Jar ticket illustration

This 40s-style illustration was done for a swing-ticket for my girlfriend Fiona's jam and preserve-making sideline. She will be supplying Isle of Wight company vintage-vacations.co.uk (thus the retro feel) with jars of the lovely stuff for their holidaymakers to take home.

Detail of Whitstaball middle couple...

Very glad I added this couple, who add a welcome nugget of humour.

Final ‘We’re having a WhitstaBall!’

All done. Funnily enough, I’m particularly fond of the middle couple!

Linework is added...

detail of unfinished background couple...

Work in progress (pre-linework)

All main washes complete...

WhitstaBALL painting in progress...

This part-coloured (fleshtones) image shows the new characters and other adjustments such as type refinement.

WhitstaBALL pencil stage...

The pencil version shows the late addition of the big guy's disapproving wife, the visual punchline, if you like.

Whitsta-BALL scamp v1.1

Sketched on the homeward train last night. As you can see, compared to v1.0, I added some 'sauce' by the ladle-full for this one. Also, in order to inject some humour, I have since added to the 'final pencil' (refined, pre-painting drawing), a frowning female partner to go with the big guy in the background and deleted the tidebreakers and a few beach huts for the sake of an uncluttered image. I also adjusted the type so that the word 'ball' was contained inside the ball itself.

v1.0 Whitsta-BALL scamp

The first version (v1.0) of my 'WhitstaBALL' idea was to portray a middle-aged couple, but it didn't have quite enough 'sauce' to qualify for a 'Saucy Seaside Postcard'!

Fish and fishermen sketches

A subject close to my heart, (often competing for my time directly with sketching and painting) is the art of fishing itself. Especially fly-fishing, my original piscatorial passion. The Fish and Fishermen sketches were originally drawn as ideas for wood carvings, something I intend to pursue at a later date, but which has gone by the wayside in favour of pressing on with new ideas for the postcard series and other paintings.