kung hei fat choi!

A very happy Chinese New Year to you all! May this year be lucky, prosperous, and fabulous for everyone.Here's another dog that I drew for the Keswick Foundation in HK. Enjoy!

children's murals

I'm sorting through images for my new website (hopefully launching soon!) and found these photos of several children's room murals I've done over the years. These two were for my neices...This jungle themed room is in a new baby's room in California.This subtle white line painted floral was in Hong Kong, for two lovely girls who shared a room.And this London-themed corridor and bedroom is in a suite of rooms in Mayfair...I love painting these murals, and always happy to take comissions!

snowy tokyo

It is the coldest winter in Tokyo so far in the Heisei period (the last 29 years) and last week it snowed; suddenly and violently and beautifully.I walked outside in the early evening to take a look...and found a little local shrine, glowing in the snowfall.So magical, just for a night.

sobachoko

This week I went to the Boroichi fleamarket in Tokyo. It has been held twice a year in the same place for over 430 years, and is an intangible folk cultural asset of Japan. I wandered, browsed and sketched, and bought a beautiful little sobachoko. When I got home, I did some watercolour sketches of it...I enjoyed it so much, I did a few more, looking at old sobachoko online for reference.And then made a little design of my own...

happy new year!

Welcome to 2018. I'm looking forward to a year of discoveries: wonderful museums, inspiring cuisine, new friends, and a new home to explore. I'm moving to Tokyo this week, it's going to be fun! Here's a picture of the afternoon tea we prepared yesterday for our leaving party. Next blog, Japan!

London exhibitions

I've been having a wonderful week in London, visiting museums and seeing friends and family. I'd been waiting all year to see the Tove Jansson show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and it didn't disappoint...Her work has always inspired me (especially the black and white drawings in the Moomin books), and I feel invigorated to work harder now. I also loved the Modigilani show at the Tate Modern. I'd never seen so much of his work all at once, and it was extremely moving.And of course the Winnie-the-Pooh exhibition at the V&A. So adorable, and a wonderful example of author and illustrator producing perfection together...

juri's tea rooms

While I was in Tokyo a few weeks ago I managed a quick visit to Juri's Tearooms in the food hall of the flagship store of the Japanese department store Mitsukoshi in Nihonbashi.I designed the logo for Juri when she had her tearooms in the Cotswolds in England, and now she has a new branch in Japan!I also did several afternoon tea illustrations for the packaging of Juri's own blends of tea, which have now been updated with new paper packing around the foil packets.The scones were delicious, and I can't wait to try the full high tea...If you're ever in the area, do pop in and say hello from me!

tokyo meal

On a quick visit to Tokyo recently, I managed a little sketch of the desserts during a very pretty meal at Hannariya.It is a Kyoto style place and the dishes were as beautiful as they were delicious...

Christmas cards

I've got these supercute robin and ivy blank holiday cards in my shop right now. There are 2 designs, and they each come in packs of 5.They're blank inside for your own holiday message, and come with matching white envelopes. I can ship them from either the US (now) or the UK (in 2 weeks time). Happy card-writing!

dog portraits

While I was in Hong Kong last month, I helped out my friend Alex, who runs Dogalicious, a healthy dog food company, at his stand at the pink dot festival. I offered pet portraits of people's dogs, in exchange for a donation to lap, the animal charity.I'd never tried this before, but most of the owners seemed to be quite happy with the results! Dogs don't stay still, so I had to capture their personalities whilst they wriggled...I did the portraits in watercolour and brushpen, each one in under 10 minutes!There is even a video of the event that you can watch here. Woof!

Hawaii

Recently I went to the Big Island of Hawaii for a little holiday. We travelled most of the way round the island, visiting all sorts of different landscapes...and sketching...I loved seeing the sea, in pretty coves and the wide, wide open...We stayed in wonderful retro hotels that felt like Wes Anderson movies, and saw secret and mysterious bays,and lush, tropical rainforests with towering trees and ferns...

and then visited the dry, ashy caldera of the most active volcano in the world, in Volcanoes National Park.

We watched bright green lizards playing,and every morning watched the sun rise over the palms...I can't wait to go back again. Aloha!

open studios

It's that time again! I'm showing lots of prints, both old and brand new, in my San Francisco Dogpatch workshop. Please come and visit us and buy art direct from the artists.Here's a sneak peak of some of my framed prints up on the wall...

Hong Kong visit

I'm in HK at the moment, for various projects, and just took part in the Symposium for Disaster Risk Reduction at the Hong Kong PolyU.Author Martha Keswick and I gave a presentation as part of the campaign for Disaster Risk preparedness, to launch our new childrens picture book series: 'COPE - How to be Ready for Natural Disasters'.It's a series of books featuring a team of kids who travel the world teaching other kids how to handle various natural disasters. The first book is about Earthquakes. We hope to eventually have books that include what to do in hurricanes, wildfires, floods, tsunamis, blizzards and volcanoes.Because of increasing climate change, natural disasters are becoming more prevalent, and it's so important that children know how to deal with them. We are actively looking for partners to help us publish and fund the series. If you know any NGOs who might be interested, please contact us! We have a temporary website here for more info:

www.COPE-natural-disasters.com

If these books can saves lives, I will feel like I've done something worthwhile. Please help if you can!

Grand Teton National Park

When we visited Yellowstone, we also went to the Grand Teton National Park, and I found it more beautiful than I could have imagined.We stood at the same point that Ansel Adams took his famous photograph, overlooking the winding Snake River, and I did a pencil and watercolour sketch.The wildfires in nearby Montana were making the skies a strange smoky texture, and many of the views we had were softened and mysterious. We went on an early morning river rafting trip and I managed to paint a few quick sketches of the passing scenery and sunrise. We saw elk, moose, bald eagles and even two baby bears.

It was a truly inspiring place; a smaller but perfect National Park. I loved it.

animals asia Christmas cards

I've designed some Christmas cards for my favourite animal charity again this year, Animals Asia. I worked on lots of different ideas, and three were chosen for the cards. I tried to make them cute, but not too cute...If you're considering buying some charity cards, please help us help the moonbears! You can buy the cards here. Thank you!!

Yellowstone National Park

A few weeks ago I spent a wonderful few days in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I had thought it would be mainly geysers and fumeroles, like the famous Old Faithful...and the wildly colourful prismatic hot spring,but there were also wild and barren landscapes... and gentle green lakes with ducks and canoeists.But it was the wild open landscapes of places like the Lamar Valley, with wide skies and meandering rivers,where the buffalo really do roam, that filled my heart.

friends that never met

Michael McConnell, at Fayes Bench Gallery in San Francisco, created an art project 'Friends That Never Met' where instagram friends would pair up and create a piece of collaborative art embracing their online friendship; a chance to work on something tangible in the real world together. So I had a good think and asked Melodie Stacey, an artist I follow on instagram and whose work I love, but who I've never met in person, if she'd like to work with me on some artwork. She said yes!

We each started a piece with a character, and posted them to the other to finish. Here is 'How do you do?' featuring my Mr Lizard. I noticed that Melodie often paints in blue, so I decided to do blue too. It's a mokuhanga print with watercolour, while Melodie painted in gouache. The artworks are all small-ish, and look wonderful on the wall in the gallery.

Melodie sent me several blue ladies to work with, so I chose one and decided to add an elaborate hat and avian friend. Here is 'Feather Lady'.I studied Edwardian headwear to get inspiration and added my hat as a collage in blues onto Melodie's painting.Social media is a great platform for artists to interact and inspire each other from all over the globe, and I really enjoyed taking this concept and adding a physical element to it. Melodie is in the UK, I was working in Japan, and the show is in California. I love it!

The show is up for the whole month, with an artists reception this thursday evening, on September 21st. Please do pop in if you're around! All the artwork is for sale.

the French Laundry

We finally managed to visit the French Laundry recently, in Napa, and I enjoyed every single bite.I did a little sketch of each course and item as it was served...The food was beautiful, as well as delicious, and it was a pleasure to draw. I can still taste the flavours now...

Vermont map

I recently illustrated a small map of Vermont for Middlebury Magazine. It's a lovely little article about the author's annual journey to Bread Loaf. I think it's always interesting to see how an illustration starts, so these are the initial sketches I made when I was thinking about how to approach the project. The first sketch, which I ended up working with, shows the map from an aerial bird-eye view, and the entire route. The second sketch shows the road to Bread Loaf in a more 3 dimensional way, although some of the road is hidden behind hills...I take the page layout into consideration when I work, so it makes me happy to see everything come together nicely on the printed page.

birthday

As usual, I like to make my birthday last longer than a day, so I had three! On my actual birthday I went out for dinner to the Cliff House in San Francisco, and enjoyed a relaxed dinner with sunset views over the Pacific.I was given a little cooking course as a gift, and spent the next morning with chef Jean Yves in his kitchen learning how to make pate a choux and eclairs. So delicieux!Then my birthday picnic in the park. I love spending time with friends, eating sandwiches and cake, in the sunshine on a lovely day...Summer birthdays are the best!