Microfiche readers, slide viewers, taped dream recordings, transcribed dreams on index cards, cryptic post-its and an office décor caught in time.

Sam Meech and the rest of the Re-Dock fellas have done a great job of creating an installation that exhibits and archives the material generated during our year long project at St Helens Central Library.

The Library Of Dreams exhibition is now open at the Godfrey Pilkington Art Gallery in St. Helens World Of Glass Museum.

The Library of Dreams exhibition opens in the Godfrey Pilkington Art Gallery, St. Helens on Saturday and runs until Sunday 30th of September.

This sketch is based on one of the many dream records collected during the project.

Rolf Harris is going to be in the Walker Art Gallery tomorrow!

I’ll be there also, drawing more animal mash-ups – kids give me a couple of animals and I have to make a new creature out of the two. They can then take their picture away with them. For some reason, turtle giraffes keep turning up. I don’t know why, maybe evolution missed a trick.

I’ll be drawing from 10-12, and then from 1 till 3.30.

I’ll also be in the Walker on Tuesday the 31st, Wednesday August 1st and Thursday August 2nd.

I’ve been working with Re-Dock on a wonderful project called ‘Library of Dreams’ in St Helens over the past year.

St. Helen’s central library has all kinds of terrific I.T facilities, including iMacs, drawing tablets, digital cameras and software. Re-Dock developed ‘Library of Dreams’ as a project that would encourage library users to take advantage of all these great resources.

The idea was to run a series of family friendly workshops, themed around documenting, interpreting and sharing dreams.

Each workshop would feature a different artistic/multimedia technique, from illustration and animation to music design, video editing, film and poetry.

The project was organised to culminate in two events – ‘Music for Sleeping’ a audiovisual concert which took place at the library in March, and an exhibition which will run from Saturday July 28th July to Sunday 30^th September at St. Helens World of Glass.

The Music for Sleeping concert was a great success. You can see a film of it on the Library of Dreams site. Here I am drawing a young participant’s dream.

Another dream image recorded on the night…

As well as facilitating a number of the workshops and taking part in the concert, I also developed the branding for Library of Dreams. Because there were so many strands to the project, I created a modular logo that could change depending on its  context – whether it was being used for a poster, a dream log book or membership card, or whether it was advertising a drawing based event, a film event or a music event.

The Library of Dreams project is supported by St Helens Arts Service through funding from Arts Council England. Archive film used with permission from St Helens Local History and Archives Library, and support from the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Click on the image for a close-up of the mirror…

Click on the image for the full picture.

Some recent Instagrams from my Twitter feed.

Click on the image for a bigger picture…

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.