Andy Murray

As I type he is under the cosh against Gasquet, but he's diggin in there. These guys are playing their guts out for a chance to meet Nadal in the next round!

football

I am watching the Euro 2008 final and Spain are one nil up....Come on England!!

Wimbledon

Tennis has started I am not a fanatic, but I enjoy some of the games. Must try and crank out a drawing or two of some of the players, there are some good interesting faces.

The things you hear

I have never been so busy.......I am drawing lots of faces in different places out and about doing 'on the spot' caricatures

I don't only see but I also hear things whilst I am on these jobs.
So here is a short list of things people either say to me before, during or after I have drawn them. They are in no particular order, some are ridiculous whilst others are quite funny some even complimentary.

1. I am starting my diet on Monday so can you draw me thin.
2. Do you have to see my face to draw me.
3. She is easy to draw cos she's got blonde hair and blue eyes.
4. Have you seen how fast he can draw.
5. Her nose is much bigger than that!
6. He's got you spot on
7. How long have you been doing this?
8. Do you have to keep looking at me
9. Make me look like Paul Newman
10. Please don't draw the gap in my teeth
11. You made me look very glamourous
12. Be kind...will you

Question

How often do you draw?

It is a question I get asked many times.

The answer is I draw all the time I don't think a day passes without me laying something down on paper. It is just the same as training to improve at a sport. Good practice is what gets you better at what you do.
I believe some people are born with a natural aptitude for putting down on paper what they see, but they still have to work hard and put in many hours of drawing in order to make the necessary improvements. That is also how an individual style develops through many hours spent drawing.
Just like anything else it can get frustrating when things are not going right and you sit there waist deep in scrunched up failed attempts. Then you get it right and that's it the whole world is a better place and you can forget about all those scrunched up ball of paper and just call them 'practice'!

Thanks to Derryck Wilson for the question

Barking Mad

I don't know where the phrase comes from but I like it

Fish Joke

Well I thought it was funny...

Caption

This is all I have time for at the moment...but it's better than nothing. If you are one of the many thousands of visitors to this blog and can think of a caption, then feel free to email it me.

Doodle

Short on time... So here I offer a typical doodle

Drink up

Dogs and Joggers

If I could have been paid the princely sum of £1 for every time a dog owner has uttered these famous word “It’s OK he won’t bite”….then I would have been able to retire early sitting atop a pile of cash some years ago.

I go out jogging from time to time and these mutts are at best a nuisance and at worst downright dangerous. Now experience tells me to slow down to a near walk so as not to the raise hackles or arouse the hunting instinct of the canine beast unnecessarily. It is a tactic that generally seems to work but there are occasions when it fails for no apparent reason, and I am left in a situation where I am confronted by a snarling beast and the owner is nowhere in sight.
Thankfully it has always resulted in a stand off between me and the pooch while we wait for the owner to finally appear lead in hand and a sheepish look on their face to take temporary control of the dog.

I say temporary because this incident shows that perhaps the dog is not as well controlled as the owner likes to think.
The incident generally concludes with a heated verbal exchange between me and the dog owner and they always seem to offer one of the same old excuses. “Oh he’s never done that before” or “You must have startled him”.
Suffice to say the exchange generally ends with me yelling “Get your bloody mutt under control”!!
Now whether doggie has never done it before or he has been startled is not really the point, the fact is the dog was not really under control.

Now take me the grumpy jogger out of the equation and replace me with a child, and now things look a lot different. Child gets scared and tries to run, dog goes into attack mode and the child has no chance.
By the time the dog has been brought under control by the owner or subdued in some way by the child’s parents or passer by, it is often too late and the child is left with horrific injuries.
So I say to dog owners if your dog has never 'done it before' then it does not guarantee he won’t, and if you take him where he likely to be startled by joggers then put him on a lead. Most important of all if there is a chance he will encounter children and he is not under tight control then put a muzzle on his schmuzzle.

Queuing up

What is it with people and queues. I was stood in a queue to use a cashpoint and there were at least 6 people in front of me and one at the machine. When the person at the machine finished 5 out of the 6 people in front of me moved as a group to the cash machine to watch and wait for their friend to get some money out.

In supermarkets it is the same. You can often see 3 people queuing behind their friend or relative who is buying something.

I genuinely believe if you stand still long enough but look as if you are waiting for something then a queue will start to form behind you.