Alfie-James – Boy’s 1st birthday illustration

I was very pleased when my friend, Marie, requested me to do a commission for her little boy. Alfie-James, who was celebrating his first birthday.  Marie and Alfie’s dad, Mark, wanted a dinosaur illustration to mark the occasion. I can hardly believe it’s been over a year since this adorable little chap was born, but time does have a habit of flying…(but only when you are having fun, I am reliably told).
I always enjoy drawing the dinosaur characters, as these prehistoric creatures fascinated me when I was a child. I have recently become familiar with the parasaurolophus (I couldn’t spell that without checking it first in my dictionary!), which has a bone-shaped extension on the back of its head. It appealed to me and it was a herbivore too, so not one of them flesh-eating terrifying ones that chase all the humans in Jurassic Park!

I always like to include a stegosaurus and a triceratops, as I do have a ‘soft-spot’ for these two four-legged dinosaurs…  They always are the ones that seem to go about, minding their own business, when a hungry tyrannosaurus rex just happens to espy them!

Marie and Mark were delighted with the commission and it was a good opportunity to have a catch up with Marie when I handed the commission over to her; we enjoyed a cup of tea and a jolly good natter! What more could you ask for?

Zain – Boy’s Birth Picture

I was asked a few month’s ago to create a birth illustration for a new arrival in Hull, called Zain, who was born this February.  Having done a birth illustration for his older brother, Lucas, it was great to be asked if I could do one for ‘Son Number 2’.
I had done a birth illustration on a dinosaur theme a number of years ago and the client asked if Zain’s design could be similar (I never do exactly the same designs).  So, I sketched out a few dinosaurs, the great ponderous Brontosaurus ‘the thunder lizard’ no doubt referring to the sound its great feet made it as it slowly pounded the earth, as well as Stegosaurus ‘roof/covered lizard’ with its kite-shaped bone plates on its back and Rhamphorhynchus – a flying bird dinosaur, rather like the Pterodactyl.  It’s always interesting to work from ‘real’ dinosaurs even if they don’t look exactly like their prehistoric creations.  I even included the ‘tyrant king lizard’ Tyrannosaurus Rex, with a much-softened and more friendly persona, as anything like the real thing would surely produce nightmares in one viewing it at a tender age!

I am hoping that Zain will like his birth illustration, which includes all his personal birth details upon it (you cannot see this on the photograph for security reasons).  His family should receive it in August or September when the family have a gathering in York.  Perhaps Zain will still appreciate and own this birth illustration long after I have also, like the dinosaurs, become extinct!