Leaving present

This is a caricature commission I recently completed for a company as a colleague's leaving gift. It went through a few changes on the way but I think we got there in the end!
Happy New Year everyone!

December so far

Okay, I thought I'd try to catch up and say exactly what I've been doing so far this month:

On the 2nd December I found myself fighting the snow in Elland, Yorkshire at a corporate event which went very well. Nearly got stuck in the snow on a side road though.....

The 3rd December found me at the Royal Welch barracks in Chester working at one of their NCO's events - great fun!

The 4th December saw me working in Manchester for British Gas at the Manchester Ramada Hotel which was a great night.

On the 7th December I was actually working at a restaurant in Knutsford (hoorah!) at a private party where I THOUGHT I had to draw 28 people in total and so I'd allowed myself three hours. When I arrived at the restaurant I discovered that I had a total of 32 guests to draw and I drew the lot (in VERY cramped conditions) in under two hours.......not bad eh?

The 10th December saw me working in the morning for a recruitment company in Central Manchester (I did a similar event for them last December but this was at their new, swisher offices) and then I had to drive down to London for an evening event at Gresham College for a Patents Company which was great fun but a totlly knackering day as I didn't get back home until 1:30am-ish!

On the 11th December I worked for a call centre company (Moneypenny) at an event in Wrexham. I only had to do two hours (although I was booked for 2 - 3 hours) and, even though it was during the meal, I still managed to draw 36+ guests! I must be getting faster at this malarky!!
I should really make an effort to take some photos at some of these events.
In the meantime I'm working through a great pile of studio work.

Teapot in Bristol

I found this beauty while travelling in the Bristol area recently but it's actually not a product of any local factoriy. It was in fact manufactured by a company based in Manchester call Mann, Webb & Co in about 1842. They were a rather unique company in as much as they were tea importers as well as pot manufactures and were very successful until the late 1860's. I really like these pots as you will notice the fancy flags or banners visible on the upper level of the structure - these were the (original) tea advertisements for the company's tea importing side of the business and the company greatly reduced the purchase price in exchange for displaying the banners on a permanent basis.
This pot is a beautiful design in as much as the tea compartment was quite large (the windows in the upper area are 'level guages' and not windows for looking out of!) and the living quarters were really very comfortable even for the large families of the day. The little structure on the side has often been mistaken as a common garden shed but was actually both the coal bunker and tea caddy. Not many of these 'caddy bunkers' have survived.

Sketchbook stuff

I've been very remiss recently by ignoring my blog - shame on me I hear the cry! So here are are couple of images from my sketchbook.



This is an image of a 'friendly little chap' and below



is your typical iPhone user!

Shrewsbury cartoon

This cartoon was an idea for last year's Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival which I originally drew to A4 size and it was'nt selected. At a later stage it was thought that we should have more A3 cartoons displayed and so I redrew it to A3 size - it sold believe it or not!

Computer crash

We're having work done on the house, there are electricians present and they want to turn the main power supply off - hang on, I need to turn my computer off! No problem is the reply from the ground floor and I notice that my computer is usefully telling me that I should NOT turn off just yet as it is updating important software.......the screen goes blank as the computer turns off. Did it update properly or did the pesky electricians turn off the power too soon? Yep, you guessed it - they screwed up my operating software and so out comes the old back-up system while I try to find someone to fix the main system for me. You'll be pleased to hear that it's now well again....
While travelling around (with sick computer in tow looking for a computer A&E) I came across this beauty (below) nestling in the corner of rural England and it is an interesting follow-on from the last pot house I detailed in my last posting. Although this was built by a Staffordshire factory (according to the hallmark in 1836) it is another great example of an early eco-pot. Like the pot in the previous post, this baby was designed to collect rain water which would run down the lovely red and green striped gullies (seen on the outside of the upper part of the house) to be collected at the base (in a tank found just above the living space) thus creating its own water supply. A really clever idea but it had a major flaw - the external water running down the outside of the pot would quickly cool the brewing tea inside. Not good especially when you would obviously need tea during a rain storm. Not many made. Poor show.....

An interesting example

I found this baby while on a recent holiday in Kent. It's not a British construction at all but was manufactured in Bombay (now Mumbai of course) in around 1810 by a company owned by Sir Abraham Roberts (no relation) who was a colonel in the East India Company at around that time (obvioulsy a bit of a side-line). Bombay at this time suffered from poor water (a piped supply was introduced in 1860) and so Sir Abraham thought that he would build a construction that would catch it's own water supply (hence the odd funnel shaped structure on the top) and he intended these to be produced as housing for those Brits who couldn't funtion in the summer heat of Bombay and who headed for the much cooler hill stations in the Himalayas (probably Shimla). There are suggestions that Sir Abraham put his own money into this venture as he understood that Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) was interested in such a structure as he was known to suffer fron chronic diarrhoea brought on, it is thought, by the poor water in Bombay. It is not known whether the Duke of Wellington bought such a structure but they were manufactured in large numbers and this one was obvioulsy ultimately owned by a very wealthy family as it was transported form India to the UK at some time in it's life!
I have shown the structure from the rear as I particularly like the beautiful rear windows which offer the occupants a lovely view. You can just imagine the views from them when housed up in the Himalayan mountains......