Pie Chart.

Had the absolute best day yesterday watching the GBBO final in bed with my boy. We both made little flags for each contestant and waved whoever we thought was going to win, switching throughout the show. Laurie successfully ended up holding the winner at the end, with me amiably cheering for Brend after dear Jams had royally fluffed it.

Much to my delight, we also fashioned a graph of the episode.

Perfection.

The Cannon's Mouth.

As of the beginning of October I am a proud member of the Cannon Hill Collective; a diverse group of Birmingham-based creative types brought together by the latest youth initiative from mac.
Meeting every Tuesday night, yesterday was our third union and a chance for a bit of meaningful Show & Tell, finding out more about each other's practices and learning a little something from every member.

With dancers, actors, poets, artists, designers and musicians in the mix it was inevitably a lively affair, definitely planting the seed for future collaborations between our disciplines. In the foreground you can see me chatting to Sipho Eric Dube, one of the most naturally rhythmic people I have ever met.

Next month we will be pitching events to potentially become part of the mac's 2013 programme, so the project certainly feels like a great chance for us to make some waves. Personally I was driven to join the collective in order to reconnect with the midlands through both understanding and shaping what role the arts plays there, and I am lifted by the knowledge that such opportunity is definitely there.

You can meet all of the collective on the MEET THE COLLECTIVE tab on our blog, and here is a little post-it drawing of Amy Martin, one of the cool beans keeping us all afloat.

Shetland Is Cool.

Those of you who have been enjoying The Great British Bake Off will be familiar with this young whippersnapper. I will be rooting for Shetland's own bespectacled bejumpered James Morton in tonight's final, but may the best man win.

Granny.

Daily Drawing Challenge: 15/10/12

An unusually emotional post, today's drawing is actually about the endurance of love and ritual.
My dad walks through the graveyard on his way to the gym most mornings and checks up on my granny and grandad's grave to make sure it looks nice, and I have started walking with him. Over a year ago he made a planter out of granite-like tiles to sit at the front of the stone and we change the flowers regularly. One day we walked to the grave as normal only to find that the planter had gone.

Unable to fathom that someone had nicked it, I blearily looked around to see if it had somehow walked itself to someone else's memorial. After the shock of its apparent disappearance and mutually calling the disembodied no-gooders "bastards", my sweet and resilient dad vowed to make another one.

He did. And this is it.

Hard Rock Cafe Manchester.

Legendary 10 oz. Burger - £13.50

The Knights of Salford Docks.

"All my people are lonely. Crowds are the most lonely thing of all. Everyone is a stranger to everyone else." - L.S. Lowry

During Manchester Artists Book Fair we rested our heads in sunny Salford. On the first night we ventured to the Quay where these giants were looking out across the water. In the dark they appeared like vast ragged knights on horseback guarding the stretch and I continued to think about them in this way.
Enjoying the industrial charm of Salford I noted from arrival that it was mostly roundabouts, scrap metal, and tracksuits on bikes eating ice creams (right up my street).

Also the birthplace of L.S. Lowry, we visited The Lowry centre to see a summer exhibition of the great man's work. Without being clichéd: I have been inspired by his scenes of northern life from a young age, choosing to draw from his paintings in galleries as a nipper. Seeing this collection expanded on this favour, revealing more about Lowry's methods and inner-workings. Never before thinking about how he made his paintings, it was interesting to me to hear that all the scenes were done from 'memory' - a culmination of experience and note-taking.

"I never paint on the spot but I like to look for a long time, make drawings and think... I liked in those days to do a picture entirely out of the mind's eye. I think it gets nearer to the truth, because there are no facts to hamper you."

Very simple sketches and plans of situations were exhibited alongside his built-up scenes, and it was the former that he used to capture the action and record it ready for inclusion within his artwork. This was something that made me think a lot about my own methods and whether I could adopt a more freeing way of creating drawings, channeling some of Lowry's wisdom in this manner.

Hot Bed YES.

Tomorrow me and Laurie Ramsell are heading to Manchester for Hot Bed Press' Artists Book Fair 2012!

Spreading the word about SYNTHIA magazine and her recently released second issue, the work of myself and the lovely space invader Kate Rowland will also be on display as two of the magazine's illustration contributors.

You can pick up a limited edition copy of my latest publication Please Wait about time and technology, as well as Kate's excellent zine The First Perm in Space.

Manchester; come and say hello!

Funky Beanz.

Daily Drawing Challenge: 08/10/12

A huge fan of the classic Heinz baked bean, I got really excited by these funky beanz when they came out.
Today I tried them on toast with a poached egg, and my review reads thus: bigger, yet less saucy.

Bit underwhelming, but can't knock them for trying to remix the original and best.

Little & Large.

Daily Drawing Challenge: 07/10/12

Finally sent my first postal offering to my good friend and pint-sized illustrator Louise Wyatt.
Here we are as an unlikely yet dynamic duo comprised of The Statue of Liberty and a viking.

Different Strokes.

Daily Drawing Challenge: 05/10/12

Went to the job centre this afternoon for a Group Information Session. My second visit, I am still fascinated by the different types of people there and what they think about each other and me.
No-one interacted so I still don't really know, but it did strike me as weird that the young men didn't offer their seats in the waiting area to me or the other lady.
Takes all sorts.