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.

Sweet View: more Hammersmith & Fulham

Here be a little behind the scenes action on the colouring process for the Hammersmith & Fulham print.

Eventually it turned out like this:

Which then came back from the printers a bit like this:

Sweet View: Hammersmith & Fulham

This weekend we announced our newest Sweet View print: Hammersmith & Fulham. A view of the bridge from that nice bit outside the Blue Anchor and the Rutland Arms.

It's available to buy from the Sweet View site now.

I drew the scene back on a sunny October afternoon from what turned out to be one of the most pleasant of the Sweet spots to draw from: perched in the sun with a pint as opposed to the usual propped-against-a-bin or leaning-awkwardly-against-a-shop-window.

Here are some details:

See sweetview.co.uk for more information and our other 10 London prints.