I was asked to create the illustrations for a magnetic map puzzle for the new Museum of Liverpool.

The map shows Knowsley Hall in the 1850s, when there was a menagerie in its grounds. Visitors have to match up four animals with their homes on the map. The animals are an Alpaca, a Brush-Tailed Bettong, a Nene and a Stanley Crane. The exhibit was designed by Redman Design.

The new museum is really stunning.

Watercolour portrait of a friend’s French Bulldog.

Father Christmas has just completed his mini-tour of National Museums Liverpool.

Over the course of his visits, he has drawn nearly 300 pictures, with more than 70 being completed in one afternoon at Sudley House. Father Christmas informs me that this comfortably beats his previous personal best.

There have been dragons, reindeer, ninjas on unicorns, killer whales, the baby Jesus, Robert Pattinson out of Twilight, Yoda and numerous self-portraits. The chap on the right of figure 1, Frankie, is asking Santa for a drawing of Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus (photography by Mr. Adam Todd).

Here is a detail of the magical elf-paper which Santa brought with him from the North Pole…

Merry Christmas!

Exciting news! Apparently Father Christmas is going to be visiting various National Museums Liverpool sites over December. He’ll be drawing pictures on request for kids visiting the museums and galleries, which can then be taken away as a kind of early Christmas present!

He’ll be at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight on the 3rd and 4th

Sudley House in Mossley Hill on the 10th

and the Walker Art Gallery on the 17th, 20th and 21st

You’ll be able to get a free ticket at the venue’s desk on the day, and Santa will be drawing from 12 till 4.

Unfortunately I’m going to miss him, as I’m away on those dates on URGENT BUSINESS.

If you do see him, ask him to draw something easy. Like a cat. But not a cat walking down Fifth Avenue, or driving a combine harvester.

They’re re-wiring the karma at the bottom of my street.

You can now follow my tweets @sketchybeast! I’ll mostly be tweeting little pictures of works in progress, unfinished pieces from yesteryear and some of my photographic efforts.

Managed to sketch this little fella with my iPhone before he ran off after a squirrel.

Ramble the Ralla is a signage project for a cycling/running/ambling path in North Liverpool. The path is officially known as ‘The Liverpool Loop Line’, but is known locally as The Ralla, being a former railway track.

The signage was developed in partnership with groups from the different communities the path passes through. I was asked to help develop and deliver community workshops, and then work the ideas up into the finished artwork.

Barlows Lane Primary school came up with loads of ideas, including the fox and pumpkins. Here they are at the unveiling of their sign.

Here are some badges I made for the event.

I didn’t make all of them…

The signage was installed by Project Playgrounds. The fellas arrived with what looked like jigsaws of my artwork which they then melted onto the path. I’d tried to make the illustrations quite loose and expressive and was worried they might lose some of that in the translation, but I was really impressed with how close they were to the originals – every little nook and cranny was in there.

I also designed a map for the project…

Here’s the Majorette of Norris Green.

And a lizard for Walton. The kids at the workshop said there was treasure buried in the park…

The project was commissioned by ART Valley and I was supported by Re-Dock throughout its development. Sustrans, the people who look after and maintain the Ralla, were also a great help.

I was asked to create a map of the Everyman Theatre – stage, dressing rooms, front of house, the whole shebang – before it all undergoes redevelopment.

As part of the current building’s finale, orchestrated by theatre company ‘Slung Low’, visitors will be able to explore the building. They’ll be given a copy of the map to help them get about. I wanted to see if I could come up with something that was both functional and subjective. Looking around the empty rooms and corridors made me think of the insides of a pyramid. That said, I’ve never actually been inside a pyramid, but maybe if I ever visit one it will remind me of the inside of an abandoned theatre! I’m quietly obsessed with ideas of subjective treatments of place.

I’ll also be doing a live drawing at the event, recording people’s memories of the Everyman onto a wall before it gets demolished.

Click on the image for the full picture…

Some more storyboarding, this time for Eclipse Experience.

Animation assets for Uniform.

I do quite a bit of storyboarding work, for films, animation and interactive projects.  The above are individual panels from 3 different projects.  The top image is pencil and Photoshop, the center image is vector, drawn straight into Flash with a tablet, the third is also in Flash. The clients were (from top to bottom) Uniform, River and Spotspot.

‘The Yahoo Hole’ is an experiment in interactive storytelling, incorporating sound, illustration and animation. I created it a few years back, whilst studying at John Moores University. Now that the iPad is amongst us it would be great to get the chance to explore some of these ideas again…

You can visit it over here…

See if you can find your way out the other side.

The Constellation of Signs is an art installation created for the Pennington Road Bridge in Bootle, along the route of the Leeds-Liverpool canal. It was developed by Re-Dock and artist Alan Dunn.

The work is made from 117  traffic and information signs. Each sign represents one of over 300 memories and ideas about the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, gathered from the local community during community workshops and activity days. I helped run the workshops and designed 35 of the signs, based on material generated by the public, a selection of which are shown below.

Unfortunately, since installation, the wall took a bit of a battering from vandals and is to be re-installed in a new location nearby.

Character development for an animation by Uniform for Unilever.