• On a walk in the Forest, this afternoon, I came across quite a little glade of Fly Agaric mushrooms. They never fail to excite me. It must be years of fairy story inculcation. They would always appear in the corner of Arthur Rackham illustrations, like warning signs.

    Danger – Strange things may happen over the page!

    They are, apparently, hallucinogenic and may well be the influence behind Santa’s costume. Either way, they give me great pleasure when I come across them. They seem too opulent for our climate, too exotic. Surely they should be found in steamy jungles on paradise islands?

    Click for a bigger picture

  • Flash was not intended to be an illustration program, but I love it, because it is better suited to traditional drawing than a more obvious vector program like illustrator. In this video I give a brief introduction to how Flash works for an illustrator by showing how the cover of Viking Vik can be broken up into tiny pieces.

  • MagicBlox is a new website that allows anyone to post their children’s book for online viewing. If you visit the site, you will be able to see my vintage book, My First Picture Joke Book, brought to life along with a few other early adopter works.

    Those who know me and have followed my internet doings over the years, will know that I almost started something like this a couple of years ago. I didn’t have the time or patience to really get it working, so I’m indebted to Jason Lane of MagicBlox for getting this off the ground.

    You can get a month’s absolutely free, no-strings access to try it out by using the code BLOX5K in the ordering process.

    This is so similar to the model I had in mind, I can give it my full support.

    I hope you’ll go and have a look. Please click the facebook like logo to let me have a chance of winning an ipad!

    When you’ve had a look, come back here and make a comment. I’d really be interested to know what you think.