A late happy new year to you all.  Despite the UK weather I hope you’ve all had a fabulous start to the new year.

I’ve been messing around with gouache in search of a medium for my new book.  Here’s the Giant Squid, lurking about in that medium:

Thanks to everyone who supported me last year and those who bought pieces from me.  My favourite sale of the year was ‘Mr Flufftail is Ready for Action’ sadly I managed to delete the photo of the acrylic  painting on wood I did but here’s a pencil rough:

More to follow soon including a new 3 word wisdom piece and further gouache experiments.

AP x

A massive thanks to Marc Johns for adding his 3 words to the 3 Word Wisdom Project:

Marc Johns, is a bit of a illustration hero of mine.  He creates whimsical drawings filled with dry wit and humour. You can find him all over the web:

Marc’s Shop (original drawings and signed prints)
Society6 shop (iphone cases, tote bags, framed prints and more)
T-shirts
Twitter
Pinterest
Bloglovin
Flickr
Facebook
Follow Marc on TypePad

He also has a couple of books: Serious Drawings and I Made These Drawings for You.

Always Be Yourself.

Thanks again Marc.  You can check out all the 3 words contributors so far here: https://appottingjr.com/projects/3-word-wisdom/

More 3 Words of Wisdom to come soon.

AP xx

A massive thanks to Jonathan Edwards for adding his 3 words to the 3 Word Wisdom Project:

Jonathan is an amazingly talented illustrator and character designer.

His work first appeared in 1993 in Deadline and Tank Girl Magazine with strips such as Dandy Dilemma, Simon Creem, The Squabbling Dandies (with Richard Holland) and one pagers about, amongst others, Scott Walker, Sly Stone, Nancy Sinatra, Kraftwerk and The Beach Boys. Since then he’s worked for the Guardian, Mojo, Q, Mad, The Black Eyed Peas, A Skillz & Krafty Kuts, The Jungle Brothers and The Glastonbury Festival.

Comics include Aunt Connie & The Plague of Beards, A Bag Of Anteaters (with Ian Carney) and Two Coats McWhinnie (also with Carney). He’s also been a regular contributor to the Guardian since 1999 and illustrated the Hard Sell weekly column in the Guide from 2002 to 2011.

Keep it interesting.

“I remember seeing a beautiful Ben Shahn drawing of shopping trollies and thinking if that can make a great subject for an illustration then anything can. There’s always a way!”

Thanks again Jonathan.  You can check out all the 3 words contributors so far here: https://appottingjr.com/projects/3-word-wisdom/

More 3 Words of Wisdom to come soon.

AP xx

Last month I went to a marvelous discussion about illustration with Oliver Jeffers and David MackIntosh.

It was a fascinating insight into the world of the two great illustrators and artists.  I made a fool of myself by giving them both of one of my cards as an immediate thank you for their words of inspiration and got them both to sign a Roger Duvoisin book’The Happy Lion‘ instead of one of their own.

Thank you for being so gracious gentlemen.

I did also manage, in the question and answer session, to glean their 3 words of wisdom each.

Oliver’s were:  Be more curious.

David’s were:  Patience. Perseverance. Curiosity.

Find out more about and read more 3 words of wisdom here: Three Word Wisdom.

AP x

Here’s mark one Grannie Pigeon.  Done in acrylic as a tester for a little book I’m working on.

She’s almost there.  A little make-over and I think she’ll be ready.  I enjoyed painting her anyway:

AP xx

What ho everyone,

I got married very recently.  It was a delightful day full of fantastic friends, fun and joy.

We got married in a lovely little West Sussex Village called Lurgashall.

Here’s a few signs I did for the day.  They’re painted on a friends old piece of furniture he allowed me to smash up for the purpose.

AP x

A massive thanks to Sam Garton who has added his 3 words to my wisdom page.

Sam Garton, aka Otter Keeper (shh don’t tell everyone) is to be found drawing lots of Otters and generally making a mess (his words not mine).  His first book ‘I am Otter- The unheard ramblings of a modern day domestic Otter’ is out early next year.

Here is what he had to say:

In case you missed it the other week here are the latest 3 Words of Wisdom.

These 3 words are from Steve Tillotson.

Steve Tillotson, runner up of the Cape Graphic Short Story Prize 2012, man behind the gloriously perverse Banal Pig comics including ‘Christopher Wren – In search of excitement’ out now.

Make yourself laugh.

“If I don’t even make myself laugh or smile, then I can’t really expect other people to enjoy my work.”

What ho everyone,

I’m going to be working on my submission for the Cape Graphic Short Story Prize over the next couple of months so there might be less regular news until then.

This mole is the going to be the focus of my story:

I did this Monster Robot for last week’s illustration Friday:

I updated my latest work page on the website:

And finally a big thanks to Anke Weckmann who is the latest to her words of wisdom for illustrators:

Ap xx

Hello there,

I’m happy to say I’ve got loads of things to post but have managed, somehow, to loose my Internet connection. It’s a bit of a pain and crashed before I had chance to upload some on my ideas for the ohh dear competition which closed yesterday. Thankfully I got a couple loaded in the print and canvas section of their competition shop: http://ohhdeer.com/competition-shop
Take a look around, there are loads of wonderful designs there. Sadly I didn’t get my art upload to the phones section and my Internet connection is still up the swanny. But, not to worry, I’ll be back in action as soon as soon as I can, whence normal service shall be resumed!

Enjoy the sunshine, or shade (whichever is your preference) this weekend and more updates next week.

This is AP signing off from a borrowed iPad, till next week.

Xx