​I love the imagery of Halloween and so when the local art shop wanted a seasonal window display, I wanted to draw on the actual glass as well as arrange the products within.
The acrylic pens I'd used on the A-board would also work on the glass but be removable when the season was over. The first brand used was Posterman and then I moved on to the brand leader, Posca.

Obviously, when you start something new, you make mistakes. So it was that in late October I took my pens out into the street and spent several hours over a couple of days, freezing my fingers, drawing on the outside of the window. ​The design mashed up the themes of Halloween and the Mexican Day Of The Dead (Dia De Les Muertos).

​The only downside of being inside is that everything you draw has be a mirror image of how you want it to appear on the outside. This is especially problematic with lettering. What helps is to draw up a grid on the other side of the glass and use an inverted printout of your image with a scaled down grid as reference. Then you can easily remove the grid from the outside glass once you’ve got the foundations of your drawing in place.

​Each year, the Halloween window became more elaborate and I think it peaked with the ‘shattering’ of the glass in The Little Art Shop Of Horrors of 2022. This led onto further windows for the art shop commemorating Royal events, which caught the attention of other shop owners in Oxford who approached me for window designs. 

​So far, I’ve created Christmas, Coronation and other windows promoting the product ranges sold inside the shop. 

​When these were complete, the second shop owner wanted me to draw images directly onto the inside walls.
​At last I could stop drawing in mirror image.

​These huge murals, created in simple poster paint, have included: students standing outside Exeter College, a red British telephone box, a view of St. Mary’s Church, Oxford and a scene of people punting along the Thames. This last one had to be painted as I stood on a wobbly stepladder in front of a large glass window, a position I don’t want to be placed in again. There are more murals to come, the next one being a view of the picturesque Oxford skyline, drawn on panels near the ceiling. I’m hoping I can do these with printed vinyl panels and not spend hours up a ladder again.

Another A-board for an Oxford shop.

After this I was whisked off to London to make some display cabinets look more like London buses. They were already red but they needed windows and passengers to add some interest and life. ​

​I drew the designs at home and had self-adhesive vinyl panels made which I applied to the front, back and sides of the cabinets. This saved time and created a more durable, professional finish.

From there it was back to Oxford where I was ushered inside a shop that was still being fitted out and in the darkness and dust from the builders, there was the glare from the headlights of a full size London double decker bus, created entirely from wood. ​

There are more murals in the pipeline and lots of exciting projects to come in both Oxford and London. Watch this space.

In February, TeachVac requested caricatures to accompany their articles on Bill Gates and Nadhim Zahawi.

In March, I designed and illustrated a cover for a book on the popular tv series The X Files. The book reached no.2 in its category for sales on Amazon (US). To celebrate this, I created a special poster of the cover artwork with glow-in-the-dark features!

In July I found out that yaks are very satisfying to draw.

In August, as a result of someone reading the X Files book, I got a request from an academic who wanted a cover for an article he'd written about horror on tv.

Also in August I got a request from Jim in New York State for nine images showing how best to find a needle in a haystack.

September found me creating this happy little monster for BDSX in Doncaster.

In October I came up with this design for regular customer Broad Canvas to adorn their latest canvas tote bags.

After thinking about this project for at least five years I finally drew up some designs for Oxford themed Christmas cards and even sold a few in the local art shop. Next year, after seeing which are the most popular, I will get a batch professionally printed and on sale all around the city.

Having marked the passing of Her Majesty The Queen with the image (top) drawn on the art shop window, I was asked if I'd possibly do some drawings on the windows of the tourist shop in the city centre. I agreed and have now covered every window and glass panel in their premises with illustrations, including the festive one above. It has been hinted that there may be more work to come on their shop windows in London in 2023!

Finally and festively, I was asked to create a t-shirt design for the motorbike racer Tommy Bridewell, featuring him as Santa being pulled by the four cartoon sheep featured in his branding (because he owns four sheep, obviously).
All in a day's work.

In 2020 the work continued to roll in and much of it was as odd and unusual as the year itself.

This job occupied me for most of 2019 and was eventually completed in January 2020: the biggest project I'd ever taken on. My regular client Mary began by writing a positive note each day for a year to people working through a 12 Step addiction programme. It was inspired by her mother Molly whose advice she felt she had disregarded when she was alive. Mary contacted me with the plan of creating a 365 page book, with each page carrying an illustration.
Above are some of the images we came up with. These, along with over 350 others graced the pages of a Kindle publication and also a massive printed book which I was delighted to receive in the post just a few weeks ago.

Throughout the year I have been working with Martin Graham to produce promotional material including banners, posters and letterheads for a project that promotes togetherness and friendliness in Birmingham and the surrounding area.
Recent banners have encouraged local people to come together AS ONE to create a community spirit in streets where people may not otherwise know their neighbours or anyone they can ask for help.

If you visit my CLIENTS page, you'll see I have experience in creating designs for gentlemens' pocket squares - a fact I used to win a project for an illustration on a bespoke silk scarf.
This image featured President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, shown surrounded by symbols of her work in trade and finance. The finished scarf measured over a metre square. I have no idea if it was intended to be presented to Mrs Lagarde or created for a fan of her work.

From a European client to my most distant client yet. In June I was commissioned to create some images that looked a bit like Elvis to promote a coffee company in Canberra, Australia.
Luckily they only wanted my illustrations and not my copywriting skills, otherwise they'd have ended up with headlines like: Return To Blender,  Americano Trilogy and Always On My Grind.

Also in June and a little closer to home, I was busy helping Cheshire company The Bath House redesign the logo I had worked on several years earlier. To promote the fact that they had diversified into designing and fitting kitchens, I created this new logo in a modern colour palette for use on their website, stationery and shop signage.

In July I was approached by a new client, Alex from Income Plus Administration to create simple avatars of his colleagues for use on emails etc. I was to incorporate the company colour scheme and give the whole project a recognisable style. In all we made avatars for around 20 members of staff.

For the past five years I've been producing the artwork for an A5 foldout map which shows where artists' open studios are located during Oxfordshire Artweeks. Sadly, this was one of the casualties of the lockdown and the event was moved online, meaning the trail map had no purpose. Still, onwards and upwards for 2021.

Mike at Northgate Training was a new client for 2020 and approached me with a really interesting piece of work. The corporate training events company wanted to create an Escape Room game which could be played online. I was to supply images of each room and various objects to be discovered within, so I found myself drawing tunnels in a labrynth, submarine interiors and best of all, a sinister monster lurching towards the competitors.

This is the second book I've worked on with author Darryl Diptee (details of the first can be seen further down this page). Darryl is a doctoral student at University of California, Berkeley, where he's researching ways to help kids to fall in love with science. His research inspired his second children's book entitled, You Were Born a Scientist!, which, in his words:  'aims to saturate the minds of kindergarten girls with the knowledge that the simple, innate wonder and curiosity they are born with are the same traits found in famous female scientists all around the world.'
At the time of writing, we are two thirds of the way through the book and it's been a pleasure, not only to learn something new from the text but to also experiment with a softer feel to the illustrations which incorporate more shading and subtlety thanks to an extra process in Adobe Photoshop.

So those were the major projects of 2020. There were also several other smaller jobs, no less interesting or odd than the ones above. For instance:

• a series of cartoon characters based on vehicle batteries for a major manufacturer in Austria.

• cartoon illustrations featuring vicious chihuahuas for online veterinary adverts

• a painting of a tree with rainbow coloured leaves which was converted into a glass splashback for a new kitchen.

That's why I love my job - you never know what's coming next. Long may it continue. Thanks to all my clients past and present and here's to an exciting 2021.

The big project of the year was a book called 'The Caterpillar That Became Enlightened' by Darryl Diptee.
Darryl told me he typed 'Bellingham Illustrator' into Google, hoping to find an artist in his nearby town of Bellingham, Washington State, USA. Instead he found me and the rest is history... well, a charming and enlightening children's book at least.

A suitable story called 'Escape From Planet No-Dror!' was written and sketched out,  a science-fiction tale featuring astronaut and illustrator Commander Drew Starbrush.

The artwork was then drawn onto a roll of lining paper and hung from the window of the shop as each frame was being completed.

It soon became apparent that we'd need to go higher so we de-camped to the next floor up and I carried on drawing.

Time was against me and at the end of opening hours, more than ten metres of illustrations had gone through the window but sadly, Commander Starbrush's fate still hung in the balance. Would he ever Escape From Planet No-Dror?