Moved

I'm no longer blogging here. Now I'm doing it all at jackdraws.tumblr.com

Thanks!

This is London and somewhere in Italy

This is the view from the roof of Walker Books, which is where I work. I'm not sure if you're allowed on the roof.

This is the view from the roof of 153 Petherton Road. You're not allowed on the roof.

This is East Croydon train station. I was waiting there to meet Arron and Greg to cycle down to Brighton (they didn't fancy the "South London shit bits").

This is the logo from a packet of IODAL Fino, which is an Italian salt brand. This tells us we are now in Italy.

This is the inside of our hired Fiat 500. Look at this picture whilst listening to Taylor Swift's Red on MAX VOL for the full experience.

This is the same scene drawn on a much rockier road, giving everything a charming Quentin Blake style wibble.

So that's nice.

Also: a Tumblr

As well as this blog, I have a Tumblr. A Tumblr is a microblog which means very small posts of very limited interest. I'll still use this blog for words and pictures, but jackdraws.tumblr.com is the place to go for scraps and previews of stuff of everything I'm working on - so a fair bit of stuff from my day job at Walker Books too, which is nice.

Argentina

Here are some sketches and bad photos from my fun but unremarkable trip to Argentina in March. Please look at it.

Fire in a Pet Shop

WorldService Project are a London PJF (punk-jazz-funk) group. I drew a fire in a pet shop for their second album, Fire in a Pet Shop, out later this month. Before I began the band supplied me with a long list of items to include in the artwork - pretty much everything shown is a reference to a lyric, a song title or some in-joke for the WSP superfan.

Those were the days

A while ago I did this drawing.

6-8 months later, this book arrived in the post.

 So that was nice.

Press round-up

Jack Noel cross-media penetration went up from zero to some back in January when I featured not only on a website but also in the national press. I was interviewed about my job for the Reading Agency and then quoted talking about book design in The Independent. And if you read the former you'll soon see how ill-qualified I was to do the latter.

You can read the interview here. Below is the original drawing. I have no idea if the back of my head actually looks like this, though I gather there's actually a lot less hair there than I've shown.

I'm buried in this short Independent article about the chick-lit-ish new cover for The Bell Jar.

Sadly my one "joke" was cut from the print edition, but somehow it did sneak in to the online version.

And, in case you still missed it, here's the punch line again. Because I may never see one of mine rendered in the proper press ever again.

Oh, go on then ... once more:

Eh? Eh? Geddit?

Jazzy, mully, lightyhousey

I was reading in the Barbican Centre and I must have reached a racy bit as I was engrossed long enough for a Jazz festival to be assembled around me (which will happen if you stop still in the Barbican Centre for too long). I ended up watching this French trio, Triphase, which was nice.

Just before Christmas we hosted a pop-up Mullery in our flat. It was like one of the staid mulled wine soirées our parents attend but with an almost imperceptible layer of wry self-awareness and just enough of a nod to the relevant, bloggable North London alt-restaurant scene for us to continue believing we are "with it".

This is the Red Lion & Sun in Highgate which may or may not serve Doom Bar.

And for reference, this is a pint of Doom Bar.

More recently, we went and stayed in this fine once-lighthouse now super-charming bed & breakfast.
Now that was nice.

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