I went to his wedding all those years ago and I’ve seen him quite often ever since. We shared ‘accommodation’ in Manchester at Art College. My memory of him in Manchester is him turning up on the first day in a black and white checked jacket and red trousers!

I helped him and his new wife Eileen to move to Kent after our time in Manchester, I drove the truck carrying him and his belongings and furniture on the condition that we skirt the Centre of London This was years before the M25! As we approached Baker Street I turned to him ( the map reader ) and asked: “which part of the outskirts of London is this then?”. We got there and unloaded and his Mum made me at least seven cups of tea.

He had a career in advertising, a very successful career, working for some of the top London ad agencies and winning awards and kudos. He’s an enthusiast and you can’t ever knock an enthusiast. He and Eileen have been married for 50 years, and he’s still an enthusiast.

We were invited to the celebration in Kent tomorrow, but I was fearful of ending up in Baker Street again and demanding another seven cups of tea. The drawing of him above is of him in Manchester all those years ago, and the one below is of him again quite recently. He’s not changed much. Happy Anniversary Paul and Eileen!

I’ve had some very pleasant responses to my recent series of drawings and was particularly gratified by a remark from my good friend Rosalind Forster who is a printmaker of note, who suggested that I offer some of them for sale on Artfinder. I explained that the colour versions are locked in digital netherland and exist only as digital files so far, unless I make them into prints and offer them, which I might!

My intention at the outset was to try and replicate screen prints. I love screen prints, but have neither the aptitude or the funds to go down that route and the room to be able to produce them, so I was doing a digital work around.

The best bit is doing the drawings which are done from my own collection of photographs. The one above taken on the Orkneys on a walking holiday, and you can be sure that if I were to suggest that I sit down and draw the scene, then the group would have left me well behind in the wet. And wet behind would have also described my physical state too. I only just had enough time to take the picture.

Here is the original photo, the final print will be posted in due course if it passes muster.
Thanks to all who made such kind comments.

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This is in Scotland, and is the last of the ‘proper drawings’ for the time being. I hope you enjoyed them.

I feel a need to do some more of this stuff, and take a break from cartoons. Most cartoonists can do more than draw cartoons. In fact, I’d say that all of them can do more than that. The ones I know are painters, sculptors, photographers, designers, graphic designers, website designers, typographers, art directors, animators, writers, teachers, jewellery makers and designers, cooks and bottle washers. But by far and away the most respectable of these skills is, to my mind, the ability to draw cartoons. Respect!

Miserden in Gloucestershire. Closer to home.

Near Sheffield, really!

Same farmhouse and drawing as yesterday, different weather outlook.

Farmhouse Scotland, looks like rain.

Same drawing as yesterday, different mood.

Near Stonehaven in the East of Scotland.

This is in the Orkneys on the way to the Old Man of Hoy.

A version that is unfinished, as if any drawing is finished!

I heard my dear Aunty Anne tell someone this when I was making a decent living as a cartoonist. She meant well, but considered cartoons less seriously than ‘proper drawings’, which is just as well as they were not to be taken seriously. In fact they were meant to be laughable. It also ignored that fact that there was no way on earth that I could have made a living from what might be termed ‘proper drawings’. I suspect also that she might have thought that cartoons were not terribly respectable, which she was. I doubt that she would have been terribly amused if any of my four cousins had suggested that they might take a career move into cartoons!

Anyhow, I was thankfully allowed the freedom to choose by her brother and sister in law, my father and mother.

I shall publish a few proper drawings over the next few days. Aunty Anne would have been delighted. These were done a couple of years ago and are a mix of pen and ink drawings with digital interventions!