected during the trip, but hey that's another drawing. Or six.

These drawing are a part of my aforementioned souvenir themed sketchbook. You can see the rest of the series HERE.

leave no track don't look back

The girl who served me at Cafe Nero in Manchester Airport must have thought I was a total pig. I bought three Espressos, Sicilian Lemon cheesecake, these Amaretti biscuits and some hazelnut chocolates in the 15 minutes I had spare before boarding my plane.Of course, what she did not know was that I was only buying these Amarettis to draw. There was no way I could ignore gorgeous packaging like this.

The Aftermath

After I'd finally finished drawing them, earlier today, I decided that the only right and proper thing to do would be to eat them. It would be wrong to let them go to waste. However they had been to France and back in my hand luggage and were pretty much powder and crumbs. Therefore the only thing left to do was to tip my head back and basically pour them down my neck. I am, of course, a total pig.

These drawings are from my travel sketchbook. You can see the other drawings from that book HERE.

Now where are those handmade chocolate Florentines that I bought to draw?

raising the spirit of peace and love

I've been playing the Plastic Ono Band album for about 6 months now. I'm completely obsessed with it. And, it hadn't even occurred to me that there were two significant anniversaries taking place this year. It's hard to imagine John as a 70 year old man. I guess he'll always be 40. And then there's today's anniversary. 30 years since his death. I remember hearing he had died before I left for school. I didn't know then how much he would come to mean to me later in life when I fell in love with music and, of course, the Beatles.

When I came into this world the Ballard of John and Yoko was top of the charts. That makes me happy.

to follow where you are

So you might have seen a bit of this drawing before. Half of it to be precise. This is the last piece of artwork to be finished for the new ballpoint zine. I'm looking forward to seeing it all printed and assembled. It's quite different product from my previous Molezines so, as yet, I have no idea how it'll turn out.

I'm hoping it'll look pretty cute. I'm quite happy with this spread, anyway. But, to bed now. I've been awake until the wee hours for the last three months. Or at least that's how it feels.

Night night.

it's time the tale were told

I've been meaning to post the details about the Jane Austen book that I illustrated for ages. It's been another thing on the list of things to do which seems to grow by the day. So, I'll be brief. Here is the link to the publishers website. Unfortunately the book is only available in Italian at the moment, but the New Year should see the English version. I'll let you know when that happens, but for now, you can read a little about the book and about me HERE (then search Andrea Joseph).

a song that i know

Here's one that started life in one of my sketchbooks and has now been reworked on paper. I was looking for a final image to complete the new 'drawing with a ballpoint' zine and as these were such a hit when I exposed them in France (I can't think why) I decided to go with them.

I've added a little extra something to the zine version (no. I'm not getting my bra out again) but you'll have to wait until you get it in your little paws.