My illustration portfolio has now been moved over to another website, which is running alongside this one.  You can have a poke-nose here.

My pic for this week’s Illustration Friday topic of “whiskers”.

Go kitty! Zoom! Whizz! Bang! Wallop! Meow! This week’s Illustration Friday pic.

This week’s Illustration Friday topic was tree, against which an oversized owl appears to be resting with a plan up her sleeve, to wit, to woo the creatures of the night.  “Ow owl!” is the tree’s response to his hefty companion.  Incidentally, if the tree was a Londoner, he’d pronounce both words in the same way.

Here’s my pic for this week’s Illustration Friday topic of “shy”, suggested by Sandhya Prabhat.

I guess if the shy little chick was talent spotted by a Hollywood scout, she could star in a series of chick flicks

This odd chap seemed to be a likely candidate for the new Illustration Friday topic of “haunt”.  Don’t worry – he’s only a two-dimensional character made of paper and paint and means no specific harm to any living (or deceased) being.

More Chi Penguin? – my pic for this week’s Illustration Friday challenge of sky.  I adapted the title from a phrase of Wallace (of “and Gromit” fame) in The Wrong Trousers.  Priding himself on being a good host, Wallace asked the penguin “more tea penguin?”.  But he missed a trick or two.  The penguin would’ve benefitted far more from a dose of chi.  Although, in this case the penguin turned out to be a super-villain, so Wallace’s omission was a happy accident.

The penguin in this picture is a benevolent one though.  And the sun, being older and wiser knows how to make the penguin an offer he can’t refuse

This week’s Illustration Friday topic is water, for which the surfin’ seagull seemed to be a suitable candidate.  I’m fortunate enough to have a beach near my home, which has provided many peaceful walks.  The seagulls tend to congregate at the end of the day, floating on the waves.

Speaking of beaches, I used to be a bit of a Beach Boys fan.  An interesting story is Brian Wilson’s Smile project, which he started in the late 60′s, but which was shelved for over 30 years.  It finally saw the light of day as a finished album about 10 years ago and has some beautiful pieces of music on it.  Here’s a wonderful suite from Smile, starting with a piece also called Wonderful funnily enough!  One composition in the suite that particularly stands out for me is entitled Surf’s Up – although most of the lyrics have very little to do with surfing!

Also on the topic of all things surf and seagull related, one of my favourite books is Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach, as descendent of the great classical composer J. S. Bach.  It’s a lovely story about a seagull who feels there is more to life than the mundane existence of his peers.  I particularly like the dedication to “people who know there’s more to this whole living thing than meets the eye”.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge is “book”, suggested by Adelaida.  The Groucho Marx quote accompanying the challenge tickled me: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

So from that idea, the logical conclusion is to have a swan reading a Penguin paperback.  If you zoom in closely, you’ll see the book’s called Swan Song.  I guess that means it’s the last book the swan will ever read before it departs to the land of nod.

Hi everybody! (said in the voice of Dr. Nick Riviera from The Simpsons).  This week’s Illustration Friday weekly challenge was “crooked”, suggested by Marion Dubois, whose ink and watercolour drawings are rather lovely.

I recall the drum & bass superstar Goldie recounting an incident on a plane in his autobiography, where because he was “some geezer with gold teeth, they got the hump”.  This geezer’s teeth are more yellow than gold, so here’s hoping nobody gets “the hump” with him!   He’s a jolly nice chap really