Hope you like my weekly Shot of Black. I'm off to meet a roomful of comedians with pens!

Hulloooo out there! I've noticed quite a few visitors here, so thought I'd try out a new cartoon character idea I'm toying with. Feedback would be most welcome ... And THANKYOU for visiting me MWAH!

Introducing A Shot of Black - humour with a bite. A comic strip of my alter ego - Texidee, in her own little bleak world. Other characters will be Texinik, her man, a computer gamer geek who is often bewildered by Texidee so escapes into cyber world.  Moonblossom Omshanti, the infuriatingly positive friend. Cat, no name (too much effort on her part). I'll add more as the story unfolds.

Thankyou all for your patience, I'm almost done with my updates ... for anyone wanting to view How I drew the vultures with pictures at last, please take a look here.

I am now an official member of The Australian Cartoonists' Association. I've added their website to my links pages, I am yet to add my work there, but very soon! Getting a teensy bit excited about their yearly Stanley awards, celebrating 25 years, plus 85 years for the association. One of the big appearances will be Tom Richmond from MAD magazine oooooooh cool! I will have an illustration in their exhibition, on show at the ABC foyer, Ultimo, NSW, alongside such famous peeps wot draw too including Pat Oliphant.

This is Mortimer ... click on him to see a bigger piccie, you can also see him here and also here for iPhone wallpaper.

Colin Thompson asked me if it was John Howard. I think Mort is Howards' additional needs cousin no one talks about.

If you're wondering why my site has gone a little nutty mcbutty, I've just spent almost the WHOLE week updating all of it *eeeek*. I'm hoping maybe this time round I won't leave it for so long?! I don't think I can face another whole week of it. There is alot to pack in for 9 years of freelance work. What to put in, what to leave out ... My next step will be adding downloads, I have images ready for iPhone wallpaper should be up very soon (they are now!). Here is one to ponder ...

So as you can see I have been busy! This is a big one, special special special. I yam excited. Here is the cover of A Simply Spectacular Hat written by Libby Gleeson! Thankyou to Vanessa at the Cancer Council of NSW for the commission, and my fab creative Wendy for pulling it all together.

I have included two page layouts in my book folio if you'd like to see a little more ...

The illustrations are in a new style I've been wanting to do for a very long time. Just waiting for the right project to come along. I've taken photo's of toys, scanned fabrics, cardboard, out of date kids' books, and sourced free online patterns, then put it all into Abobe Illustrator. The linework was illustrated on a wacom tablet, adding a little hand drawn feel with the stroke on 'pencil' setting. Of course, I still began the project with pencil and paper. I think I might put a page up with progress photo's if anyone is interested.

The thing about websites is when you're busy, you just don't have time to update your own website. Here is the new cover for Ten Yellow Banana's written by Helen Ross, currently in pre press. More pages in my book folio.