The birds are above and the bees are a-buzzin’ … Spring is here! The Bicycle Institute of South Australia gave me free reign on this poster for their second annual Spring Ride, and it ended up a cavalcade of colour and new life. It was more of an excursion into watercolour than I’ve braved before, and I’m very happy with the freshness of this big birdy and how she holds her own without the black lines I usually use.

The Spring Ride itself looks set to be an excellent event, I can’t wait! A couple of the organisers are the masterminds of past Ready Set Ride outings and I reckon anything they’re associated with is guaranteed to be heaps of fun. If you live in Adelaide, come along! This Sunday, from 10:30 at Victoria Park. There’s more information here and here …

DOGS! I’m a bit obsessed with ‘em. In pencil, watercolour, ink and pen, I’ve been busy doodling woofers all over the place. Here are a few of my recent canine creations in a variety of styles. Lovely little fellas.

Yaaargh! Avast! Trim the mainsails! Shiver me blasted blue-barnacle-encrusted, jolly-rum-do timberoonies!

Who says no good comes of reading glossy, gossipy magazines? If I hadn’t been perusing the celebrity rumour-rags one fine day recently, I wouldn’t have been inspired by a certain pint-sized tomboy Jolie-Pitt and her pirate-themed birthday party hijinks! The fuss these magazines make of a little girl choosing natty vests instead of frilly dresses is just absurd, but I say she always looks like she’s having far more fun than little what’s-her-name Holmes-Cruise in the pointy high-heels. With a yo-ho-ho and a bottle of OJ!

Kids these days! Using the internet like they were born to it … which, I guess, some of them were. This was a commission to illustrate a scenario for an internet-decision-making resource for primary school children. The teacher would show the image and read out the scenario to their class: in this case, Maddy has already tried all the games on a ‘safe’ kids’ website, and is trying to decide whether to search for a new site without asking her Mum. After hearing the scenario the kids would discuss what they might do in Maddy’s shoes, and why. This illustration was hand-drawn and coloured with a tablet using Photoshop.

Doodles of a character I’m working on. She loves her bike, and is having trouble getting used to boarding school!

“The bats beat their wings in a terrible rhythm. They stirred up a storm of squealing fury. My feet left the ground. I was flying.”

- Paul Jennings, ‘BATTY’, from ‘Undone!’ Penguin Books 1993

“Anthony nodded his branches at me. ‘Mnn, nmng, nn,’ he said.

I didn’t know what it meant. Probably something like, ‘You embarrassed me. Now it’s your turn.’ “

- Paul Jennings, ‘NOSEWEED’, from ‘Undone!‘ Penguin Books 1993

Re-reading Paul Jennings’ books is a treat. There are always a few stories that I’d completely forgotten, whose endings fill me with fresh surprise and delight. And while they really don’t need pictures – everything’s there in the stories – some moments just cry out to be drawn, even if it’s just for the fun of it. Here are a couple of those moments – the ones I couldn’t resist scribbling down the instant I finished reading. BATTY and NOSEWEED. How did these characters end up like this? Go and read Undone! – you won’t regret it!

Yep, I occasionally draw adults too, in case you’d been wondering! This group portrait / caricature was commissioned by my housemate and features her workmates … and … their dream date, a certain Mr Obama! They look like they’re somewhere suitably swanky, too.

One more portrait from last summer’s bumper crop of kids’ portraits for Christmas gifts, but this one had the distinction of being a gift for the little girl herself, rather than her parents. Mataya loves her labrador, so a special somebody commissioned this picture to brighten up Mataya’s room and help her learn to spell her own name and Tao’s.

Earlier this year I had the chance to adapt a short story by one of my favourite Australian authors, Nick Earls, into a comic format.

It was a lot of hard work, but very rewarding, and the graphic story was published in Griffith Review 32

(print editions only! Don’t buy the digital edition if you’re looking for my comic!)

Here are some more kids’ portraits in a different style: realistic watercolour and pencil drawings with stylised backgrounds. It was particularly fun to create the bright patterns and collage flowers on Baillie’s portrait. I will be taking portrait commissions again this year: send me an email me if you’re interested in a one-of-a-kind Christmas gift!