Two of Hearts for Amelia's Magazine

Here's my submission for Amelia's Magazine illustrated art card quilt. It's a brilliant, fun idea and also it's for charity - Shelter to be precise.

To find out more information please visit Amelia's Magazine. If you'd like to see all the best entries then trawl through this lot, there's some great ones in there!

Ink & Mess at Carnival of Darkness Festival

I have been asked to show some masks as part of the rather exciting Carnival of Darkness Festival in California. Carnival of Darkness is the creation of Alex Bram and Leah Ann Cevoli, "showcasing the very best new work from independent horror filmmakers around the world. Carnival of Darkness will culminate in a one hour panel discussion featuring Godhead guitarist Jason C. Miller and Buffy/Angel darling Juliet Landau."

The masks below will be shown by Alex Bram during the panel discussion. If you're going to be in California at the time of the festival, you should definitely book in advance. Although I wish I was going cause it's going to be aces, I'll be in Edinburgh for August, doing many fun illustration things...more on that later!

The Art and Beasts of Laura Holden

Miss Laura Holden is a fabulous artist and I'm pretty lucky 'cause I'm her friend. She draws excellent pictures, and stitches, glues and hammers together brilliant creations like giant fox heads, twee tree birds, massive dragons and dogs on wheels. She has just recently completed a friendly/scary octopus for a show called Pirates Ahoy! for Discover. You can see the octopus and all her other hugely impressive work on her Flickr profile.



You really must go and view her work! I will post news of her next show up here.

More sculptures here:


More illustrations here:

Jim Darling

Linked from Wooster Collective.

First tee up at Finroo.

I was contacted a while back by Finroo who asked for some t-shirt designs. The first one is up for sale on their site now.

Ink & Mess at Finroo.

Ink & Mess on Flickr

I have a new Flickr account. If we are Flickr friends don't panic, my old account is still active. It's now looking after all my graveside photos, I have so many now they started to creep like ivy smothering my illustration work in dead stuff! So Ink & Mess has a new Flickr home, here. If we're not already Flickr friends then add me.

Hate Mail.

Today I arrived home to find a piece of toxic waste through my letterbox. Here it is.

This political party is a total joke. Here are a few clues, from the BNP themselves and their supporter testimonials, as to what the real agenda is for this thinly veiled vile campaign of hate and intolerance:

Their flyer valiantly insists "Because it's not racist to oppose mass immigration and political correctness!" It is when your flyer features only white people yet we've lived amongst British born and bred generations of mixed races for 50+ years.

"I'm voting BNP because I see what immigration has done to the NHS!"
Are we just going to deny immigrant (read 'anyone who is not white plus Eastern European') patients access or is it also the skilled doctors, surgeons and consultants that they'd like to turf out? If I remember correctly we were more than happy to welcome immigrants into the NHS with open arms in the 70's, to work and thus serve us, when we so badly wanted them.

"We've seen how this country has declined under the present government, we're voting BNP because they put us before asylum seekers!"
How many times have you heard this? And how many people do you actually know who have lost out on benefits/housing/pension because a greedy old immigrant has nipped in front of them in the "queue".

Do people even realise that families and individuals seeking asylum do so because they are escaping horrendous situations - corrupt political systems, torture, abuse, poverty, awful health, social and economic problems? And we are upset by this because we want to live in some twee, green and pleasant Betjeman's Britain where calling someone a 'rag head' is a bit of light joshing? Shame on us.

I'm sad to say that a family member of mine told me they will be voting BNP at the next election. This is due to the fact that "now they're even getting Sharia law in the country" and "why should they have two holidays at Christmas" (referring to Eid). They went on to say they don't want their Grandchildren growing up in a country that celebrates the Bengali Tiger instead of burning Guy Fawkes on November 5th. Does it need to be explained why what I've just written is totally idiotic? Are we really not big enough to find a way to live alongside each other? Are some of us less human than others? It's just too disappointing.

People savvy enough to have stumbled across this blog post will no doubt be aware of the arguments for/against the BNP already. I'm sure any sensible, intelligent person with access to the internet and its brain food will not need to read my blog to come to the same conclusion about the British Nazi Party. However, there are a few people Nick Griffin and his idiot cohorts prey on who don't have information filtering through on tap in the form of news feeds, blogs etc.

One of them is my Grandmother. An Italian immigrant who moved here from North Africa in the 1950's and is now a British Citizen. She was pounced on at a bus stop the other day by a brainwashed elderly gent who tried to win her over lay-preacher style about the terrible effect immigration has had on our country. I'm very happy to say that after pointing out her unforgotten Italian accent she went on to explain how she left Italy to escape the Fascists in 1940 and didn't move here to find more of the bastards.