Suggs

Was at the Newport Riverfront Theatre last night, selling my cartoon books and prints at their monthly Summer Sessions event. Suggs was in concert that night too so I scribbled this down.

Strange Looking Bloke Wednesday

Ok, haven't done one of these for about 6 months, so here's a new SLBloke.

I broke out the ink, nibs and watercolour for a bit of random drawing and doodling - was a bit of a break from digital cartooning too! I'd watched a bit of Paranorman, (a stop motion film from the makers of Coraline) and it featured high school characters so I was 'inspired' to draw this fella.

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For more Strange Looking Blokes and assorted cartoon ramblings, I can thoroughly recommend the 'Seldom Seen Blog' books, available at the link somewhere to the right of this...

Long time no post

So I've been away from the blog for a while (and Facebook and Twitter, but that's another 'tired of social networking' story) so here's a cartoon to get back into things.

This gag is in the current issue of Reader's Digest. I came up with the idea at a cartoon convention in Feb 2012, sold it to RD around August 2012 and it finally saw print in April 2013. Not entirely sure it was worth the wait :) but as long as people keep buying puns, I'll keep writing them.

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Shameless Promotion section

If you're interested in my gag cartoons, my collection is available to buy here

http://timharriescartoons.bigcartel.com/product/101-gag-cartoons

£5.99 plus £1.20 postage

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Ever worried that a hundred gag cartoons were never quite enough? Fret no more - 

'One hundred and one gag cartoons' is the perfect way to exercise your laughing muscles! 

Featuring work from the pages of Readers Digest, Punch, New Statesman, and many others.

If you want your copy signed, please let me know!

PRODUCT DETAILS
7.5" x 7.5", perfect binding, cream interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-colour exterior ink.

To laugh or not to laugh

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A post on the Procartoonists blog about what's funny/not funny reminded me of this cartoon I drew a few years back. It just sat on my hard drive unloved and ignored, so I thought it at least deserved a posting on my blog.

Bob Scrimshaw

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Here's another Bob Scrimshaw strip, taken from the pages of the Cartoonists' Club 'Jester' mag. 

Strange Looking Bloke Wednesday

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It's a guest Strange Looking Bloke today, courtesy of illustrator and animator Matthew Harding who tells us:

"It’s a portrait of Guto Bathroom Cabinet ap Llewelyn-Griffith, a kindly gent and diminutive one-time amateur American footballer who gave me my first job as a referee over the whelk wrestling on the beach at Builth Wells.  Although I remain indebted to his generosity, I concede that on occasion, from some angles and in a certain light he could possibly be considered slightly strange looking.  Who among us is perfect though?"

You can find more of Matthew's work at  http://matthewharding.co.uk/ and also at http://www.facebook.com/CartoonLoot 

Many thanks to Matthew for his suitably strange looking bloke.

Another poem

Here's another one from my short series of short poems. It makes the previous one seem positively verbose.

USB poem

I heard a really really really bad piece of poetry recently. In fact, this is the tweet I sent half way through the 15 minute opus. (Not entirely sure how long it was but it certainly felt like 15 minutes!)

I was, however, inspired to write some poems of my own. Here's the first one (possibly best read in the voice of Pam Ayres)

Poem about a USB stick

Where have you gone, my oblong friend?
My sixteen gig of data?
I though I left you in port three.
(I'm sure he'll turn up later)

Strange Looking Bloke Wednesday

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Another bumper SLB Wednesday, with three doodles of blokes in various stages of not looking amused. Perhaps next week I'll do Happy Looking Bloke Wednesday for some balance.

Nib Nerd: Deleter pen, pencil and some watercolour brush pens.

Hat Party!

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Went to a 'Hat Party' last night. All the guests had to turn up with unusual headgear. I took a hat *and* a sketchbook. I was obviously robbed in the 'best men's hat' category, but Nikki won 'best women's hat'. Hurrah!

Nikki's winning hat! Handmade by the pair of us.

 

Rolf and Gren

“All I ever wanted was to draw. I have an almost childish love of cartoons. I always look forward to doing them. If it wasn’t my work, I’d be doing them as a hobby.”

Gren Jones. 

The highly acclaimed and popular series 'Rolf on Welsh Arts' returns to BBC One Wales. In this, the first of four programmes, Rolf Harris heads off around Wales in his 'Rolf Mobile', to gather all he needs for his own personal tribute paintings in homage to some of the nation's greatest artists.

In this funny and witty programme, Rolf tours the Valleys, visiting the people and places that influenced South Wales iconic cartoonist Gren Jones. And as background for his tribute cartoon, Rolf has to undergo a real Gren experience against the clock and create a cartoon for the next day's edition of the Echo with a little advice from comic legend, Max Boyce.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n91df/Rolf_on_Welsh_Art_Series_2_Gren/

This episode is available until Fri November 9th.

I was a big fan of Gren (still am!) - here's my tribute to him from 2007

Gren Remembered

Bob Scrimshaw: Cartoon Guru

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More Scrimshaw shenanigans, plus another COMPETITION!

YES, it's COMPETITION TIME!!
To win a signed Scrimshaw strip of your choice, a small original doodle and perhaps some other stuff*, simply head to http://www.facebook.com/scrimshawcartoons and SHARE this Scrimshaw strip on your timeline. Reckon I'll pick 3 winners, so you've got a frankly superb chance, especially if only 3 people share. Don't let that happen!

*Bit vague but there you go.

(If you don't have Facebook, I guess you could print out the strip and stick in your front window. That's the same as 'sharing' isn't it?)

A whale of a gag

Caption: "It's all sounding a bit samey... do you know any Abba?"

This gag appears in the October issue of Saga Magazine. Impeccable taste, that Saga Magazine.

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Shameless Promotion section

If you're interested in my gag cartoons, my collection is available to buy here

http://timharriescartoons.bigcartel.com/product/101-gag-cartoons

£5.99 plus £1.20 postage

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Ever worried that a hundred gag cartoons were never quite enough? Fret no more - 

'One hundred and one gag cartoons' is the perfect way to exercise your laughing muscles! 

Featuring work from the pages of Readers Digest, Punch, New Statesman, and many others.

If you want your copy signed, please let me know!

PRODUCT DETAILS
7.5" x 7.5", perfect binding, cream interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-colour exterior ink.

Strange Looking Bloke Wednesday

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It's a bumper SLB Wednesday! I've been scribbling away with my new Deleter pen, usually on whatever material is at hand - a scrap of watercolour paper, some thick card, cheap laser paper. I drew the gentlemen with the large hat while I was watching Zulu. Magnificent facial hair!

Got so many of these doodled scraps of paper dotted around the room... it's quite fun to randomly stumble upon one I'd forgotten about. It's the same with gag cartoons. I've got my notebook, but also piles of tiny scrap paper with gag ideas on, as this post last November demonstrated.

Hrmm

Rorschach was always going to have a problem at airports.

Strange Looking Bloke Wednesday

Ok, so they're not really strange looking blokes, but it is Wednesday and I have rules to follow.

I've got the new BF5 album and tickets for the UK tour, so I've been playing it on constant rotation.
As much as I like Ben's solo stuff, I do think he works best in this group - really raises his game. Love the way they sound too - manic piano, fuzz bass and crashing cymbals one moment, delicate harmonies the next.

Hopefully the tour will be a mix of old and new material. I've seen Ben Folds live plenty of times, but never Ben Folds Five which will make hearing (hopefully!) Underground, Army and Kate all the sweeter.

Nib Nerd Section: Drawn with my new Deleter 'School G' pen, then a tiny amount of grey wash. Lovely scratchy line with the Deleter - a welcome to change to my computer work.

The Big Drawn

Please excuse the quality of most of the photos. I took one picture with my camera and the battery immediately died. The rest of the pictures are from my iPhone. My 'first generation, gets laughed at by other iPhone users, extremely poor camera', iPhone. Bah!

This year's Big Draw, a month long celebration of drawing, launched on Sunday in splendid style with the opening event 'Big Draw, Big Make' in London's V&A Museum. Talks and demonstrations by top designers Sir Nicholas Grimshaw and Richard Seymour, illustrator Quentin Blake and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe took place throughout the day, along with portfolio reviews, pop up art studios to visit  - plenty to keep kids and adults alike busy all day.

They also let a bunch of us cartoonists in for workshops and to do battle in front of a baying crowd. 

Such larks! (c) Rosie Brooks

The four cartoon workshops were organised by the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation and ran throughout the day. I'd arrived at around 11.30 and the first workshop was already up and running. Fellow PCO member Robert Duncan was entertaining a full crowd of kids and adult, getting them all involved and offering suggestions of things to draw. All the benches and tables were full, so kids were scribbling on the floor too (well not on the actual floor - that is illegal and would get us all imprisoned. Probably)

Robert Duncan taking his cartoon workshop

While I was waiting for my workshop to start, I wandered around the room we were set up in.It was decided that we'd use the Raphael room. Here's what the V&A website says about it:

This room houses the surviving designs painted by Raphael, one of the greatest of all Italian Renaissance artists, for tapestries commissioned in Rome in 1515 by Pope Leo X . These were to hang in the Sistine chapel on the walls beneath the ceiling by his contemporary Michelangelo. Although originally only designs (known as "cartoons") to guide the weavers, they are now among the greatest artistic treasures in Britain. Owned by the British Royal Family since 1623, they have been on loan to the Museum since 1865.

So, Raphael cartoons in the Raphael room... perfect for cartoon workshops! Perfect for the upcoming Battle of the Cartoonists! Yes, well... uh... bit dark, innit? Of course its entirely understandable - the seven Raphael's on display are priceless and the subdued lighting protects them admirably, but I could foresee a lot of eye strain. Fear not, however! I had a solution for everyone...

To which I had the reply...

No-one donned a helmet though. Conformists!

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Next up was my workshop - creating comic strips. Great fun! After an initial explanation of what we were doing, I spent the next 90 minutes wandering from family to family talking through their ideas and seeing how they could come up with ideas and characters and produce a strip for them to take home to stick on the wall. I estimate we must have handed out around 200 worksheet sets. As usual the kids came up with so many amazing concepts and characters. Always a pleasure to do these workshops.

I've heard from Cathy Simpson and Will Dawbarn that their workshops were heaving too and very successful. Good to see our efforts paid off.

Team Sun are go, go, go!

With barely time to catch my breath, it was straight over to the main event of the day... The Battle of the Cartoonists! Seven teams (Reader's Digest, Private Eye, The Sun, Big Girl's Drawers, Guardian/Observer, Professional Cartoonists' Organisation and The Telegraph) were taking part and I was drafted in last minute to Team Sun, alongside Andy Davey and Clive Goddard.

Despite not knowing what Raphael painting we were supposed to base our banner on, (it would be decided half an hour before the start via a random draw in front of official referee and adjudicator Libby Purves)  we'd decided to get a bit sneaky and plan a design ahead of time that would allow us to simply slot whatever Raphael we got in.

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After a bit of umm and aahing, I came up with the idea of an Antiques Roadshow scene featuring the Royal Family. In lieu of any other ideas, we decided to go for it!

Andy Davey caricatures on my bodies... Working as a team!

A wonderfully demented looking Camilla, by Andy Davey

Outstanding work by Clive Goddard

More excellent caricature work from Andy

After 2 hours we were finished. Despite 3 cartoonists with differing styles working on it, I though our styles melded in together very well - with the final banner resembling a newspaper strip- the effect I had hoped for. It certainly helped working in black and white for the most part, with only the painting and the Sun logo adding a dash of spot colour. For my first experience taking part in a Battle of the Cartoonists, it was pleasantly stress free and a lot more fun than I'd originally imagined - No "where's my pencil?" "The caption goes there, buffoon!" or "Where's my agent? I'm not working in this light!"

A big, big thank you to Andy and Clive for their brilliant cartooning skills and reassuring manner! 'No worries - we'll have it done in plenty of time'...

I didn't manage to take any decent pictures of the finished banner, but I'm sure there'll be plenty showing up on Facebook or the PCO blog.

Like these ones!  http://procartoonists.org/big-drawings-from-the-big-draw/

And that was it! Just the judging left. Since we were in a museum, surrounded by priceless works of art, the crowd couldn't cheer or clap to vote for their favourite banner, for fear of kicking up a dust tsunami that would engulf the entire room. Instead they were told to shuffle over to their favourite an stand there. Whoever had the biggest crowd wins. Simple!

So, Private Eye won for the 3rd year in a row. Yay. ( I'm not bitter! :)

Ger, Tim, Nathan. Three men and a pipe.

Finally it was off to the pub for post match analysis, beer and trying out Henry Davies' pipe.
A few pints later and it was time to go. All in all a good day.

Looking forward to next year!

Big Draw and Battle of the Cartoonists

Yes indeed! Once again a bunch of cartoonists have been invited along to the Big Draw's opening event in London, taking workshops, having a good natured battle (I'll explain later!) and working alongside loads of other artists, illustrators and wonderfully creative folk - all with the one purpose of getting everyone to draw! This year's event is called 'Big draw, Big Make and takes place in London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

Download the Big Draw Big Make Map and guide here

One of my roles this year will be taking a cartoon workshop in Room 48a, where the Raphael cartoons are hanging. (I've got an image of ninja turtles now!)  They start at 11am with Robert Duncan. I'll be on at 12.30, then Cathy Simpson at 2pm and Wilbur Dawbarn at 3.30pm. They should all be quite varied and will be a jolly good laugh. Hurrah! 

My workshop will be 'Creating Comic Strips' and will take kids and adults through the steps to writing and drawing a 3 or 4 panel mini strip. If you can't make it, don't despair, you can download the worksheet free of charge and have a go in the comfort of your own home! Still, if you can come along, we'd all love to see you.

Download the 'Creating Comic Strips Worksheet 2012' here

So, what's this battle I mentioned earlier? It's the Battle of the Cartoonists no less, where the weapons are a rapier sharp wit and large marker pens. This year there will be 7 teams from the newpapers and cartoon organisations, all furiously drawing for 2 hours on huge banners and aiming to win the crowd over. The prize? A warm glowing sense of worth and the envious glares of your peers. Plus a small trophy probably. I'll be taking part for Team Sun, alongside Andy Davey and Clive Goddard, so if you're there, come and heckle the other teams to put them off.

A banner for 2006 at Somerset House

A banner from 2007 at Covent Garden

And here's a report I wrote about the 2006 Battle of the Cartoonists. Stirring stuff!

We will fight them on the Piazza.
The PCO’s war correspondent Tim Harries reports from the frontline at last year’s ‘Battle of the Cartoonists’ and looks forward to this year’s event in Covent Garden. Chaaarge!

 Only an hour in and there were already casualties. The Guardian sustained heavy cadmium yellow losses attempting to paint the Sun to scale, Private Eye (who he? - Ed) were suffering extensive nib rot in the trenches, and The Independent spent most of the time searching out a ladder for their shorter recruits. Yes, the 2006 ‘Battle of the Cartoonists’ was in full swing and they had the scars to prove it.
Having gained access to the front-line by pushing aside some old women and a small child, I found myself in the danger zone and feeling nervous. All around me, civilians were equally jittery - there were reports that a live caricature had gone off earlier in the day. I barely had time to move before a loaded sable brush streaked past. I instinctively ducked. Luckily I landed on some old women and a small child. Despite these distractions the valiant cartoonists battled on, occasionally agreeing with each other about what they were drawing. As impartial onlookers we were eventually asked to judge the winning banner, and by the fair and democratic process of who can shout the loudest, top honours went to The Guardian (though even they agreed The Independent was robbed).

Timelapse painting

Here's a timelapse video I enjoyed watching. Artist Becky Dreistadt tackles the theme of 'Curiosity' in a piece that took her 10 hours, but we can watch in the slightly more manageable 8 minutes!

Worth checking out if you're interested in painting techniques or watching people do things really really quickly.

Strange Looking Bloke Wednesday

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This week's bloke is from my forthcoming exhibition 'Unhappy Eaters'.

The exhibition will take place in my mind.

Judge Clegg

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Say what you like about Clegg, he does a pretty good Dredd.

Thank Dai it's Friday

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It's been a few months since I've posted a Dai strip on this blog, so here's one from earlier in the year (whenever the film came out I guess).

It didn't get published in the paper due to a layout cockup (bah!), so this is its first outing. I'm all about the 8-months-out-of-date-topical-humour, me!

Still haven't seen The Artist. I've heard mixed reports... is it any good?

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While I have your attention...

Volumes 1 and 2 of the Never Say Dai Collection

(featuring over 270 strips each) are available at my online store.

Available now for only £5.99 each plus £1.20 p/p
from  http://timharriescartoons.bigcartel.com/ 

Cartoonist not beaten

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The Reader's Digest 'Beat the cartoonist' results are in, and it's trebles all round with my caption "Turn off your predictive text, Brother Thomas" beating off some stiff competition from the readers. In your face, lovely delightful readers!

That takes the score to Readers 5, Cartoonists 3, so still a chance for the plucky rebels (us) to defeat the evil empire (readers). Sorry, I'm currently listening to the Star Wars soundtrack.

I was looking to see if I could find the original sketch I did of this cartoon, but I must have chucked it away/deleted it (can't remember if it was pen or digital) so here's a picture of what I had for tea last time my wife was away for the weekend.

Creme Egg on a bed of Cheese Balls.

Strange Looking Bloke Wednesday

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You may not know the name of today's SLBloke (at least not without using Google, which is CHEATING!) but you'd probably recognise him from his most famous role, the teacher who says "Bueller..... Bueller..... Bueller...." in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

If you don't recognise him, it's either because (a) I didn't draw him well enough, or (b) you haven't seen the film. If it's (a) that's fair enough, if it's (b), I suggest you remedy that glaring oversight immediately. A prime slice of John Hughes teen comedy if ever there was one!

Nib Nerd section: Pencil, watercolour and a bottle of bright orange ink I need to use up.

The Bat Umbrella

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Another 'sat in the pub, having a pint' doodle from my notepad.

I was just imagining that not all Bat Devices would be particularly flash or exciting, so when it starts raining in Gotham, he gets his brolly out just like the rest of us.

I don't care how tough Batman is, he's liable to catch a cold without one. Deploy the Bat Lemsip!

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For more doodles and sketches like the one above (but not actually the one above)

you might consider purchasing 'The Seldom Seen Blog' Volumes 1 and 2 from my online shop.

http://timharriescartoons.bigcartel.com/

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