departure from the normal kind of thing I would do – I recently speant a day painting a poitrait of a stuffed parrot.

It was completed for a friends birthday and said parrot has spent the last year travelling the world with a variety of MG owners raising some money for Weston Park Hospital along the way. I should add the idea was inspired by the lovely toy paintings of Jennifer Maher

Martina came with me to the Screamin Festival in Pineda de Mar, Spain last year, here she is in fact with myself sat in the towns main square listening to some Rock and Roll.

I still remember the sense of horror as I woke up form a particularly late and heavy night when all I could remember was leaving the towns rock bar in the early hours and an altercation with a JCB on the walk home and had no idea where she was. Luckily she had made it home with us.

I’m actually quite jealous of the life shes had and the places shes visited in the last twelve months. I wonder if I could orchestrate such a trip for myself…

pologies for the lack of recent noise on here, 2011 hasn’t been particularly kind in one way and another so far but it has brought a couple of rather nice illustration jobs. Firstly there is this recent book cover for S. C. Lee and his book Alana Rose: the Edward Francis Blogs. The author had a good idea of the overall composition required which made my job a little easier and it all turned out rather well.

The story goes something like this;

This year the geek shall inherit the Earth…literally. Edward Francis is an eighteen year old, part-time, video shop employee with far-fetched dreams of becoming a famous film director. He’s shy (especially around women) misunderstood and friendless, yep, the poor guy just can’t seem to get a break, whether he’s trying to meet his favourite actress Alana Rose (who he fantasises about dating) or attempting to get the local Goth girl to notice him. One thing’s for sure, it won’t be an easy ride for your new favourite blogger. Written in the first person in the form of an online journal, Alana Rose: the Edward Francis Blogs is the journey of a British teenager, growing up in a society that he’d rather forget.

The book is currently available to buy for the Kindle at Amazon here.

Also at the time of posting the author is looking for people to read and review the book on Amazon, if you’d like to do so please contact him via his website or via twitter.

week or so ago I shot this out the window of Scruffy Jacks Bar on Sandown Pier while having a beer or three with a good friend of mine. It was shot on an old Cannon Poweshot using the Canon Hack Development Kit.