The meaning of life, and the naked washing up club.

I have often been asked what the point of it all is. Now I am no minstrel or smartie, but I do know that it's often the right course of action to do something different from time to time to challenge the spirit of the human being into doing something different.


I am of course talking about washing up in the nip. Why would anyone want to do this? Well, if you have a dishwasher they'd be little point - but we are not all middle class. Some of us don't even have a people carrier. Washing up with clothes on can be hazardous, especially when you are on your way out for an evenings entertainment at the local arts centre. Washing up in the nip can make things much better. It's a wonderful experience for everyone who isn't within sight of your scrubbing sponge.


Then there's having a dog. It's very important when you have a dog to walk it regularly. At least 5 times per day (depending on the size of it's legs). If you have a very small dog with short legs, then it might be better to walk it just once per day. Dogs cannot walk without you helping them, as they don't understand the concept of the green cross man, or how fast a Saab 900 Turbo is travelling through your estate (see, not middle class).


Well I hope that's helped many of you with the eternal struggle with the meaning of life and other big important questions. As usual I'd welcome any comments.

I'm going to draw Penelope Cruze.

I've decided that it might be quite good fun to draw somthing cartoonists call a caricature. That is a picture (or drawing) of someone done in a cartooney style, but instead of just looking like a cartoon drawing that I've copied from another cartoonist (so many cartoons are all the same these days. Drawn with lines. Lettering for the caption etc) this one will look like I had the celebrity right there in front of my drawing pad when I did this.

My plan to do this drawing and make it look like the celebrity that I want it to look like is to draw the picture while quickly looking at my pad and then quickly looking at a photo of the celebrity back and forth as I go. I'm going to draw the celebrity just like they appear in the photo, and then exaggerate their features to add some fun and uniqueness to the drawing. If I didn't do this, then it would just be a drawing of the celebrity.

Remember I am not an artist, and I'm also a single mum.

I'm hoping Penelope Cruze will give me at least £20 for this drawing caricature of herself image.

Here we go.....

I think that worked out quite well. I'm sending it to Penelope Cruze today, but I have to send it by email, as I don't have a colour printer. If she wants it for her art collection, she'll just have to print it out herself.

Salting Potato's.

I've been very busy these last few days with yet another fantastic commission that I can't tell you about for confidentiality reasons, and to be honest, the Girls Guides leader is quite intimidating.

Here's a cartoon I did to demonstrate how to subtlety do some hand shading that will impress your clients and customers. Look how the breast seem to be almost 3D. That can make the difference between a great cartoon and a very bad cartoon. 3D breasts.

This cartoon was  a rough draft for a customer that wanted some cartoons for his restaurant. Once I'd sent him the rough drafts, I never heard from him again. I expect his business was burnt to the ground by Animal Rights Activists or something. Pity. I'd drawn over 15 drawings like this. That's the trouble with being a cartoonist. You can spend 3 weeks working on something that comes nothing.

A Wheelie good joke.

We seem to be restricted by more and more and more rules these days. From rules of written language that restricts those that couldn't go to school from self expressing themselves, to the rules about which side of the road you should drive on, even during the lord mayors parade road redirections. Wheelie bins are a wheelie good idea, but local councils limit what you can put into them. Surely they can't object to people putting wheels into a wheelie bin can they?

A very funny wheelie bin cartoon. The local councils restrict what can be put into peoples

bins these days, but surely they can't object to wheels being put into a wheelie bin?



Artwork & Joke © Leonard Gubbins 2010

Drawing small cartoons is no fun at all.

I've decided that it was time that I decided to launch a highly successful strip cartoon series that will get published in many newspapers all over the world. I expect it will pay very well. At least £20 per day, per newspaper. Which could soon add up to a great deal of money.

The problem I have with drawing a newspaper strip every day for vast amounts of money, is that the size of the strips in newspapers, means it's quite difficult to draw at such a small size for newspapers comic strips.

It's not the humour or the drawing skills that is the problem. Just drawing something very small, with a very big brush pen. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was some sort of conspiracy to prevent people with large brush pens from selling cartoon comic strips for newspapers, and denying them a vast income of many £20 notes from each newspaper that would take the comic strip, if only they were drawn at a bigger size.

It's quite clearly madness. But I shall continue to spend most of my time drawing at least 4,000 strips, and then I'll send them out to see what the market thinks.

Talent Free Photography Club.

I have been interesting in Photography for some time now. Having a digital camera makes it very easy to take stunning photographs like this one that I took of a swan recently when I was on holiday.

The setting I used for taking this photograph was AUTO. As you can see the swan was swimming a little too fast for my camera arm,and I just managed to avoid it's bill.

Luckily for me, as I'd spent most of my holiday money at this point. If you'd like to take a photo of this swan then I suggest you hang around the Norfolk Broads.

Making smooth images for the internet age.

I have been struggling for some time with getting the images I create to look just right on my website, or blog. No matter how low I make the resolution, or how many filters I apply, the images often look very poor quality.

I have decided that this must be because everyone else makes their jpeg images with Vector Graphics or something very technicological like that. Not knowing anything about vector graphics, I have decided to produce all my work in vector images from now on. Fortunately I don't have any commissions at the moment (that was lucky!) so I'll have time to play around with the various settings and get this right, and then advise others on how to be an expert with vector graphics.

Keep watching this space. I'm downloading http://inkscape.org/ now and hope to learn how to use this very soon. Smooth graphics are on the way soon!

How to draw anything in 1 step.

Whilst browsing the internet the other day I found this excellent article which describes how to draw anything at all, even things that you can't draw.

I thought I'd post this here, saving me the time of writing a proper post.

Enjoy, and let me know if it works for you.

http://aviary.com/blog/posts/how-to-draw-anything-in-1-step

How to tell if your girlfriend has got a lot of baggage (1)

All we men of the world have dated someone with a lot of baggage. When I say ‘we’, the more observant among you will notice that I’m not a man at all, let alone a man of the world, but that doesn’t stop me from making pronouncements on our behalf.

Firstly, all this baggage may be no bad thing. If you are someone whose marbles keep spilling all over the floor, or you’re scared that your nuts might drop and there’s nowhere for them to go to – you may find your girl’s got so many containers and receptacles that she won’t notice if you nick the odd Samsonite three case trolley set from her extensive collection.

So, what are the tell-tale signs?

Many women carry a handbag. This is a bit weird to we men who prefer to keep our little sausages nice and warm in our pockets, and it’s something to be aware of before you even start. She may even have a purse. Maybe she carries her laptop in a case.

A more extreme example may have a lot of scruffy old carrier bags full of what seems to be rubbish. If questioned, she will tell you that Prince Charles keeps trying to steal her belongings, especially the Rolls Royce, and so she needs to keep it with her at all times. This is not a woman you should be thinking of dating long term, especially if she doesn’t appear to have washed or changed her clothes for three years and hasn’t got any teeth. Though she may be interesting company if you fancy sharing the odd bottle of cider or methylated spirits on a park bench.

There is another type of woman, though, the extent of whose baggage will only become apparent on closer acquaintance. If you open the third drawer along in her kitchen, you will find it’s full of carrier bags. The more blatant women will even have them openly on display in an even larger carrier bag, probably one purporting to be from a prestigious establishment like Tesco’s. This is designed to impress you, and you must resist as firmly as you can. She will pretend to be disorganised just get even more bags from the local supermarket, with the lame duck excuse that she’s forgotten to bring her shopping trolley.

I now need to practise my droring style to fit in with these Talent Free cartoons so you have a diagram of what a woman with a lot of baggage might look like. This isn’t going to be easy. Here goes.

Try not to start a meaningful relationship with someone who looks like a one-lady-bottle-bank: