Winsome donkeys and endearing axolotls

I am determined to keep this blog specific; to rein in my natural desire to meander, to avoid politics, economics, my ongoing obsession with Mark Bittman's no knead bread, my growing collection of vintage porcelain false teeth or my current inability to finish a book. It's about drawing. Which is why I'm posting this picture of the most winsome crocheted donkey I've ever encountered. Have a look at his cohorts too, there's a very endearing baby Mexican axolotl.

Pathetic Dogs (in the most adorable way)

Today I was working on a drawing of a dog and a custodian for a funny and bleak children's book – just right for Our Times – and needed a reference for a dog, because despite my best intentions the drawing was looking an awful lot like a cat. Without question the most adorable and pathetic dog to pop up was this one, which I'm sure by now has been made a National Treasure in Japan. That's my small, scruffy, cat-like version below it.

A Wedding Picture

A friend recently told me to say "yes" to everything, and being easily influenced, I agreed to do a painting for someone — let's call her Phoebe—'s sister's wedding present. All I knew about the betrothed couple was that they liked the country, horse riding and each other. I sent a sketch for Phoebe to approve, but she's in Australia and it's in a different time zone and there's always a public holiday and in any case she hasn't replied. So because I'm impatient (and actually have lots of other work I should be doing), I started tentatively painting, waiting for an email at each stage to say, "Oh, no! She HATES black horses", or "Didn't I tell you, the groom is philosophically opposed to hats". The result is a picture in stages.

Drawing Game part 1

Mika has made the first move.
This is going to be fun.

New Ivy and Bean books

See? It's only been about five minutes since my last post and here I am again.
There is a new Ivy and Bean book out, book five, Bound to be Bad, and also a boxed set of books one to three. I do like a boxed set. This one has a secret compartment in it like the one my brother carved out of his school hymnal to hide cigarettes in at boarding school. In this case it holds a secret diary, because children don't smoke as much as they used to. Years ago I stole his idea for a column I used to write of handy household hints; a hollowed out coffee table tome could be used to store an aesthetically offensive remote control. See my website bio if you don't believe me.

Turning the first sod

Welcome to my blog!
As someone who writes mostly with a pencil on the back of an envelope this is exciting and faintly terrifying. (Just choosing a font had me paralyzed for half an hour.)
Yesterday I embarked on a project with the irrepressibly energetic and creative singer/songwriter phenomenon MIKA. We are going to communicate via a drawing, a kind of Surrealist 'Exquisite Corpse' collaboration, which we will send back and forth at the mercy of the US postal system.
Have a look at MIKA's website: http://www.mikasounds.com/
This blog will be a place to record what happens, and also to mention new books and things like that which I have been fundamentally hopeless at doing. Until now.
You'll see. I'll be blogging blindfolded soon.