Back In London

I'm back in London after some nice days in Germany, not exactly holiday but almost like that.
Not that I'm a big fan of Ryanair but it's the only airline that still flies to my hometown from London. I missed really hot summer weather here in the UK, but luckily it continues with 30+ C temperatures next week!
Today I played such bad tennis I thought about where and how to dispose of my tennis shoes and racket whilst playing...and that made it worse and worse!
I'm also working on my current educational job, some of my favourite sketches below...

Something to watch if you missed it: Bruce Springsteen at Glastonbury yesterday! Yay!

Ice Lollies

Childhood photographs from the 70s always make me smile...this one of the 2 brothers was taken at night time with ice lollies which I thought was unusual...
Thanks for your well-wishes for Sandy, she's slowly recovering but still can't join me on walks or runs, maybe next time when I'm here...
Today I'm waiting for work comments, painting toenails, & scanning old photographs.

This week...

- I spent some time preparing and finishing jobs, I'm really happy about the one I've just done as it's for older kids and it's going towards a new direction
- I went to Germany for my mum's birthday...i'm here now and it's constant thunderstorms.
- Sandy's had an OP and is a bit knocked out and confused...sad to see a dog who's otherwise too hyperactive for anyone so quiet, and when she's wearing the protective funnel she just goes nuts.
- I got a new mobile phone with hi res camera which is good cause I always forget to take my actual camera
- I got the most encouraging e-mail ever, and it's from Willy Vlautin! :o)
- I found out about power animals and that mine is a dog and when I concentrate it's a turtle...this led me to totem poles which are really interesting and I need to do some sort of project with that.

Illustration Friday - Craving

I was researching cravings just before this topic was announced... I didn't get very far though because of work. One of the reasons why I researched it is I was getting worried about my cravings for licorice...I crave it more than I actually like it, if you know what I mean, I eat it til I'm sick of it. And then again. I'm talking of real licorice though, not the aniseed flavoured black candy.
Things I found out about cravings: there isn't very much known about how they work, we might crave things that are lacking in our diet, (i.e. licorice and iron are connected but I didn't quite get that one) and then the memory/good feelings association/childhood factor.
So here are my cravings:
-> African ground coffee, my favourite is one I bought in St Lucia, SA, very earthy and reminds me of tropical weather, safari, red earth and all that.
-> licorice, which I liked since always
-> Dandelion and Burdock, I only just discovered it this summer, almost like liquid licorice!:o)
(but I still don't know what burdock is, how this translates to the German equivalent. If you do, please let me know)

Yummy!

This is what I will have to put up with twice a day for another few months...YUK!
Imported from Germany and apparently it helps with iron deficiency anemia. I hope so because the taste is getting worse with time...and it stays with you for hours after taking it and no coffee allowed!

This summer

I spent most of the weekend playing tennis in my new tennis shoes (I forgot to include them in the picture),
inbetween I worked on some sketches for a new job and I also discovered a forest trail near where we live and ran 9K and afterwards had icy pear cider and watched people getting sunburned...
It almost felt like being on holiday...the last few summers it never got so warm that you needed to stock up on proper summer clothes! Which I did yesterday, by bike, with summer rain and really high humidity...I like it, but it's supposed to be all over tomorrow...

AOI Featured Artist June 2009

I'm one of the 3 featured illustrators this month at AOI News.
Click on the picture to read my entry.

Good Marks

An illustration with lots of handlettering I did earlier this year.

Street view

It's me on Google Street View! I remember the Google car driving past me close to where I live last year when I still had the old bike and now that Street View is available here I saw it did actually film at that time!:o)

Illustration Friday - Parade

The kids from Knick Knack Paddy Whack!

Active Kids

Some more work I did for the ongoing COI Childcare ad campaign.
This is the most recent mail out, new are the table tennis kids, the dance trio and the notepad.

Books Preview

I just finished working on 2 very cute books, one is very fashionable and quirky, the other has a green theme and educational element and both have paper mechanisms, very different ones but they're both gonna be fun for kids I'm sure...

May Day - May Day!

Hello May! I have moved house (again) and this is one of the views.
It's pretty anywhere when the sun is shining! But this corner of London is anyway...
I've been busy with kids books and updated a lot of my recent work over at childrensillustrators,
easier than doing my own website...
I wasn't able to blog and scribble much lately, I hope that will turn to normal now that I live in more permanent accommodation again...two moves in 6 weeks is a bit much...

Early Summer...

...in Germany! Who would've thought my birthday and Easter and summer all falls on 1 day this year?

Free time...

...to do fun things like a rollover index page!

Spring Update

Some magazine news (Mamas and Papas magazine in Russia) from me...
Other news are that I've moved into a big but not so nice flat and will do so again in a few weeks, not cause I like it so much but because the old flat is getting a complete make-over, including pipes so it's inhabitable.
Oh, and I was very busy with some really lovely childrens' books...maybe I can post a tiny preview soon. I'm having a day or maybe a few days off until the next wave of work comes in including new briefs and comments...I haven't had that feeling of being ahead of schedule and waiting around for a very long time! Maybe for almost a year. It feels weird as normally my days are packed and hectic and now I can cycle around without taking a streetmap (I have no sense of direction) or having to time myself!:o)

New Knick Knack + Bible Pre-Order

Knick Knack Paddy Whack has been reprinted with the new cover and the Booklist review on the back!
I prefer this new one, I worked on this in autumn last year.

And this is the Bible, to pre-order in the US as well:

Bible folk

Just wanted to share these 2 guys as they're some of my favourites,
they will be replaced by different characters so this is their only showcase...:o)

Glasses!

My new glasses! I like them and they actually help as a tool to focus and concentrate, mentally.
And some sketching...fun and work related.

This week+last week

I have been quite quiet on the internet lately, mainly cause of busy-ness and a full work schedule and also my health hasn't been good and I still don't know what's better to recover or to stay healthy in winter - more exercise or more rest. Or a better balance between those two...probably.
And there has been snow in London...causing everything to shut down, this place never stops surprising me!
I finished the bible project which almost took one year to complete, I can't believe how fast last year has gone by.
And this is the first time for ages that I'm not going to SA for a winter/early year break, I will have to wait for the British sun to come out and catch a tan then! Haha!!

Preparing

Hello...this weekend I prepared the backgrounds for the final artwork I'm creating for the Bible, also I'm preparing for further jobs that will start soon and next week I will pick up my first pair of glasses (with very weak lenses) but I'm excited as I never worked with eyeglasses on before...

Chillies, Licorice, Audio books

I'm almost back to normal and can finally work out as usual and work is going a bit more fluent... I've been listening to Harry Potter audio books in German and now I got the Stephen Fry ones from the library to listen to the final books in English. It's hard to get used to different voices for the different characters though, and I hope Stephen Fry is as versatile as Rufus Beck, who reads the German version...I didn't take part in the Harry Potter craze when it was in fashion so I have to catch up. And I made a little sketch of him and his friends, above it's him in part pj's part wizard outfit and his owl.
Nutritional news: I recently got hooked on chillies, kind of need to up the dosage to feel them, and still am on licorice...discovered Yogi Tea with licorice in it! YUM!

This week

A glowing building in London and a rough of the bible.
I'm very busy these days, slowly trying to get back to normal with the bronchitis, like training in the gym but it seems like this is a crazy virus that takes weeks to recover from! I feel like I fell out of an airplane. At least I got some home improvement and my tax return done...

Hello 2009

I can't believe Christmas is over and that I'm back in London at my desk already after such a long and lovely holiday, I could have continued baking + eating cookies, drinking tea, walking my parent's dog in sub zero temperatures, wrapping presents and all that festive family stuff. The only bad thing that happened is that I got sick as it was freezing in Germany all the time but I still went running and hiking and traveling and now I'm recovering slowly thanks to antibiotics, which I hoped I never will have to take again years ago.
So, 2008 was a great year, lots of new clients and good things happened, I even felt happy with myself a lot of times..;o) Which is why I don't have any New Year resolutions this year, except for maybe taking more insurances and drinking less coffee. A few things that would be nice to have would be a dog, a cat, a house with a garden and the ability to beam oneself to places to save journey time.

Happy 4th ADvent

Christmas!

After a busy week of working on my new website with a new category called Type and a overall different look and new work, I'm exhausted and ready to go on my Christmas/end of year holiday to Germany! Have a great Christmas everyone!
And have a look at my website if you have a minute, I rushed it and haven't tested it thoroughly on all browsers yet...

Award winning campaign

YAY! The COI childcare ad campaign I've been working on with cmw has won an award, those lovely pictures above are from the cmw website. See more of my work for this here. Or read more about it here.

Web Work

I've been working on Marko's website, which starts up with a new mood reel that rocks! It's a work in progress site that I update as I go along adding things, I think it fits the site better than taking it offline whilst doing construction work. I'm also not a very technical minded person so things move a bit slow. The fact that I use wooden alphabet stamps might add to that, I love that look!
I'm also making business cards with that design as a Xmas gift, I can safely say that as he never reads my blog...:)

Zeitgeist

My illustration on page 14 of Zeitgeist magazine online.

1st Advent sketch

Happy 1st Advent! These kids live in the southern hemisphere and can't wait to get a sip of a fizzy cold drink.