Continue reading Shed on a September Evening…

It’s that time of year, harvest time on the allotment. I’m no expert gardener and usually forget what sort of spuds I put in months back. But I do remember that this version is called Kestrel. It was recommended to me by one of my fellow plotters last year. I dug up this beast just today. That is 2lbs and almost 11 ounces. What’s my secret? I don’t have one. I just got lucky. I am not one of those gardeners that grows leeks as big as trees and cabbages as big as basketballs. This chap had several only slightly … Continue reading Spud I like.

People who might have ideas will understand this. When I worked at the print company if you sat back and sucked your pencil thinking, it was seen as non productive time.They were manufacturing so perhaps it was, but time spent sucking the pencil in the creative world may well be considered working quite hard. I’ve been sucking the pencil for a while about what to do with a load of landscape drawings. After a recent foray into colour for a children’s book where I applied colour to the drawings with pastel, a medium I used to use just a little … Continue reading The time you spend looking into the middle distance.

I’m a natural for mending cars ( not ) but then these days, no one opening the bonnet of a car will recognise anything. This is a drawing from some years ago when I celebrated the work of 1930s cartoonist Pont who celebrated the way the British behaved. Please note the arriving cup of tea from a support worker. Unusually there are no oily kids around here, they’ve probably run off with an oily part that is vital. Continue reading Natural Engineering Expertise

I took this picture in 2003, so this shop has been gone for a long time. It was on Southgate Street in Gloucester ( there was a recent move to rename the street Gareth Southgate Street after our England football manager ) Sadly although they claim that it was what the street wanted, this did not seem to be the case, possibly because not many people in Gloucester were familiar with what they actually sold. Also taken some time ago this image of a youngish lad who was skateboarding through Cheltenham way back in 2007 so he’s probably in his … Continue reading Red shop, cool skater.

Just outside Painswick in Gloucestershire, Paradise is a few scattered houses, a former pub, and a simply glorious valley. Just the place to go on sunny summer evening, with my good friend Robin and a bottle of beer each. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. In a moment of weakness I mentioned a way of describing art in an unintelligible way and it’s known as “art bollocks”. Robin has adopted this with enthusiasm and is now adept at the language. He did use the words “dimensional clutter“ in this short video. Hopefully this was the beer talking. Continue reading Late walkers in Paradise and dimensional clutter.

You know what it is. The deep bit of dashboard in front of the steering wheel awash with old bills, probably unpaid, empty fag packets ( that’s cigarette packs to anyone outside the UK ) , old takeaway wrapping and detritus. In some cases the vehicle is relatively new and the purchase date can be probably ascertained by digging deep and finding the invoice for it deep in the dashboard. Poor chap never has the time to clean it out as he’s off to the next job, not yours, to try and make headway on it before he finishes at … Continue reading Builder’s Dashboard.

I thought I’d posted this some time ago, in June. Of all the walks that Robin and I have been on this one gave us both the biggest pleasant surprise.It feels like almost the end of summer here now with a hint of cool in the air. This was an evening walk, but as I recall, quite warm. I hope you enjoy this like we did the walk back then. This is the post from then: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ This evening my friend Robin and I went for a ramble on the banks of the River Severn near Apperley in Gloucestershire and … Continue reading Hello buttercup…later.

Another of my portrait shots and unusually in this one my good friend Al Blethyn is facing the camera. He wears well does this fellow. We shared offices for nearly ten years and never a cross word. Unusually in this picture he’s not smiling broadly, which is something we do a lot when we meet. He’s a fine designer with a brilliant feel for type. We are at present collaborating on designing t shirts! Possibly the oldest t shirt designers in the country. Take a look at them here, and you’ll see what I’m on about when it comes to … Continue reading How does he do it?

You mighty see a few of these portraits in the next few weeks, so don’t say you were n’t warned. This is Ron and as you can see from the background it was taken when there was very little green around. It was cold but bright, unlike now in May, when it’s cold and very damp. Ron is one of my fellow plotters and has been working his allotment for a number of years. I have only one instruction to my fellow allotment victims, and that is “Look noble” and they do. Ron’s potatoes seem to grow at exactly the … Continue reading Ron from the Plot