The end of May deadline for the fourth Douglas title We Love You Hugless Douglas is looming so I’m pretty much chained to the drawing board. The other day I found myself with a row of Douglas figures and thought I’d document the progress with my iPhone. Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures. I’ll be upgrading soon(!), but meanwhile you’ll have to live with what the modest 3GS can offer…

Nice to see a little sun today after such a miserable run of dull, damp weather. I wish we could decanter those warm rays of sunshine into handy cartons of sun juice, something to cling on to during the rotten spells of weather. This is actually a Star Goblin called Spangle for a story not written (yet). His carton is full of Star Juice but you get the idea.

I did this last night in front of the TV. It hasn’t turned out the way I wanted it to but it looks a little better this morning. I like the idea of doing a crew of knarled Pirate Trees but I seem to have got bogged down with the beard. It went down hill from there. I’ll have another go soon…

Ideas come from here, there and everywhere. And lately, there seems to be a flurry inspired by Twitter. When I first started tweeting I was worried it would take me away from my sketchbook during those precious spare moments when I do such things. But actually it often has the opposite effect. I’ll find myself following a thread of conversation, a string of random comments, often bizarre and funny. And the next thing I know I’m drawing about them. Usually very quick scribbles, but it all counts! Other times I’ll tweet a sketch and the comments I get back will trigger further drawing

Here, in no particular order, are a recent collection of doodles that have have been a direct result of twitter…

Bunny Fudge

Floaty Witches

Zombie Digger

Mummified Digger

The Rat catcher

Peep

Birds

Angel vs Demon (on going theme)

Some of these drawings triggered the question from some that they wondered what went on inside my mind. It immediately reminded me of a lovely little cartoon by the late Mel Calman who sums it up nicely, I think…

So there we have it. Yes, twitter can also be an activity that on occasion I find myself thinking that perhaps I should be doing something else a little more constructive. On the other hand, I’ve definitely found my sketchbook filling up with some surprising material. I put it down to the quality of my followers.

What that says about them, and me for that matter, I’ll let you be the judge.

Despite the variety of blossom on show over the past few weeks and the promising start of many a tree in the neighbourhood, the trees outside my studio are still straining hard with their buds. Any day now, surely…

Now, I don’t get a ton of fan mail. I tell myself it is because my core reading age is likely to be between 3-6 yrs old, the younger end of which probably enjoy their free time blowing saliva bubbles and getting their parents to run around after them rather than send me a letter or email.

But some do! And when they do it really is very special. Here is beautiful drawing called  A Scallywag by 5 yr old Aimee. Yes, 5 years old! I love the detail she has included, particularly the patch around the eye, and the choice of marks she has used to depict it. Amazing!

This one was handed to me by a very shy fan at the Edinburgh Book Festival a few years back. Sadly, I didn’t get her name. I think she drew it whilst I was talking about Goblins.

Occasionally I get presented with something that makes me feel very intimidated. This incredible drawing was given to me by an art student whilst I was talking at Eason’s bookshop in Dublin. (The goblin drawing in the top left hand corner was the step by step drawing I was doing with the audience!).

I can’t finish without showing you a drawing my son did, a portrait of me. It shows my back to him at my drawing board. I guess I was doing Hugless Douglas at the time, which would make him 5 yrs old. And the detail he chose the depict – the bald patch on the top of my head. Nice heavy line there with the 2B, in case I missed it. Bless.