Illustration Friday: Undone

'What's done cannot be undone'       Macbeth

Like most people of my generation I grew up reading and loving Michael Rosen, Roald Dahl and Allan Ahlberg - one thing these three legends have in common? Quentin Blake. QB is, for me, the greatest children's illustrator of all time - the simplicity and realism of his characters has always stuck with me and is something I've tried to emulate for years - never ever come close of course.
Thoughts on this piece: the lines on the floor are 'too' vertical - they should either slant more or not be there - the colouring of the dog is not great - the 'bump' on the floor needs to go - it isn't laziness that I didn't correct these things (mostly) I decided to try and do a very quick 5 minute illustration this week and this is the result. I think the poem (one I wrote a while ago) fits very well with the theme of undone.

Damn Turkey!

So we're going to friends for Christmas dinner tonight and I said I'll do the turkey - idiot! Never done one before - so I googled Jamie Oliver and found a great recipe - then spent the last hour pretty much violating the poor bird!

All the while I had this in my head...

Thanks a lot Benjamin Zephaniah!

Class of 2009

 I drew this for my class on the last day of term - my last primary school class ever! (maybe) back to teenagers with me - oh dear

Illustration Friday: Hatch

This was drawn with a 5B pencil - have you ever used one of those? Ridiculous! I couldn't find my trusty 2B as I finished work this week and everything's still in the back of the car. I wanted to do a convoluted picture of someone hatching a plan but a) I couldn't quite think of anything and b) my wife thought of this idea and I wanted to give it a go. I promise I won't draw a baby for the next one (our little girl just turned 1 so we're still 'newbie' parents and all giddy about it - hope it never goes away)

Illustration Friday: Crunchy

I got really stuck with this one - then my daughter helped me out! Shame about the black marks on the scanner but that can't be helped ... and HOW DO YOU DRAW CORNFLAKES!