Spring views...

Another day, another Rubbish picture. Todays is inspired by Spring and the view out of my window.... the leaves are finally on the trees, the sky is blue and as my apprentice loves to point out, the bunnies are so happy they just can't stop cuddling each other...

Running dogs

I have a very dull dog. Don't get me wrong he's beautiful, he's friendly, he's quiet, he's great with kids and is very low maintenance. I love him to bits and in most ways, he is the perfect pet in fact. But in the interest stakes.... he'd rate pretty low.
He sleeps a lot does our Ned. You give him a ball, he might raise one eyebrow at you briefly, you give him a chewy, he'll bury it for later....when he's less tired.
My dog does....nothing. Official. He sleeps for approximately 23.5 hours of the day.
So why is it I wonder that Ned has his very own fan club of adoring friends and neighbours? Why do complete strangers chat to me every single morning whilst we're out on a daily walk (The 0.5 hour of the day not accounted for above)
It's because Ned is a whippet that's why. People, I have discovered, just love whippets (or maybe people actually love greyhounds and a whippet is just a mini me greyhound so it kind of counts). These dogs have something about them that makes folk go 'awwwww'.

Testament to that is the new range of Rubbish Pictures I am making up at the moment to restock my Folksy shop. Folksy allows you to manage your items. Once you have added an item you can see how many hits it has had. Within minutes of this latest rubbish picture entitled 'running whippet', Seven people had checked it out and one had even been so kind as to make it one of their favourite items. More than one per minute?! How very lovely and it proves my theory , you just gotta love a whippet.
The first few of the new series of pictures will focus on the running variety as that is when they're at their most impressive, but I think I may have to add at least one or two at some point, of their natural state which is illustrated by Ned right now. Spark out. With a big doggy smile on his chops.

Wallop Relaunches

Wallop has been here, there and all over the place of late. I have been juggling illustration projects, graphic design projects, branching out into Rubbish Pictures and trying to keep up with this Blog and of course, all the scribbles and doodles that just get done as a hobby too...It's about time then, that the whole lot got sorted out and put back into one spot and so I'm very happy to announce that Wallop the website has relaunched officially today! The site now includes a new fonts for fun area where my fonts can be downloaded for free, the usual illustration gallery, with stills of previous projects as well as examples of animation. Oodles of Doodles gets it's own area of the website where you can flip the pages of the virtual sketchbook and see all the odds and ends and doodles that would otherwise just get lost in a sea of sketchbooks and scraps of paper that litters the floor of my workroom. Rubbish Pictures now gets it's own area too - with a gallery of images produced so far, and a link to my Folksy shop, and last but not least this very blog is now filtering through to appear on the site. (Which might look a little odd on this occasion, as the site will be featured....on the site.... but hopefully it'll work out well in the long run.
Bish bosh. All eggs back in one basket. All fingers back in one pie. A one stop shop stopping at this shop. All metaphors back in one metaphor erm ...thing. You get the picture.
Hope you enjoy it. If you're not already looking at the site right now, go check it out at www.wallop.co.uk

A rubbish Easter

Happy Easter!
Can't blog now...
Wallopsville is drowning in chocolate

Beach Huts

Hooray - I sold a Rubbish Chicken this week! Which left a little hole in my Folksy shop, just big enough for this latest Rubbish Picture of beach huts. My stash of blue rubbish bits has now been replenished, since the dog bit through the kids paddling pool. It's a nice translucent blue plastic and will be very handy in seaside scenes. Sorry kids. Your loss my gain!

'Rubbish artists'

Tim Noble and Sue Webster are just the first of many amazing British artists who I have come across whilst stumbling around on the web looking for....rubbish.
Their apparent heaps of debris collected from London Streets becomes something magical and gobsmackingly real as a silhouette from a strategically positioned light.
Their work is just stunning and completely inspirational for a fellow rubbish artist.

Not just me and the Wombles...

I used to think it was just me and the Wombles who made stuff out of rubbish, but I went to see Mark Watson doing a show the other night. He's a very amusing fella so I brought his book and lo and behold, it turns out he's not only very amusing but also may well also be a link to a whole load of other womble-esque characters out there in the big wide world.
Mark Watson is crap at the environment. Official.

He even runs 'CATE'. The project started with the intention of 'saving the world, despite not being very good at it'. It aims to promote amateur environmentalism. I thought Rubbish Pictures was a pretty obscure way of being eco friendly but it seems there are a few more of us out there than first thought, trying to do our bit in our own little, slightly odd, way.... CATE encourages ordinary folk to small challenges, little things to change in your everyday life that will result in some environmental benefit. So if you want to know how to pimp your plant pot or create a bubble wrap dress - or just want to nose at slightly odd people doing amazing things in the name of saving the world. Go check out CATE.