Saw this fella in the garden today

Summer photoshoot by Simon Maynard

White City (London) pre-covid taken by Françoise

@baileyillustration drew directly on my elbow and tattoed this web for me. I cannot express my gratitude. Thank you so much!!

Snap - The Power (1990). These are probably the first records I’ve owned

EG reversible bomber (Nepenthes London)

My Engineered Garments reversible mobster coat. winter favourite 😍

Dad’s Work Of Art

There’s a therapeutic element to writing as I’m reflecting and re-visiting moments of my past.

I thought I’d write about my family and how their input and support has had an effect on me. Let’s start with my Grandmother on my Mum’s side (Grandfather passed away before I was born). I can’t remember a time when I was actually told off for drawing on the walls as a three year old; it got to a point where the wallpaper had to be stripped off and left bare so I could just draw on them without any real damage, because somehow, I always managed to get hold of a pen when they were hidden out of my range and sight.

This ‘drawing’ thing mostly consisted of matchstick men, (in my mind I thought my drawings were of He-Man) and it progressed from walls and onto paper pound notes, my Dad’s birth certificate (wasn’t my fault I was able to get near it) and most books. My family just allowed me to do what little Gavin did I guess.

I remember my Aunt being really active and buying me drawing boards and paint and things like that; I didn’t get paint everywhere as I was mostly a biro child, but I don’t think they did this because I had any kind of talent or anything, because the majority of kids draw. What I’m saying here is thatI don’t think that I was born with this “gift”, because I’ve known of individuals with no art background and becoming quite proficient in the space of three years. It’s all about interest and attitude.

When I was about six, I was being looked after by my Dad and it was on a Saturday. I was watching something on TV in the living room and he suddenly goes downstairs, (presumably to the car) and brings up these long pieces of wood and then starts nailing them to the wall by the dining table, forming a picture frame.

This is what I remember but it’s definitely not 100% accurate.

Then, he gets out a pencil and draws this square and triangular type thing and then uses black to fill the centre part, then yellow paint and blue and white spray paint to finish it off before masking off the frame areas of wood and painting them in a glossy black.

This is my Dad’s recollection… he named it “concentration relaxation”

This was done quite quickly as well so you can imagine me having never seen my father even draw a line being able to spontaneously come out with something like that. The thing is not once after did he do anything I’d consider artistic, he comes from an engineering and mathematical background which is even more of a feat. I’ll ask him if he remembers.

Placing runner-up at a Marvel UK competition (Part 1)

(Picture updates will be added)

When I was nine, I remember my Aunt Shirley coming to see me at my Nans (I’d lived with my Grandmother when I was young until my late teens after she passed away) and saying ‘We’re going to a competition for Marvel that will be on TV’. Wow. I got super excited. I didn’t say much that would give that emotion away to her but she could tell because she knew about my love for Spider-Man. I replied "‘what’s that?’ a rhetorical question that we both knew the answer to.

The competition had been announced on London Weekend Television (LWT) on a Saturday (around May in 1992) for a ‘Marvel UK Comics Workshop’ hosted by Marvel UK on a boat on the river in Embankment (The “Boat” part I had no idea about until we were on our way there).

I was told to bring a portfolio along with me of work I’d done. I brought along mostly video game related stuff, like drawings of Final Fight and X-Men. I didn't like them very much but thought that they would be ok for a nine-year-old. On the way there at Wood Green underground station, my aunt got talking to a friendly Yoruba woman in her 40’s, and it turned out that her son was also accepted to be in the workshop competition. I vividly remember him being fifteen years old and his name was Tunde. We got chatting and he said he was into Batman etc, then he showed me his drawings. I was amazed by the technique he had, but not what he drew because I’d read a shit-ton of Batman by my age to remember all of the cover art, and he’d just copied a lot of covers really.

My analytical skills made up for my lack of super-hero drawing when I was young, as I was able to recognise a lot of DC and Marvel artists’ styles. This cover was drawn by Todd McFarlane. What stood out to me was that there was an error drawing Batman’s left ankle, when the above reference he used had not included any feet.

My ego was telling me that I had nothing to worry about, and my competitive vigour announced itself. Deep down I knew I’d be as good at fifteen, and wished my comrade good luck on the entrance to a large boat just a walk from Embankment station on London’s South Bank.

On the boat, we’d been welcomed by Marvel UK editor John Freeman, and we were all seated on what looked like a banquet dining table, with the Laser-cut tumbler glasses. Missing the full dinner set of cutlery, but replaced with HB pencils, rulers, erasers and a stack of Marvel comics for each person to read (Death’s Head, Spider-Man and Captain Britain).