Sweet View: Greenwich

At long last, it has arrived: Sweet View print number 12!

This time it's the turn of Greenwich Market. It also features some Sunday millers, a bit of the Cutty Sark, a lone pigeon and some bunting.

It's available to buy online here.

This is the last of our original set of a print for each of the 12 inner London boroughs (don't mention The City of London). It's been fun though so we probably won't stop.

I drew it perched outside Desperados, a Mexican restaurant. They brought me tea and then refused any payment out of a kind supporting-the-arts gesture. I felt like Pablo Picasso himself in that moment. Now let's all go to Desperados and join the ¡FIESTA!
http://www.desperados-greenwich.com/

**Special blog offer for blog people**
Readers of this blog are hereby entitled to 20% off - on all our prints - between now and Christmas. Just email info@sweetview.co.uk with your order.

Here are some of those aforementioned details.

The Sunday millers:

The Cutty Sark:

The lone pigeon:

And the bunting:

Stupid drawing is stupid

Oda

Last weekend Charlotte and I celebrated our seven year anniversary by falling in a river and then getting chased by bulls (see this and this).

In honour of the itchy milestone I wrote out the start to our favourite poem by our favourite Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda (well, top five at least). It's Oda Al Tomate, an ode to tomatoes.

The street

full of tomatoes

midday, summer

the light

is, um, halved ... like a tomato

it runs

in the street

the juice

Here it is in a frame on a wall.

Never Mind the B-Locks

Yesterday the Oberver announced the winner and runner-up of this years Graphic Short Story prize. I entered and curiously wasn't mentioned, so I presume I came in third.

Congratulations to Corban Wilkin for his winner and to Steve Tillotson for his perfectly-paced runner-up I, Yeti which captures, among other things, a melancholy foot-to-the-groin beautifully.

Here's mine. I wrote, inked, scanned and coloured the whole thing in one night after work ... and it shows, so I'm not too bitter about losing (read: still deeply bitter).

MoS: The Adventures of Ice Dragon and Sally

This morning I went to the Ministry of Stories along with 20 kids from Vittoria Primary School. They wrote a story about an Ice Dragon (a dragon made out of ice that breathes ice instead of fire) and a lady turtle. I drew the pictures.

Once upon a time in a cold river lived an underwater creature called Ice Dragon and his friend called Sally, a sea turtle. Ice Dragon was very cold. Sally had a very difficult time finding Ice Dragon because he didn’t like anyone and Ice Dragon could blend into the colour of the water.

Sally said, “Ice Dragon Ice Dragon, where are you Ice Dragon?”

“I don’t have enough time, I need to swim back into the water,” said Ice Dragon. When they found each other they played together.

Someone went fishing and there were chips and a banana in the water.

Sally swam up to the top and grabbed onto the food.   The fisherman reeled the banana up and Sally suddenly got pulled out of the water and struggled to breathe.

Ice Dragon said “I’ll save you Sally!”...

Bobs and bits

Graphic Diner

Graphic Diner is a new venture from me: an illustrated restaurant review blog. I guess I'm just at that point in life where you start a food blog. It's one of those inescapable milestones we all face up to eventually like learning to drive or realising you're not a good singer.

So far I've reviewed two eateries:

Duck Soup in Soho.

Tramshed in Shoreditch

And here is a Fruit Ninja inspired chicken picture from the latter.

Valerio's

Last week I went to that great balsamic boot, Italy.

Specifically I was back in the Marche region, in the medieval mountain town of San Ginesio. I suspect it's usually a sleepy place but it never is in August when everyone dresses like old paintings and marches back and forth drumming furiously for a month solid like renaissance Duracell bunnies.

One day we went for a cut-throat shave at Valerio's on the piaza. It was just like one of those old gangster movies where someone goes for a shave.

Otherwise it was mainly cooking and crosswords and cross words. You know, the usual family stuff. (Not my family, mind.)

Girl, look at that body

London Cyclist Handbook

This week saw the launch of the London Cyclist Handbook. I did some drawings for it.

It takes you all the way through from looking at bikes online...

... To cycling around London ...

... To talking incessantly about bikes in bike themed bike cafes ...

... Right up to when you become one of these guys. Mamils, they call them apparently. Or Mawils, I guess.

I'm currently somewhere between stage two and stage three.

See a preview of the book for free here.

Hello, Kitty

This is Kitty Princess, that cat that has it all.

I went to Mallorca

Last week I went to Mallorca. Mallorca is my favourite island, along with River Island and Fernando's. I went there last year, or at least around it, for a disastrous sailing trip. This time we stayed very much on land - specifically in a villa near Pollença.

I went with 5 friends.

And whilst they all read and bathed and chatted and lolled I sat away from the group in the shadows, drawing. I did a little spread for each day, look:

Designing Daylight Saving

My day job is being a designer at Walker Books. There I work on covers, mainly, for the Fiction list. Last year I designed a cover for Daylight Saving by Edward Hogan. More recently I wrote a process-post for our Undercover blog detailing how I went about it - including a bit with tins of chickpeas in a bath.

As part of the process I also made an interactive digital cover for use online which may or may not be the first ever such cover. People seemed to like it, which was nice.

The interactive cover/countdown clock:

Four Aces

The joke is that, in poker, any hand is a gamble. That's kind of the point.

Cat on record

f•r•i•e•n•d•s

This situation-comedy is going to be big. Come back soon for more piping-hot culture scoops!

Mirror image

Appy Memories

Here's a strip that's been buried in my sketchbook since a time when Instagram was relevant.

Life Drawing

This week I did two hours of Life Drawing. This takes my total number of hours spent Life Drawing in the last five years up to an impressive two hours, compared to about 20 hours of playing Draw Something in the last five days.