Category — UK cartoon events
Cartoons are big fun in Elephant Parade
If you have visited London at all over the past few weeks, you can’t fail to have noticed all the painted elephants dotted around the city.
They are there thanks to Elephant Parade, a conservation campaign highlighting the plight of the endangered Asian elephant. More than 250 of the life-size models have been decorated by artists of all disciplines, one of them, above, by cartoonist Rosie Brooks.
Rosie, a member of the Professional Cartoonists Organisation which runs the Bloghorn, told us: “I really enjoyed this project as I was working in a studio with five other artists. It was the two weeks leading up to Christmas last year and we had our own stereo to block out the shopping centre’s jingly christmas music.”
Elefun, Rosie’s elephant, is just inside Green Park, between Green Park Tube and Hyde Park Corner Tube, roughly opposite the Atheneum Hotel. This Saturday (May 22) is Meet the Artists day. Rosie will be next to her elephant from around 10am – 2pm.
Running from May to July 2010, the parade, which is run by the charity Elephant Family, is London’s biggest outdoor art event on record. With an estimated audience of 25 million, they aim to raise £2 million for the Asian elephant and benefit 20 UK conservation charities.
All of the elephants will be sold at auction. You can bid for them online. Rosie’s is on this page: No. 213: Elefun. Mini elephants are available at branches of Selfridges or at the Elephant Parade online shop.
Rosie is no stranger to large-scale charity art projects. She worked on a similar project called Cow Parade, and she painted a model guitar for London Guitar Town. Her design was picked by Sir Paul McCartney. He liked it so much he asked her to paint a real one, which has since made an appearance in his live act.
May 17, 2010 2 Comments
Workshops at Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival 2010
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…
May 5, 2010 2 Comments
Shrewsbury 2010 – The photos

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
April 26, 2010 1 Comment
Shrewsbury 2010 #6
April 25, 2010 1 Comment
Shrewsbury 2010 #5
April 24, 2010 No Comments
Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival Director Roger Penwill talks to Bloghorn
April 23, 2010 No Comments
Shrewsbury 2010 – Friday
The Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival is under way and recent volcanic news events are providing good material for cartoonists.
Three artists from Australia were invited this year, but only Jason Chatfield, above, was able to make it. Luckily Jason started travelling long before Eyjafjallajokull did its thing.
At the time of writing, 4pm on the Friday, the Big Boards in the market square are starting to take shape. Also to be found in the square are caricaturists and “reverse caricaturing” (you provide the face, seaside-board style, the cartoonists provide the body of your choice!)
Elsewhere there are cartoon exhibitions to be seen, on the theme of Magic, Myths and Mystery. And at the Darwin Shopping Centre, the HuMurals – a collection of single-panel cartoons that form a huge cartoon mural – are progressing.
The good people of Shrewsbury, who are no doubt used to the invasion of cartoonists as this is the 7th year of the festival, all seem to be joining in the fun – and there’s plenty more to come on Saturday and Sunday.
You can see lots more pictures, taken and tweeted throughout the day, at the Bloghorn Twitter feed.
April 23, 2010 1 Comment
Shrewsbury 2010 #4

The Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival is now officially up and running. Your Bloghorn team will be out and about in the town today, Friday April 23, checking out the drawing, caricaturing, workshops and exhibitions. Watch this space, there’s plenty to come.
April 23, 2010 No Comments
Shrewsbury 2010 #3
April 22, 2010 No Comments
Shrewsbury Cartoon – The Beer
The last-minute endorsements are flowing in for this weekend’s activities with the latest being Happy Barry [adopts advertising tone-of-voice] – the official beer of the cartoon festival [stops it]. Barry the Shrew does sterling work as one of the public faces of the festival and deserves a drink as a result.
Thirsty visitors and cartoonists will be able to enjoy a pint at pubs across town in between the events. The festival organisers would like to thank the Salopian Brewery for making it.

Bloghorn is looking forward to whetting his metaphorical foghorn when he gets there. The first person to say ‘‘This tastes funny … geddit?’’ has to get the next round in.
April 21, 2010 No Comments









