holidays are coming, holidays are coming, holidays are coming TIS THE SEASON etc.

You can see all 4 of my Real TV Wisdom Christmas card designs here now.

I also wanted to share with you some pictures from the Gallery of Mo portrait events I've been doing. Still my absolute favourite way to spend an evening. Photos courtesy of Gallery of Mo on Facebook.

The Movember Gala party has the added bonus that people are in fancy dress. I get to draw people in fancy dress? Best thing ever. You could totally pay me to do that at your office Christmas party you know, just saying. 

Remember Remember the Gallery of Movember

You (may, probably, or you know, not) know how much I love doing live portraits. As much as I love being paid for it, I'm also very happy it's come round to the 'Mo season again and I'm doing it at Movember parties for Gallery of Mo. 

I was at the London Launch Party at Koko this week and showing off my party trick of starting with the background, then adding the shading then the details last. The funny thing is people think this is impressive, but I find it way much easier as it gives me more time to absorb the important parts of their face before nailing them down (as it were), and more time for them to relax and stop pulling a bad photo face. Here are some pics.

Movember have gone all rocky this year. I love how as a charity they are so tongue in cheek and fun, yet still openly militant about making money. They told us among other things that one condition they lay out with the research they fund (and this is serious money we're talking about, Movember is a massive successful money raiser now) is that the scientists work together and share ideas, rather than have small groups in different parts of the world covering the same ground needlessly. Which I think is awesome. And the people involved are genuinely fun, even if the image is a liiiitle bit overwrought. 

NO MO, NO MERCY, isn't it? 

I hope to attend a few more parties with Gallery of Mo this year and to do some charity portraits online too - you can see my profile on the website here. (I done it last year at a pound a minute, but I found that a bit stressful, so have given myself more scope with a fixed price)

while I do spend sleepless nights regretting how little I managed to cash in on the put a bird on it trend,

(it is now, apparently too late. I still like birds tho. I liked them before it was cool)

I feel secure in my appropriate and even philanthropic handling of put a moustache on itness.

mostly I put moustaches on people. for Gallery of Mo on the internet and at 2 awesome gala parties. Live portraits are one of my all time favourite things to do, I really should investigate how you get a license to do this on the streets for tourists. Although I might have some anger management issues if anyone asks me to do a caricature. 

here are some photos, all taken by Gallery of Mo photographers, of some of my favourite moustache portraits done at the second of these parties. There was a lot of tweed and cowboy in evidence.

here's me drawing

and here's the drawing

here's the beautiful Jenmon and partner

this was my favourite drawing I did on the night

subtle skills of moustache representation were required

and not so subtle 

to my right here you can see the amazing Cliodhna Ztoical of Irish Comic Superstar fame, she was FAST

      but not as fast on the draw as I'm sure these three amigos were, after that quantity of charity beer

After many hours meeting and drawing moustachioed gentlemen, and adding moustaches for the (mostly) unmoustached ladies, I began to see moustaches everywhere and was confused by the hairless lips I saw in the street on my way home.

I feel so proud to have been a part of such a great project, (I already wrote about it some here) bringing together art, charity and comedy in such a great way and contributing to the raising of now over £11k! 

You still have a little time to get yourself a movember portrait from an array of awesome artists over on the Gallery of Mo website too.

So now all I need to do is actually cash in on the trend in a, you know, less selfless way

blessed

the blogger dashboard has all changed and stuff. so the buttons are in different places and the box i'm typing in is all big and blank.

it's vaguely unsettling.

But enough of that. This is a positive positive positive blog post.

Because despite having been ill all week, and repeatedly getting lost in the Barbican, I am feeling very blessed.

Partly this is because I have been doing a lot of stuff, having a lot of 'cultural experiences' shall we say. I am blessed and lucky because in my life I have a lot of awesome friends and family and editors who regularly invite me to attend things that are awesome. All I have to do is say yes. Like that man who says yes, what's his name? the YES man?

So yes, I have done lots of cool stuff in recent weeks, lots of cool stuff I would never have had time for when I was being a full time teacher type. Horay.

The first thing I did was go on a HELICOPTER RIDE!

Also I went to see the Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble play in the Southbank Centre. They were very good, especially the dancey fun bits. (that's my preference in life, I like the dancey fun bits of life) here are my sketches of them:

the singer who performed for a couple of songs with them was super creepy and doll like. which worked, you know, with the music.

Mere days after this I was sketching live portraits at the Movember UK launch party as part of the Gallery of Mo team. I wrote the whole thing up here for Storyhands.

the whole thing is to do with growing moustaches for Men's health, raising of the money and the awareness and stuff. I'm not growing a moustache sadly, but will be drawing people with them on for said charity at the rate of £1 a minute on the Gallery of Mo website, 
here's the self portrait I did for the promotion of said portraiture. 

It was a fun party.


Later in the week I went to a fashion show in Soho, it was probably the most exciting and ridiculous fashion show I have ever been to, and I have been to several. It was for Sorapol, and included epic creepy masks, excess, novelty motorcycles, and Ruth and Vince off of the Voice!!!

here is a drawing I did of 3 of the creepy celebrity characters, and here is the rest of my drawings and writings on the topic I did for Amelia's Magazine

The day after that I got to go see Chilly Gonzales with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican (where we did get very lost), I wasn't even going to do any drawing on account of I drew him this one time before, but then I did. He was much more fun this time, plus I learnt stuff about music.

The best bit was this bit, which is probably why it's turned up on the youtube

So that's some of the fun, cultural stuff I've been up to recently. 

tata