How to Draw a Reindeer

This post was inspired by author David Hewson. On Twitter this morning, he commented: "Fine. So I can't draw a reindeer. Will go to work then."

Now, I don't want to distract him from writing any of his splendid novels but here is a simple way to amaze your friends with your own, hand-drawn reindeer.

Almost any animal* can be drawn from a combination of these three basic shapes.

(* possibly not an amoeba)

So start off with a squished circle for the reindeer head.

Add a rectangle for the neck.

Another oval for the body.

Some lines and triangles for what one of my students memorably called 'thread legs' (thereby avoiding the trickly problem of knees).

Three more slightly pointy squished circles for ears and tails (don't let the technical language put you off).

You'll notice that so far all the lines have been drawn in blue. I use a Derwent Studio 33 pencil - it's easy to ink over without rubbing out pencil lines. Now we can ink in the lines and add some color. And a few squiggly lines for the antlers …

… some yellow lines for mane and quiff, couple of dots for the eyes and a couple more legs for added realism. Whilst we're at it, let's change the color of the hooves. Finally, a big red circle for the nose with a splotch of white to make it shiny …

… and we're done. Now draw it on card and post to your loved ones, who will treasure it forever.

(More tips and tricks on how to cheat and draw almost anything are available in my book, which is an ideal present at ANY time of year.)

A-Fracking we will go …

Christmas is upon us so this week’s cartoon for the super, soaraway Westmorland Gazette had to have a festive air. But which story to choose? There were two main candidates:

Hawkshead GP Surgery is under threat of closure. It’s in a rural area, falls below some arbitrary limit for the number of patients and is going to have a support grant withdrawn. It’s also top of an NHS survey into patient satisfaction.

A good story but one I’ve covered before. I had a solitary go at it and you can see the result below. Difficult to see how I could shoehorn Rudolf into that one.

The front page lead was more alluring. Fracking comes to South Lakes. Specifically, Milnthorpe, Levens and Kirkby Lonsdale. Given that the threat of windfarms caused a deafening rustle of Barbour jackets in Kirkby Lonsdale, I can’t see fracking being popular.

I had several punts at this story, including one which I knew wouldn’t get in but which would ensure my steamed editor was paying attention.

I also ran foul of the censors with use of the word ‘fracking’. Some potty-minds in the newsroom thought I was being rude. As if.

Below are the cartoon candidates. Feel free to vote for your favorite by appending a comment (preferably to the blog rather than on the moon or Facebook). Then whoosh to my website to see the editor’s choice in high-definition, 3D technicolor.

Clumsy Charley - a blog about a book

This book sneaked up on me. Jane Binnion, a social media trainer, sought me out after a business networking event to ask about book publishing. I directed her to the inestimable (but now sadly defunct) Writer’s Handbook. Off she went and I thought no more about it.

Skip forward a year and she had written her book, found a publisher, the seriously hip Funky Gerbil Press … 

… and they wanted to know if I’d like to illustrate it.

It was an unusual idea (the book, not me illustrating one - I’ve done over 200). It was about a boy with dyspraxia, a little known condition which is often misunderstood, particularly by schools, carers and parents. The book is designed to tell a story, engage the reader and help those with the condition to feel good about themselves. I was in.

The process of illustrating a book always has ups and downs. Whatever they tell you, all authors secretly hate their illustrators. Illustrators secretly hate authors. As I am an illustrator and an author I secretly hate myself. 

Once the character designs were fixed, no one interfered with the drawings (a rare and wondorous thing). 

There were a few tweaks from the publisher (all publishers like to tweak things to justify their lavish lifestyle) but they redeemed themselves by doing a splendid job on the design. And off it went to print.

This being the brave new digital age, it went to print on demand, first at Amazon and then at Bertrams. The Amazon version appeared on their website yesterday evening.

And here it is. What are you waiting for? Go and buy it NOW!

Mapping a Legacy

I have drawn a few maps, including the world-renowned Lap Maps. Usually they are a cartoon take on geography, occasionally the map is more idiosyncratic.

Earlier this year I was contacted by Emily Brewer of Legacy Storybooks. Emily is based in the USA and has just started a rather unusual business. She works with clients to assemble a story about their lives which can be produced for her clients' children, friends and local community.

Emily is writer, designer and history enthusiast who has found a way to launch an exciting new business by drawing the additional talent she requires from around the globe.

Her first book is Howard the Boy and it required a map of Pennsylvania which had a storybook look to it. Emily found me via my website and got in touch with a very detailed brief.

The project was great fun to work on. I know some of the area being covered and working with US clients is always a delight for a number of reasons: They're unfailingly enthusiastic, I get 5 hours extra on the daily deadline and they spell color sensibly (go away UK spell-checker).

This is the result (click the map for a larger image):

You can find Emily's website here.

And a few more of my maps on my site here.

Cartoon workshop - Neolithic Art

I'm pleased to be able to announce that I will be running another workshop for the Natural History Museum, London. It takes place on 9 March 2014 and will tie in with their exhibition: A Million Years of Human History.

As part of the pre-publicity, I've just drawn a cartoon for the Museum's Evolve magazine.

It started out with my customary Derwent blue pencil scribble:

That was imported into Illustrator and the main lines inked in with a brush tool:

Another import, this time into Photoshop to add flat color:

A bit of background color for the cave and we're almost there:

To jazz it up, I added some patterns to the neolith cave-artist's bearskin, some shadow and finally a thin white highlight, to make our two stars leap out:

Keep an eye on my workshops page for how to book and I hope to see you there.

PS If you can't wait, I will be running two workshops at the International Comic Art Festival on 19 and 20 October 2013. And don't forget my competition to win free tickets to one of the inaugural evening events.

A Tale of Two Captions

Last week's front page cartoon in The Westmorland Gazette was a tad unusual. 

Due to mysterious influences from beyond our galaxy, the cartoon appeared without its caption, giving it a zen-like quality which baffled millions of readers across the globe. Angry tweets were tweeted, grown men were seen openly sobbing in the streets  and questions were asked in Parliament.

Here is how it appeared:

Compare this with the glory days of 21 March 1986 when the following cartoon appeared in response to Kentucky Fried Chicken opening in Kendal:

A veritable essay. And the cartoon was bigger. But then so was the newspaper and it came out on Friday … (all letters on that subject to the editor of the newspaper).

You can see the real caption for last week's cartoon on my website here. 

This gives a unique opportunity to have An Exciting Blog Competition. 

The best alternative caption entered in the comments below will WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to one of the opening events for the International Comic Art Festival on 18 October. 

The event is a talk by Ed Brubaker and Kurt Busiek, two of the USA's top comic book writers. It's a unique opportunity to hear award-winning writers discuss their work.

Full details here.

Add your caption in the comments below and I'll judge the one I think is best.  

And don't forget that I will be running two Family Cartoon Workshops during the International Comic Art Festival. Details here.

COMPETITION RULES:

No alternative prizes will be given.

No correspondence will be entered into.

It may be possible to bribe the judge but be warned that my expectations are high.
Tickets to be collected from The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal.

Closing date for entry is midday, Thursday 17 October (UK Earth time).

Term Time Blues

An education controversy from the Department of Education? Surely, such a thing is unheard of?

Apparently not. I was shocked to discover this week that all is not light and harmony within the education sector. The latest wheeze of education secretary Michael Gove is that children taken out of school to go on holiday, should be fined. Or rather, their parents should be fined.

No more cheap holidays for Cumbria parents. Now if they try and grab a term-time bargain break, they could be charged up to £120 by the County Council.

This is the lead story in today's super, soaraway Westmorland Gazette. And below you can see the four ideas I submitted to go on the front page.

But which did my steamed editor pick? Match your editorial wits against his, vote for your choice in the comments below and then take a break over on my website and see if you were right.

Taking the Jeremy

The Lake District National Park is up for World Heritage designation again. This has happened a couple of times in the past and always been turned down. The reasons vary from too much man-made alteration to the landscape, too many tourists, too many pigeons, etc.

This time round, the attempt to get the Lakes listed alongside the Great Wall of China has attracted a couple of notable commentators.

George Monbiot, famous deep-green columnist and CO2 generator for the Guardian newspaper, described the Lakes as a depressing place with a sheep-wrecked landscape. No vegetation will grow within jaw-range of these woolly locals, so its no surprise that the fells are stripped of interesting plants and trees.

The second comment came from noted environmentalist Jeremy Clarkson. In his opinions column in the Times, he berated the Lakes, describing it as full of bobble-hatted walkers with wizened knees. The knees are probably true but bobble hats haven't been seen on the fells since the days of the Ford Zephyr. Jeremy should pop up and do some bobble research.

The story made the front page of the bumper Westmorland Gazette and so, inevitably, was the subject of the cartoon. How could any self-respecting cartoonist resist?

Below are the ideas I submitted to my steamed editor. Which would you have picked? Put your comments below and then burn rubber to my website to see if you are correct.

Kenya sketchbook 4

This is the 4th of my Kenya sketchbooks. You can find the others here:

Kenya Sketchbook 1

Kenya Sketchbook 2

Kenya Sketchbook 3

I've recorded stuff since I was a kid. Long gone are the days when this meant lugging several kgs of German engineering around with you. Modern, solid state audio recorders are lightweight, largely foolproof and fit in a pocket. Ideal for travelling and capturing evocative, audio landscapes.

One of the reasons for making recordings on holiday is that, like sketching, once you start, you're committed to sitting quietly, observing what goes on around you and absorbing the atmosphere. It's too easy to forget to this or spend too much time seeing the holiday through a camera viewfinder. 

During one recording, I spent over an hour sitting by the lake side at Naivasha. I saw the sun come up, heard the dawn chorus  (it lasts about 10 minutes on the equator) and watched a troop of Vervet monkeys rouse themselves and chase off across the trees. I was also rather astonished to see a local chap take off his clothes and stride into the lake to begin fishing with a net. 

When you're audio recording, you sit quietly and let the wildlife come to you.

Here are a few minutes of the dawn chorus:

Naivasha dawn chorus

During the evenings, when we weren't looking for hippos by the lake side, I recorded the tree frogs:

Naivasha tree frogs

I thought the range of sounds from these little amphibians was astonishing. But the best was yet to come.

We spent the final two days on Island Camp, in the middle of Lake Baringo. The tents looked out over the lake and ours was surrounded by trees.

In the early part of the evening, we heard some familiar friends - no doubt relatives of the tree frogs at Naivasha. After an hour or so, the chorus changed. An odd tinkling sound, followed by a full chorus. These were also tree frogs, a magical sound.

Island Camp tree frogs

I have yet to track down the species name for these, so if any of you know - post it in the comments below.

Over the next few weeks, as I edit the remaining six hours of audio, I will post some of it to my SoundCloud stream. Call in and see what else I've been recording in Africa (and elsewhere).



PS If you would like to hear African sounds LIVE, then I recommend booking to see the Osiligi Warriors. This Kenyan Maasai group of dancers and singers is appearing at Rheged Centre, Penrith on 25 September. They are touring the UK so visit their site and see if they are appearing near you. 

Here is their list of tour dates.

Kenya Sketchbook 3

This is the third of my Kenya sketchbooks. Click the links below for the previous blogs.

Kenya sketchbook 1

Kenya sketchbook 2

Relaxing at the coast at Watamu seemed very indulgent after camping on safari. It did, however, give more relaxed opportunities for sketching.

Here is one of our waiters, bringing Kenyan tea, known as Chai. It is made from tea and milk but differs from the Brit variety in that both are boiled up together. 

One of the other guests, sporting the braided hair which seems very popular in Kenya t the moment.

I loved the Kenyan architecture, the use of wood and rushes especially. I now want to knit my own garden office out of rushes and a few wooden poles. It took a while to get used to being somewhere where restaurants have a roof and … no wall or closing door. Definitely not Cumbria.

The use of timber poles even extended to scaffolding on construction sites. Very exciting if it is a five story building in the centre of Nairobi.

Another guest, this time a teenage lad. The same the world over …

The receptionist, who spent most of her time on her mobile. 20-somethings the world over, etc. etc.

Once on the 'plane home, the flight attendants are other good subjects.

The purser on Kenya Airways had the wonderful first name of Jepchumba. She suited her name and was very cheery.

The trip was over far too soon. Fortunately, whilst on the safari I had along a stereo audio recorder and pair of mics and have come back with several hours worth of material. You can't beat working to the sound of Kenyan tree frogs …

… in fact, I've enjoyed listening to them so much I have yet to download them to the blog. Come back tomorrow (Tuesday) for the unexpected 4th and final part of the Kenya sketchbook.

Click any of the images to see a larger version. Possibly in 3D.

Kenya Sketchbook 2

This is the second of my Kenya sketchbooks. You can see part 1 here and part 3 here.

The safari part of our trip was undertaken in a trusty Toyota Land Cruiser. We also towed a trailer full of bikes and cycled through Hell's Gate National Park and alongside Lake Bogoria. Cycling is much more interesting when you know that, however fast you pedal, the cheetahs can still outrun you.

A safari vehicle isn't the best platform for sketching but here are a few figures seen along the roadsides.

Kenyan cyclists are nothing if not ambitious. This one was transporting a sofa.

One regular form of taxi is the three-wheeled TukTuk. So called because of the racket its two-stroke motor makes, although tuktuktukBANGshuddertuktuk would be a better name.

Rather excitingly, whilst we were in Kenya, half of Nairobi Airport burnt down. (You may have missed this news in the UK media as David Cameron took of his t-shirt that week.)

My hopes of an extended holiday were cruelly dashed when they got the International Terminal up and running again within a couple of days. This was the departure lounge, aka the cargo hanger.

After the safari, we headed to Watamu on the Kenyan coast. Malindi Airport is extremely interesting, especially the luggage carousel. 

The contrast between the resort we were staying in and conditions just outside the walls couldn't have been more stark. The local village consisted of corrugated metal huts and the kitchen was often a fire by the roadside.

Meet our resort askari, who was probably ninja trained …

The area around Watamu beach is a marine national park. 

With some misgivings, I was persuaded to have a go at snorkelling at the coral reef. This was harder than it looked, for several reasons: (a) I am not a natural swimmer (b) the ocean has no handrail and goes up and down and (c) everyone lied and it was cold. 

Our boat captain - who claimed he was called Captain Banana, which I hope was a reference to his yellow t-shirt but possibly not - saved my dignity by lending me his floatation vest. This turned out to be one of the finest 40 minutes of the trip …

Kenya Sketchbook Part 1

Kenya Sketchbook part 3

Click on any of the illustrations to see the full, HD version.