Wherever I go I always carry in my bag a small A-5 size sketchbook for scribbling ideas, doodling or sketching when I'm out and about. I panic if I don't have paper and pen close at hand, as Murphy's law goes flashes of inspiration always come when I don't have any paper, then are forgotten.

Most of the time the only chance I get to really use the book is if I get a seat on the train during my increasingly rare trips into central Tokyo.

Here's something recent - it's not often I get chance to draw a Westerner on the train sitting in front of me. I love these fleeting chances to draw people, never sure when they're going to get off, or someone block the view.

His newspaper was in Spanish, which was even rarer to see around here.
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(This is another post adapted from a previously published essay)

It's time to have a rant, strap yourselves in, I'm going to talk about PRIDE. Pride in my profession, pride in being an illustrator.

It strikes me that illustration isn't getting the kind of recognition it really deserves, especially in my country of birth the UK. Over in Blighty I hear horror tales of crumbling standards, plummeting fees and dastardly clients.
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One thing I always have to be careful of in illustration is having line details swamped when it comes to adding colour. For example this pic. I actually prefer the B/W pen and ink underdrawing to the finished art.

Publish Post

The colour version is how it appeared in the final book. It's an illustration to Hans Andersen's story "The Flea and the Professor".
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Local elections are in progress as I write.

For those who may not be familiar with this curious phenomenon in Japan, polling for votes here largely consists of driving around the local area in white vans with enormous speakers mounted on top, blaring out at ear splitting volume (roughly translated) "This is the Democratic Party (or whatever), vote for Yoshida Taro! (or whoever). Yoshida Taro, your Democratic Party candidate! Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!".
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Cynthia Leitch Smith has listed interviews with some of the speakers at the forthcoming SCBWI Conference at the Bologna Book Fair cynsations.

(this post abridged from a previously published essay)

I've been sketching ever since I can remember, looking back now in honest truth I don't believe I could have followed any other path except illustration. I was pretty dreamy about everything else at school apart from English and History, so by the time it came to a career decision it was pretty well determined which direction I would take.

There's a lot of hooha at the moment about the way copyright protection for artwork is being eroded in the US. This is mainly over proposed legislation that will strip copyright protection from "orphan" works, i.e. copyrighted artwork where the owner of copyright cannot be traced. The proposed legislation would enable anyone to reproduce a piece of artwork for free by claiming they can't find the copyright owner.

I actually had a "Journal" page on my website for a couple of years, a kind of hand-done blog, but as I used to translate everything into Japanese as well as English (assisted by long-suffering wife), and as I'm no great shakes at html either the whole thing became a monsterous chore after a while. Add a few deadlines into the mix and the end result was - no posts for months on end, so I've taken down the link.

This is a lot more like it though, easy to include images, and upload any time.

Alright, so I've finally been tempted to have a go at a blog. Once I've learned how all this works I'll be posting away like crazy no doubt, but for now, here's a recent illustration. It's the cover to the Japanese edition of "The Blue Boa", the third in the Charlie Bone series of novels by Jenny Nimmo. Published by Tokuma Shoten in Tokyo.
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