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We’ve seen elephants in London recently, and this weekend sees dragons taking to the streets of Newport. Cartoonists from the PCO are involved once again.

Sixty SuperDragons, as they are known, will make their debut in the South Wales city on Sunday (July 18). Cartoonists Tim Harries, above left, and Gerard Whyman, right, have spent much of the past two months putting colourful designs on a canvas that is somewhat different to a piece of A4 paper: a 5ft by 6ft fibreglass dragon.

Tim created a dragon called “Scrum”, covered in cartoon rugby players, and Ger created not one but two works: “Shipley”, based on the city’s maritime history (with famous Newportians past and present gazing from portholes) and “Rodney”, which was sponsored by Newport Gwent Dragons rugby team, and named after their Rodney Parade ground.

Detail from Shipley by Gerard Whyman

Ger told the Bloghorn that when work began at the end of April, he’d already had a useful experience: “The painting of a Big Board at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival proved a useful dry run, as many artists were working in a communal space in a disused shop – renamed the Dragons’ Den for the duration – which was open to the public. So, as well as painting, I was fielding questions from interested visitors.

“I knew I was taking on a lot of work in painting two dragons and it felt a daunting prospect. The little A4 pencil sketches had to be transferred to a 5ft structure that had curves, contours and odd crevices – no mean feat! The satisfaction of completing them was immense. Now that the project is complete I feel slightly at a loss. It’s nice to have my freedom back but I miss the camaraderie of the fellow artists in the Dragons’ Den.”

Rodney by Gerard Whyman

Tim said: “I put a design together loosely based on the idea of Where’s Wally? I covered the dragon statue with cartoon rugby players and only one rugby ball, which the public would be encouraged to search for. It was much more time-consuming than I’d envisioned and occasionally frustrating (where’s the “undo” button? Aaagh!) It was a strain on the knees and I had a slight addiction to Sharpie pens due to overuse.

Detail from Scrum by Tim Harries

“The good points were working alongside lots of great local artists and illustrators, having a lot of fun actually painting and designing the dragon and seeing it finished, and getting a really good reaction from the public. Would I paint another one? Ask me again in six months when my knees have mended.”

The Launch of the SuperDragons Trail takes place at Newport’s Tredegar House on Sunday.

The Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival doesn’t actually finish at the end of the weekend.

Exhibitions continue in venues across the town and organisers run workshops for people keen to explore the skills of drawing and communication.

Cartoonist Wilbur Dawbarn ran one of these events and here are photos from his workshops. Bloghorn thanks Shropshire Council’s event development team for passing these along to us.

Some of the work produced will be displayed at the town’s Wakeman School and Arts College at the end of June.

An informant tells Bloghorn that Wilbur let slip he sometimes “meditated” on a subject for a cartoon while having a lie-in in the mornings. One of the older ladies immediately produced a cartoon of him lounging in bed – you can see it below.

"It's nice to finish the day's work before breakfast!"

Bloghorn thinks: If only…

Bloghorn thanks the editorial writers of The Guardian for spotting what our members and many others do in working for the media, companies and individuals. Modesty prevents us from quoting the nice things said about the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (but do go and read them)!

The organisers of the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival would like us to add that the event is made possible by the kind, long-term support of Shropshire Council and the members of the PCO.

Festival patron, and friend of cartoonists, Libby Purves has words in The Times today for the Greek cartoonist guests at this year’s Shrewsbury. Sadly, they were prevented from actual attendance by unanticipated volcanic activity from the direction of Iceland.

Bloghorn has set up a Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival group at the Flickr photos site, to collect together pictures taken by cartoonists and by the visiting public.

There are dozens of great photos there already, so do take a look. And if you’ve got any great shots, please add them. Pictures will be moderated before appearing on the site.

Here’s the link: http://www.flickr.com/groups/bloghorn

A small but important addition to this year’s Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival is the exhibition of the completed Big Boards on the Sunday.

There is so much activity over the weekend that it’s easy to miss seeing some of the finished boards, but now the public get the chance to see this unique exhibition at their leisure on the Sunday.

The Bloghorn team, along with many other cartoonists and cartoon enthusiasts, have been taking loads of photos throughout the weekend. We’re in the process of getting them together online at Flickr. Expect to see many more throughout the week.

For a nice flavour of the Shrewsbury goings-on, see the piece written by festival patron Libby Purves in Saturday’s Times: Drawing the crowds.

Laughter and music has been ringing out on the streets of Shrewsbury today as the cartoon festival gets into full swing.

The market square has been abuzz with crowds who have come to see the cartoonists producing Big Boards, caricatures and “reverse” caricatures, with live bonus as an added bonus.

Political cartoonist Martin Rowson didn’t let a power failure at Birmingham New Street prevent him from attending the festival. He made one taxi driver very happy by getting a cab all the way to Shrewsbury. He gave a talk entitled Giving Offence: The Greatest Gift, the festival’s sole non family-friendly offering.

You can see lots more pictures, taken and tweeted throughout the day, at the Bloghorn Twitter feed.