drawings
We went to Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck restaurant the other day. It was an experience and a half! My very first 3-starred Michelin restaurant. 
When food looks as exquisite as this, it's impossible to resist...
I was featured recently in South Side magazine in Hong Kong. I grew up in Stanley, which is 'South Side' so I was happy about that! You can see the interview online here or click on the image below to see it full size.
I was in Porto last weekend, and loved its faded charm. It's run-down, but in a delightful way. We had tea at the Majestic Cafe...
and I had a very tasty eggtart, with toasted almonds on the top.
I love the blue azulejos tiles covering all the walls.
We spent a rainy sunday in the museum and church. I like this carved lady holding a sign. I wonder what it could be for...
There is good design everywhere, and I especially admired the typography in the metro system.
A very happy Year of the Snake to everyone. Here's a red & gold snake I created for chocoyou to bring us all prosperity and luck this year...
Another of my drawings has been featured on an e-gift card at Lane Crawford in Hong Kong. They're special personalised ones that you can add a little message to...
May you all have a wonderful and delightful year. Can't wait to see what exciting things will happen...
May your Christmas holidays be warm and cosy...
...and full of festive fun!
Thank you to everyone who braved the cold to make it to our private view last night! 
Helene Turbe makes delicate jewellery, Aude Van Ryn makes decorative ceramics, I have etchings and woodblock prints on show, and Romilly Graham has bold colourful ceramics.
The show continues this weekend, 11am-5pm both saturday and sunday. We'd love to see you!
My show with Aude Van Ryn opens tonight, 6-9pm. It's in a private gallery in Kentish Town, London. Please e-mail me for the exact address. It would be great to see you!
I'm showing a variety of of etchings and woodblock prints...
Here's a photo of our show in the summer. Small, but delightful!
I've just seen this lovely little video of Hugh, talking about his new book. You can see some of my illustrations as he flips through the pages, and there's even a nice close-up of the endpapers. Enjoy!
I've been cooking out of this book for a while now, and have to say it's superb. Might make a good gift for a chef in the family!
This weekend (1/2 Dec) I'm creating personalised Christmas cards in store as part of the Lane Crawford GIFTED Shopping Weekend in Hong Kong.
I'm in the homeware section at Pacific Place. Customers can choose one of my designs, or ask for something special, and I create a one-off original card. Here are some I made earlier...
Hope you can pop in and say hello!
Two of my illustrations for Outer Edit have been produced as canvas tote bags, as well as T-shirts. I love them! 
They're US$25, and only available for another week at the Outer Edit shop. If you're looking for Christmas presents, these might do the trick!
My charity project this year was for Animals Asia, which is devoted to the welfare of wild and urban animals in Asia, and also works towards the conservation of endangered species. Because I love bears, I specifically worked with them on their Moon Bear Rescue campaign, where they save and support bears rescued from bile farms in China.
I've designed four products for the charity, and all the proceeds go towards helping the wonderful moon bears. The collection has just been launched in time for Christmas orders. My personal favourite is the ladies large scarf, featuring four lovely bears in pretty patterns,
and this is my most favourite bear of them all...
Moon bears have that name because of the distinctive crescent of lighter fur on their fronts. I've played with this 'moon' symbolism in my designs, placing the bears in the night sky, like constellations, for both the scarf and the foldable bag. 
I did a simple solitary bear on a moon for the ladies t-shirt, 
and a sequential drawing of a bear being let out of a cage to freedom, for the folding umbrella.
You can order everything from the Animals Asia website shop, and they'll ship worldwide. Help us save the moon bears ! 
So far I've done 2 new images for this project, making use of several other artists' bits of artwork. In the first, I directly used Aude's fox mask and Kahori's flower to complement my bird branch theme:
In the next round, I didn't use the others' actual artwork, but was inspired to draw my own stag (thanks Hiromi!) and fox. I made a little scenario with its own Latin motto "a true friend is a rare bird".
Keep voting, and some of these t-shirts could become real!
So, my Outer Edit collaboration project starts today. Please go the website, register, and vote for my artwork! The collaboration continues until October 16th, and then the T-shirts with the most votes get produced, yay!
The theme is 'Flora & Fauna', and this is my starting artwork...
My cutlery proverb sketchbook for the Art House Co-op is on its world tour, and will be in London next week! 
All the European and Australian sketchbooks will be available to view at The Canada Water Library on these days at these times:
Oct. 12th 4pm-8pm
Oct. 13th 11am-5pm
Oct. 15th - 19th 4pm-8pm
Hope you can make it along!
A fab new website has been launched for the Max and Mei series of bi-lingual children's books I illustrated. The books are Mandarin-English and really great fun.
The new site features all the characters from the books, and all sorts of interesting interactive stuff.
You can hear the stories being read aloud,
and play some fun language games (I was ok at the numbers, not so great at the word matching!)
The website has lots of (educational!) playful stuff for kids of any age.
The original books are based on Max and Mei meeting all the creatures in the Chinese zodiac. In the newest book they meet a dinasaur (sort of!) The books are available direct from the publisher PPP in Hong Kong, and amazon everywhere else. 
Enjoy!
A canelé is the speciality pastry of Bordeaux, invented in the 18th century. It's flavoured with vanilla and rum, with a dark caramelised crust and soft custardy centre. I tried as many different ones as possible over one weekend in Bordeaux...
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's new cookbook is here!
Published by Bloomsbury in the UK, there are lovely illustrations by me, and gorgeous photographs by Simon Wheeler, all laid out by the wonderful art director Lawrence Morton.
I've created illustrations of the ingredients in watercolour and pen & ink, and there are also some fun collages of Hugh interacting with illustrated elements, like this...
I love that I can incorporate a slightly surreal element into the photos...
and also play around with the recipe text a little.
I've done some hand-written text in the cookbook for the first time too...
The contents page is my favourite! Here's a corner...
You can buy the book from the River Cottage amazon page or any good bookstore, and there is even a kindle/ipad version (but with less pictures, just so you know). You can also get more information on the River Cottage website, and there are some sample pages you can view in full here.
Yum....
Another pretty wedding project for a client in Hong Kong. She asked for two pheonixes, a bird symbolising longevity, that could be used in various elements of her wedding. I created several stages of the pheonix motif, in two slightly different colourways.
The first illustration showed two flying birds, with the bride and groom's names interwoven into the design. This was used on the Save the Date notification and formal invitations, in the traditional Chinese wedding colours of red and gold.
The next version of the illustration showed the story growing, and included a little landscape, with a tree and butterflies. This was used on the first stage backdrop used at the actual wedding, in soft pinks, with a watercolour textured backgoround.
The illustration developed, with clouds and a golden moon, for the next stage backdrop in red and gold...
And the final development of the illustration included musicians outside a cosy house, and a little golden nest in the tree. This was used on a specially made china teacup, given as a wedding favour to each guest.
I adore this cup, it's such a lovely gift to remember the wedding... 
