Little Drawings #3

Third in a series of a bazillion and two: Jorge the wonder frog awaits, heart thumping, for the conformation at the final moment of the "Atlantis 2565 BC Olympics Mascot World Series Finale Decider"

In an unfair twist of fate he loses out to Carl the Conger Eel and retreats into life of solitude...

Watercolour and Brushpen on watercolour paper.

Little Drawings #2

Second little drawing: Tommy Cooper practising as a child.

Watercolour and Brushpen on watercolour paper.

Waiting Room

Editorial illustration for Redactive in London through Folio based around embarassing illnesses I worked on last month.

Little Drawings #1

Something I've been meaning to do for ages. I'm going to try and draw or paint a small picture and post it here at least twice or thrice weekly. Ideally I'd do one everyday but I'm a professional procrastinator at times.

I've been dying to try water colours again so I dusted them off and gave it a weird go.

Here's the first: The tone deaf robot.

Watercolour and Brushpen on watercolour paper.

PlayTown Mats™

Over the last few months I've been working through my US agent, The July Group, to develop illustrations for PlayTown Mats™, a Main Street Gardens brand of children’s play mats.

I really loved working on them as they are exactly what I used to draw as a kid, whole towns and cities with roads I'd drive my matchbox cars around all fully illustrated in wonky lines and crazy buildings. So it was great to finally create fully realised versions of what I had as a kid. The great thing about them is that they all interconnect so you can potentially fill a room with a selection of different mats and drive your cars all over them.

I'm working on five different mats at the moment but these are the first two that have been produced and are now on sale. Looking forward to testing them on my nephew Billy, lord of the toy cars.

Dystopia part 36

Andrew had this Dystopia written just before Christmas but it skipped a month in Totally Dublin so I'm only catching up on it now. I went to the Dublin Comic Jam last week and hung out with Bob, Phil and Declan so it was great to draw with them and now have them feature in Dystopia. I must post some of the pics from the comic jam. Amazing and demented stuff...

Apologies lads for the poor recreations of your strips.

Hopefully Liam and Craig will actually get their own TV show some day.

This episode will be printed in the March issue of Totally Dublin.

Blog Awards Shortlist! UPDATE!

Well, this old blog didn't win this year but we had a great time in Cork at the awards. Well done to Pursued by a Bear for winning.

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I'm really delighted to announce that I've been shortlisted as one of five blogs in the Best Arts and Culture Blog section of The Irish Blog awards. This section is sponsored by Poetry Ireland. Thank you very much to the Judges involved! The event takes place in Cork this Saturday which should be a great evening.

Also nominated on the shortlist is a fine collection of blogs including Scamp, Pursued by a Bear, The Asylum and Devious Theatre. Good luck to all.


I've been doing this blog for just over a year and it's really opened up a whole new world to me. My sister Ciara, who has a collection of amazing blogs here and here, inspired me to start a blog and it's been a fantastic way for me to share my work as well create new work specifically for the blog.

Now to try and keep the momentum up for another year...

Mr. Movies

I'm currently working on some postcards and character designs with Vincent Donnelly from Movies.ie for his website and also his Movies Plus mini magazine. I had great fun coming up the design for this superhero character.

I just spotted the first ad today in the mag.

Custom American Football

I was recently chosen as one of 15 artists to customised an American football for the NFL Experience in Tampa, Florida for an exhibition there. My very nice agent in NY The July Group put my name forward and I was delighted to be chosen as one of the 15.

The artists include Aya Kakeda, Daniele Melanie, Oliver Hibert, Darren Brass & Miguel Paredes, Daniel Chang, Erik Sandberg, Roman Klonek, 123Klan, Dr. Alderete, Ron Kurniawans, Thunderdog Studios, Stan Chow and Superdeux.

The exhibition runs from January 24 at the NFL Experience in Tampa, Florida.

I'll get some of the proper press shots of my ball when I get them. In the meantime here's some photos I took myself.

Illustration Update

I finally got around to updating my illustration section on my website. It was on the longest finger for over a year. It's a good way to review your work and edit out bits and peices.

I've also updated my IGI portfolio with all the same images.

Random Dream System

The very talented Jay Roche will be closing his Random Dream System exhibition tomorrow night in The LAB on Foley Street in Dublin. The event will start with a discussion about RandomDreamSystem between Jay and the artist Fergus Feehily.

A little bit about the show:

‘Random Dream System’ is a project that I have set up to create a group of paintings; in all, 36 small canvas works. These paintings, which have been created by 36 separate people, form the elements of an overall work of which I am the author. Rather than being a curatorial project, Randomdreamsystem is a process artwork using the consciousness of individuals as a conduit to form a unique but unplanned result.

For more info about how the whole project developed and the artists involved click here.

Thursday 29th January at 6 pm
The LAB, Foley Street, Dublin 1

Cheap as Chips Exhibition

The lovely shop Circus in the Powerscourt center are hosting a great new exhibition called Cheap as Chips. All artworks will be €99.99 or less so anyone can grab a bargain. I'll have a bunch of small paintings in the show for sale.

More details below:

A mixed-media exhibition of affordable art and installation. All artwork for sale instore and online for the duration of the show at a maximum cost of €99.99

Launch event at Circus Store Thursday 29 January, 5pm—8pm and will run until Feb 28th

Contributors include:
Henrik Vibskov, Celestine Cooney, David Kitt, Conor & David, Rich Gilligan, Gavin Murphy, Harry Malt, Steve Ryan, Cliona O’Flaherty, John O’Reilly, Colm Mac Athlaoich, Eoghan Kidney, Swollen Design, Arms, George Brennan, Fergal Brennan, Mono.Kultur, Reality Studio, JP Keating, Dublin Streets, David Timmons, Chris Judge, Rob Benson

Circus Store
Powerscourt Townhouse
Centre, Dublin 2
+353 1 672 4736
www.circusstore.net

Blog Awards 2009

Thanks to whoever nominated this blog for the Irish Blog Awards this year! Very exciting.

Monster Cafe!

These two are graphics for the T-Shirts





Just before Christmas I worked with Maire Claire McKenna in Sligo who has just started a lovely little coffee company called Monster Cafe. She's using a great little van called The Megavan which is rechargeable and fitted out with a fancy coffee machine. Very green.

She approached me to come up with the graphics and character designs for the van and t-shirts and whatnot. It was great fun to work on. Here's a selection of photos she took of the van. Thanks Marie Claire!

If you're in Sligo or the general area keep an eye out for the Van and buy a coffee!

Dublin Bus Opening Doors

I recently worked on a poster with Cawley Nea for the new Dublin Bus Travel Assist Scheme. The brief for the illustration was to show a compact version of our fair city and how accessible it really is with the new improved public transport system.

I've just completed some other nice work with Dublin Bus that I'll post here when it's all out and about.