Dinkums and doodles

Pale Man

2011-03-05T07:09:00.001Z

There’s a touch of green to this mans face. He could be ill or feeling sick. He’s not happy and not exactly sad either. He does look serious though.

Free Spirit

2011-02-12T21:08:00.001Z

This character looks to me like a free spirited girl. Perhaps she is a traveller, a nomad with no fixed abode, living life one day at a time. Maybe she’s a Yoga teacher or an artist? Definitely something creative about her I can’t put my finger on…

A Darker Side

2011-02-07T08:37:00.001Z

I drew this last night (early hours of this morning). I wasn’t feeling very happy and it came out in the dark look of this rather androgynous character. It started out with an oval shaped face and I wanted feminine eyes but from there it kind of of felt more like a man, a boy with high cheekbones. So from that moment I was thinking male.

The black jumper and red background reveal my mood at the time. Rest of the background is very rough but I thought I’d leave it in as it sort of felt like it was fitting to have an unfinished background (and it was easier to leave it!).

Portrait of my daughter while she reads

2011-01-04T13:01:00.002Z

My daughter has had her head in a book today, here's a sketch I drew of her while she had her head down into a book.

iPhone doodles

2011-01-04T12:59:00.002Z

I installed an app on the iPhone I got for Christmas and it lets me draw with my fingers on the glass screen, cool! Here is my first drawing.

Adventures of Stan: page 2

2010-02-28T00:54:00.000Z

Here's another episode of Adventures of Stan. In this episode Stan is at work, he's a junior I.T. guy but his mind isn't always on his job. You also meet two new characters in this episode: his boss and someone who Stan is about to develop a crush on. The first frame is below but you can read the whole page here.

Adventures of Stan: page 1

2010-02-27T22:40:00.000Z

I've found time to draw the first page of my Adventures of Stan comic. It's going to be a comic full of vignettes which could hold up independently of each other, so don't expect a continuing storyline. The frame below is a taster but the full page can be read here, let me know what you think.

"Lost"

2010-02-13T02:53:00.001Z

It's a bad sign when none of the streets look familiar when you're trying to go home.

"Classy"

2010-02-13T02:25:00.002Z

Some anatomy shouldn't me mentioned during a job interview.

A stylized car

2010-02-10T20:49:00.001Z

Commuter breakfast thoughts

2010-02-01T20:36:00.003Z

Meet Juliette

2010-01-31T09:45:00.000Z

Juliette hangs out with Stan and Mike. She's optimistic and happy with her life to the annoyance of those around her.

Meet Mike

2010-01-31T09:39:00.000Z

Mike is a musician and Stan's best friend. Music is his one and only interest. During the day he is a part time water fountain man and part time dog walker.

Meet Stan

2010-01-31T09:35:00.000Z

Stan is an IT technician but he wants to be a ROCK STAR in his dreams. But he's torn between an artistic life and paying his rent and trying to get a girlfriend.

Adventures of Stan

2010-01-31T09:30:00.000Z

I'm working on developing a few ideas for a comic strip. By way of introduction, I thought I'd share the cast so far.

Ben 10: Waybig

2010-01-26T22:53:00.000Z

Ben 10: Ghostfreak

2010-01-25T21:32:00.000Z

My son and I enjoy a cartoon called Ben 10, well he's really into it and I like to watch it with him. The 10 refers to a number of alien lifeforms that Ben can turn into using an alien watch that is permanently attached to his wrist, called the Omnitrix. As a gift to him I subscribed to a Ben 10 magazine that has a lot of stuff about the show, including pictures and puzzles. One section of the magazine that we sort of ignored until now was a section in each issue about how to draw the characters. My boy enjoys picking one of these and asking me to follow the instructions. This one is an alien form called Ghostfreak.

Book cover design

2010-01-21T23:46:00.002Z

At the weekend

2010-01-18T18:40:00.002Z

It’s Moider!

2010-01-18T18:38:00.002Z

A slow start

2010-01-17T20:59:00.001Z

Spiderman painting

2009-12-28T10:33:00.001Z

My son helped with one leg and then I continued to paint after he got bored. Watercolours were the hard disk type, colour selection was just the primary colours.

Face

2009-12-26T20:11:00.000Z

New Season

2008-09-27T07:01:00.001Z

It's officially autumn 2008 and I thought it was time to get back into art. Over the last few weeks we bought a new wi-fi scanner/printer and it means I can scan stuff and work on my own machine in another room to where my wife does her work. So all systems go for the new season....just have to start creating.

Illustration Friday: Mask

2006-12-11T18:37:00.000Z

I was going to draw a mask - the kind you see to represent the theatre. Then I thought about how our faces can be a kind of mask - depending on our mood and circumstance. Lines in our faces are drawn through our experience, our expressions and their frequency of use. I find faces continuously fascinating.

Illustration Friday: Might

2006-12-07T13:51:00.000Z

This week's topic was hard. I'm not totally happy with the result, due to a last minute rush. Oh well, hope I find more inspiration with tomorrow's topic. The guy above is meant to be Albert Einstein!

Happy Snowman

2006-12-06T15:36:00.000Z

Donnatello the Snowman, cousin of Frosty the Snowman

Illustration Friday: Invention

2006-11-27T23:39:00.000Z

Whenever I draw a spaceship, this is the one that most often comes to mind. I used to love those washing up bottle rockets with the sparkler hanging out the back that the 30s and 40s Flash Gordon serials used to use as model spacecraft. I've taken some of that influence and mixed it with a cockpit that sticks out a little like the Millenium Falcon's. This is the rocket I'm using in a story I'm writing with my kids about an inventor called Professor Popplepot.

Illustration Friday: Thanksgiving

2006-11-22T09:02:00.000Z

It took me a while to get the idea for this believe it or not. I guess because until this week I didn't really know much about thanksgiving. It's not a holiday over here in the UK. This image of a full table of food with a roast turkey in the middle waiting to be eaten is probably a very obvious image but it has only just come to me that this is what I should do. As a child I used to think Thanksgiving was the same as Christmas just in a different country.

Illustration Friday: Clear

2006-11-13T13:35:00.000Z

I've thought long and hard about the brief this weekend, I came up with a lot of common understandings: water, glass etc. This morning a new interpretation struck me as I was thinking about a friend of mine.

Illustration Friday: Smoke

2006-11-05T12:34:00.000Z

An area in England just West of Birmingham is known as The Black Country. Charles Dickens's novel The Old Curiosity Shop, written in 1841, described how the area's local factory chimneys "Poured out their plague of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air". This doodle is my little homage to the area.

Illustration Friday: Ghost

2006-10-23T20:19:00.000Z

Yesterdays Doodles Today

2006-10-17T18:31:00.000Z

After Picasso

I thought I'd serve you up a couple of doodles I did yesterday evening. I'm calling one After Picasso because there is something abstract about it and the second one is called simply Strange Thing because erm...it's a strange thing.

Strange Thing

Illustration Friday: Smitten

2006-10-16T08:26:00.000Z

Worry

2006-10-01T20:17:00.000Z

Some people seem blessed with no worry genes. They stroll through life, living to the max, not a care in the world. Well, I'm sure that's not true for the majority of humankind and those who seem worry-free are the ones who are good at hiding it. We all worry, I think what matters is the extent to which we can control worry so that it doesn't dominate our life. Not like this poor chap. He seems to have a lot of worries troubling him, its in his eyes.

Syd Barrett

2006-09-22T07:40:00.000Z

Syd Barrett passed away in July this year. His life story is quite a sad one. He was obviously a musical genious but also a victim of the Bohemian lifestyle of the 1960s. Pink Floyd went onto greater things without him (Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, Wish You Were Here) but some would say there was always the "ghost" of Barrett in the recordings, I guess that'll be more true now.

Ghost Hunter

2006-09-13T18:30:00.000Z

A drawing on blue Post-Its. I guess I should call this "Don't Look Behind You". Heh..

Bob Dylan

2006-09-06T15:28:00.000Z

I'm a fan of the whole catalogue of Dylan's work and what a catalogue it is! Such a rich variety but all with wonderful lyrics throughout. His new album is called Modern Times and I haven't heard it yet. There is a DVD with it at the moment, so I think I'll buy it. I hope you like this tribute sketch of the man, circa 2006.

A Crew Member

2006-08-25T21:08:00.000Z

I don't know where this drawing came from, I don't think it was from a photograph. I think the top looks like a uniform of someone in The Starship Enterprise or some such space going vessel. She looks like she's petit but tough and intelligent, in the way that space girls are. She's either in Communications or Engineering I bet.

Happiness

2006-08-22T07:03:00.000Z

What makes you happy? For me it's music, freedom to creatively express myself and knowing that someone loves me. This lady looks a little scatty but also very happy and comfortable with who she is.

The Compere (pulled by dog)

2006-08-09T20:36:00.000Z

Imagine, if you will, that this is a radio show. It will take some imagination, I grant that, but work with me. What every show needs is a compere and this is he. He rides into Radioland on his trusty computer swivel chair pulled by his faithful hound. Any suggestions for the name of said hound?

Exercycler

2006-07-27T17:22:00.000Z

This is me on an exercycle at the gym. It's quite difficult to draw a bicycle, let alone an exercycle, let alone even more a person on any kind of bicycle. Disregard the fact that you can see through my leg there. I'm usually opaque. Maybe I should practice drawing myself first and then draw the bike around me. Oh well.

Anyway, this is a practice run of a few sketches I have in mind for later. Straight from the hyper hypothetical, twisted mind of Tara. :D

Eva Longoria

2006-07-24T19:33:00.000Z

FHM's Sexiest 100 women continues to provide furtive ground for my drawings.

This time it's Eva Longoria who gets the treatment. According to her bio, she plays Gabrielle Solis in Desperate Housewives. I don't watch that show, so I had no idea who she was when I drew her.

New Profile Picture

2006-07-19T23:01:00.000Z

Time for a new profile picture I think.

Elephant

2006-07-17T20:47:00.000Z

Today I was compelled to draw an elephant. I've never drawn one before. I forgot the tail though, but I was running late for work, so I redrew the whole thing. Here's a happy elephant.

The Evil Dentist

2006-07-07T12:26:00.000Z

I'm glad to say I do have a dentist and she's not evil, which I'm grateful for.

Today's Assignments

2006-07-05T21:27:00.000Z

Magazine Lady

2006-06-28T07:40:00.000Z

A face drawn from a magazine, can't remember who it is.

Train interior

2006-06-17T07:40:00.000Z

I spend a lot of time on trains, here's a doodle of the inside of one of them.

Frank Lampard

2006-06-11T07:40:00.000Z

This is Frank Lampard, England's central midfielder and a crack shot from outside the area.

Michael Owen

2006-06-10T07:53:00.000Z

England's striker Michael Owen, it looks nothing like him of course - LOL!

Sven-Goran Eriksson

2006-06-09T07:28:00.000Z

These sketches are hilarious, they are two versions of the England football manager. Neither of them look anything like him and they don't even look like each other! I think the top one is closest - but even then you wouldn't know who he was if I hadn't have said! Ah well, come on England!

Hugh Jackman

2006-06-07T07:29:00.000Z

This is so funny, I drew this from a magazine not realising that Hugh Jackman played Wolverine in the X-Men.

Smoking Popcorn

2006-06-07T01:21:00.000Z

This is an illustration of my friend Sarah who had problems popping up a bag of popcorn in her office's microwave one day. To avoid setting off the smoke alarms, she dashed outside near a construction site and threw out the smoldering bag of charred corn.

Bug Horribilis

2006-05-30T18:52:00.000Z

This horrible little bastard is currently causing havoc throughout our family. It's a cold virus that emits a horrible odour and foul snots and has go-faster stripes on his shoes because you go from well to unwell really really fast. If I wasn't on holiday, I'd have taken today off sick. We were meant to go to a country park for a day out today but are all so unwell, we didn't bother. My poor son is upstairs trying to sleep but is coughing so much it's keeping him awake, poor little love.

A touch of class

2006-05-29T19:12:00.000Z

Some might say she is frosty, but it is her upbringing.

John Reid, the Home Secretary

2006-05-24T21:45:00.000Z

John reid is the Home Secretary, an old fashioned sort of title but he is responsible for homeland security and immigration. He is new to the job. Here he is infront of a committee of MPs and he is agreeing that his new department is in chaos. He will overhaul it.Well, good luck Mr Reid, it seems like a political quagmire to me.

Sorry: Illustration Friday

2006-05-23T21:35:00.000Z

She realises that she is never going to be comfortable in his world with his family and his friends. She decides its over and walks away, single again, after four years.

Post It Art - "Haunted House"

2006-05-22T19:10:00.000Z

I took a ghost hunter class back in October and it inspired me to draw this little doodle. The writing was cut off on the top there, but I'm just pointing out that the big circle there is the full moon.

Jack Wildhair

2006-05-21T15:32:00.000Z

This is an intelligent man, who spends more time in his own thoughts than in the real world. He has let his beard grow a bit wild because he doesn't consider outward appearance to be too important. He loves the outdoors too.

FW with PenPartner

2006-05-20T08:34:00.000Z

I've recently dug out my drawing tablet. I bought it in about 1999 or thereabouts and it has appeared and disappeared many times. I'm starting to have more fun with now that I'm getting more used to drawing with digital ink.

The Politician

2006-05-19T22:08:00.000Z

He's a politician with a friendly face, but don't trust him!

Angels and Devils

2006-05-18T12:47:00.000Z

This is my first entry for Illustration Friday.

Image problems

2006-05-17T17:28:00.000Z

Hello seems to be having a few problems. I've uploaded the images but the 320 pixel image isn't showing in my blog. If you click you get taken to the full size image. My second image today is only half of the full image. I've been meaning to investigate an alternative image host and if it's not fixed soon I'll have to.

The Green Room

2006-05-17T17:22:00.000Z

What's behind the green door? The Green Room of course!

Slugman

2006-05-17T07:28:00.000Z

Is he a man or a slug?

Undervalued & underpaid

2006-05-16T06:46:00.000Z

It's amazing really - she raised four children, held down a low paid job, did most of the chores around the house and still found time to be the loving mum and wife. She learned how to manage money when it was scarce, nobody went hungry. Life takes it toll on the skin but the eyes and the smile are subtle and genuine.

Jack the lad

2006-05-15T19:47:00.000Z

He likes his vodka and the ladies!

Crazy Lady

2006-05-14T20:55:00.000Z

She loves to do crazy stuff!

Family

2006-05-12T21:35:00.000Z

My brother has always had long curly hair and he likes rock music, he's an unconventional manager/scientist. He lives in the US and has been there probably 10 years now. I've visited him only once unfortunately but I hope to visit him again some time. He was in New Jersey near Princeton but is now near to Cape Cod.

A nice cup of tea

2006-05-08T20:01:00.000Z

I realise I'm in danger of sounding like an old woman but I do love a nice brew. My current favourite tea is Yorkshire Tea ("like tea used to be" so goes the advert).

Invent a new dance move

2006-05-07T18:00:00.000Z

The Skiffle Two Strap, performed by FW:

An illustrated response to Tara's blog entry.

Jade Goody

2006-05-03T07:52:00.000Z

Jade, famous star of Big Brother. Her website here.

Kate Beckinsale

2006-05-03T07:50:00.000Z

I only really know her because of Underworld. There is a site here, not sure if it's her official one though.

Mariah Carey

2006-05-03T07:48:00.000Z

Mariah's album The Emancipation of Mimi is great. Her website.

David Coulthard

2006-05-03T07:45:00.000Z

A Scottish Formula One racing car driver. He has a website.

Imogen Bailey

2006-05-03T07:42:00.000Z

She's an Australian model I found in the pages of FHM and she has a blog.

Paul McCartney

2006-05-03T07:39:00.000Z

Well, he needs no introduction! Website.

Another politician has an affair

2006-04-26T20:52:00.000Z

This story broke today.

Tony: John, this is a private matter. Don't thump any reporters, whatever you do. The shit's already hitting the fan several times this week.

John: Yes, Prime Minister.

An Outdoors Man

2006-04-26T18:08:00.000Z

My grandfather was a country man at heart. He had a wealth of knowledge about nature. He knew how to survive on stuff growing wild. It's a great shame that the knowledge he had has been lost. I miss my grandfather, he would love my kids.

Man with hat

2006-04-23T22:12:00.000Z

So I've started drawing faces from newspaper and magazine photographs. This is probably the first of many that I'll post here.

Welcome

2006-04-23T17:41:00.000Z

Dinkums and Doodles is my place for my digital images, whether they be photographs, image manipulations, original illustrations in digital ink (Dink) and other work (Doodles).