One more...

The final of my Christmas cards for this year, this is a painting for my girlfriend of a Doraemon cuddly toy she bought me a while back. Doraemon is a Japanese cartoon character. Although pretty much unheard of over here, in Thailand his image is everywhere- on bumper stickers, posters, toys, DVDs- to the extent that I came to view him as some kind of adopted national mascot.

So here are the painting itself and then the image I used for the card, Christmassing him up a bit by placing him in a vast snowfield of photoshop snowmen, being observed by a solitary child. I like to think that the child has just finished singlehandedly building this great gathering of snowmen, only to be a bit puzzled and cheesed off that a gargantuan, magical blue cat-creature has just landed amongst them.

Pat liked it, so I'm happy.

Merry Christmas Again!

Some little watercolour & pencil pics I gave as leaving-it-a-bit-late-really family Chrimbo cards. Based on tree decorations. I hope everyone's had a great day.

Merry Christmas!

I wish everyone a brilliant festive season. Bring on the mince pies!

Christmas Cards

The last couple of days I've been painting, printing, folding, writing & posting a load of Christmas cards. It would've been nicer to have had more time to work on the image, but postage deadlines loomed. So, it's a snowman who's been grafitti'd, his assailant leaving behind a spraycan and a trail of footprints. I hope that comes across okay in the image.

I wanted a bit of a warmer feel than most Christmas scenes, despite the snow, hence the yellow evening sun and brownish underpainting.

Mon

A couple of weeks back my girlfriend and I bought a kitten, white-with-black, whom she named 'Mon', for 'monster' and after the Japanese cartoon character Doraemon. He was tiny, cheeky, playful and unbelievably hungry for affection. But sadly despite the round-the-clock attention and care he received from Pat he was just a little bit too weak and tiny for the fight and he died at the weekend. Mon was ace, a proper character and he won't be forgotten.

I regret that I didn't get round to drawing him properly while he was around, but I've gathered together the odd little sketches I did manage in the days after we picked him up (mostly while he was asleep or eating) as a little mini-tribute here. Rest easy little man.

.