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 14th Annual Winter exhibition is under way at the Illustration Cupboard Gallery in London. It runs until January 31 and admission is free. For more details, visit the website.

Left: Yorkshire Gothic by Michael Salter of Aardman Animation.

Spotted by Tim Harries.

An informal cartoon caption competition, which began as a one-off on the Cartoonists’ Club public forum in the summer, is now into its 20th week. Matt Buck spoke to Noel Ford, moderator of the forum along with Nigel Sutherland and Ian Ellery, and asked how this is different to any other caption contest.

The competition is similar to the readers’ caption competitions that were once so popular in Punch magazine, but with one major difference: instead of competitors being provided with a cartoon to which they have to think of a caption, it’s the caption that is provided and they must draw a cartoon to suit.

Noel’s entry from week three of the competition – “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere” – was voted the winner

How did it start?
It was the brainchild of part-time cartoonist Chris Cooper (CLIB) and PCO member Ian Ellery. Chris originally wondered, in July this year, how different cartoonists would interpret a single cartoon scenario, and Ian suggested that, rather than a scenario, we should give the same caption to a group of cartoonists and see what they came up with. The idea was quickly taken up and what was at first intended as a one-off experiment, quickly became the popular competition that it now is.

Who can take part?
Anyone registered on the forum can have a go: full time pros, part-timers and people who aren’t cartoonists at all. We have had cartoons from people whose entry was the first cartoon they had ever drawn. The winners, so far, have come from a wide spectrum of full-time and part-time cartoonists. Apart from the fame and the kudos, the winner has to provide the caption for the next competition.


Tim Harries’ take on “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere”

When does it take place?
Entries are posted on the forum between 12 noon on Saturday and 12 noon on Sunday. Voting takes place, using a points system, between 1pm Sunday and 6pm Monday. All entrants can vote and non-entrants can vote, too, subject to certain conditions.

How did you end up managing it?
Cynics might say it was the only way I can guarantee winning (twice!), but the truth is that, as a moderator on the forum, it was a natural progression. And, I’m also a control freak – so my wife tells me!

Why do you think it started?
Cartoonists are natural show-offs. We love drawing cartoons but we crave an audience. For the the new kids on the block it provides an opportunity to have their work viewed by a niche audience and to elicit comments from the more experienced contributors. For all of us it is an opportunity to draw whatever we like without editorial considerations. And, it’s great fun!

Tim Harries, Bloghorn’s Artist of the Month Tim Harries reveals the names of other artists who have inspired him:

I think my favourite form of cartooning is the newspaper comic strip and there are plenty of cartoonists in this field I admire. The worlds they created and the quality work they produced over decades is something I certainly envied and wanted to emulate. Charles Schulz’s ‘Peanuts’ and Reg Smythe’s Andy Capp were early favourites, and later on Bill Watterson’s ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ and Jim Meddick’s ‘Robotman’ became my comic strip obsessions.

Currently I enjoy Stephan Pastis’ ‘Pearls before Swine’ and Darby Conley’s ‘Get Fuzzy’. Outside of newspaper comic strips, I admire Peter Bagge, Jeff Smith, Kazu Kibuishi, Jamie Hewlett. Oh and Pete Dredge. And Roger Kettle. Really like Pete’s artwork and Roger’s writing. There’s loads more but it would get tedious…

And what does Tim think is the future of cartooning in the digital age?

I’ve certainly embraced digital cartooning. It allows me to work for clients all over the world. The other side of the digital age is of course the decline of print media, but with the advent of iPhones, Kindles, Sony Readers, the fabled Apple Tablet and all manner of future gizmos I think there’s a definite market for cartoons and comics in the digital age. It’s just a different way of delivering our content.

The tricky part is no doubt working out how we can get paid for our skills in an online world that expects everything for free. “Interesting times ahead”, as someone much cleverer than me once said…

Bloghorn thanks Tim for being our Artist of the Month for November.

Bloghorn’s Artist of the Month, cartoonist Tim Harries, gives his tips for would-be cartoonists:

• Keep practicing. Nothing wrong with copying other people’s work for practice if you want to learn, as long as you don’t try to pass it off as your own. You’ll find your own style as you progress.
  
• If you’re aiming to become a professional cartoonist, you’ll need to get yourself a web site and get yourself advertised. If you want to be taken seriously put your best stuff on there, not some sketches you did for Auntie Flo when you were 10. You can save that stuff for your inevitable blog
  
• Nearly all work is done via the internet these days – receiving and answering enquiries, sending roughs and final art, invoicing are all expected to be done online, so be prepared for this.
  
• Don’t miss deadlines. Clients don’t like it and probably won’t use you again. Simple!
  
• Develop a thick skin. If you’re sending cartoons anywhere speculatively, be prepared for rejection somewhere along the line.
  
• Also be prepared to diversify – there is work out there, but if you’ve got your heart set on just working in one field of cartooning “Right I’m only going to draw gag cartoons… about Aardvarks!” it may be a struggle, so the skills you learn producing gag cartoons, comic strips and humorous illustrations can be used in all manner of work – greetings cards, calendars, advertising, comic books, trade mags. Some may not be the glamorous ‘high profile’ gigs you’d like but they pay the bills.

Bloghorn will have one more week of thoughts from Tim next Friday, in the meantime,you can enjoy our Bloghorn Artist of the Month archives whenever you want.

Bloghorn’s Artist of the Month is freelance cartoonist Tim Harries. We asked Tim how he produced his cartoons.

Nearly all my work is done digitally these days. I say nearly, since I still produce my daily strip using traditional methods (in my case – pencils, Staedtler Pigment Liners, Pitt brush pens and a nice bit of paper!). The strip is something I could do digitally, but I quite like ‘keeping my hand in’ with actual pen and paper. It’s a good backup if the computer ever dies on me!

All my other work is done (technophobes look away now!) on Photoshop with my PC and Wacom Cintiq, which I upgraded to recently from the Intuos tablet. The Cintiq is a great piece of kit, well worth the cost if you’re serious about digital cartooning. After all these years of PC use, I’ve finally bought my first Mac, the 13in Macbook Pro, so will be eager to see how it performs.

There will be more from Tim here at the Bloghorn next week. Remember, you can enjoy our Bloghorn Artist of the Month archives at any time.

After several years as the plucky underdog, the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation’s team, this year rebranded as Team Bloghorn, has finally emerged victorious from the annual Battle of the Cartoonists.

Our team came joint first with Private Eye in the Big Draw event in which four teams completed a large banner on the theme of “Now We Are Ten”, celebrating a decade of The Campaign for Drawing. They faced stiff competition from teams from The Sun and The Independent.

A banner year: The Bloghorn team was made up of, left to right, Andy Bunday, Clive Goddard, captain Pete Dredge, holding the cup, who oversaw proceedings, and Nathan Ariss

Work in progress: Clive and Pete get drawing. Click here, to see the full, completed banner

In a post-match interview, Pete told the Bloghorn: “Justice and victory at last for the PCO’s Battle of the Cartoonists’ team, albeit jointly with the Eye (Shurely shome mistake – Ed). What seemed like a clear-cut decision was mysteriously drawn out into a “cheer-off” head-to-head. And even then our clearly louder decibel reading was insufficient for us to be declared outright winners. A big draw indeed!”

Joint winners: The Private Eye team, left to right, Simon Pearsall, Richard Jolley and Ken Pyne, also a PCO member, with MC Andrew Marr, who is a patron of the PCO

But the event is not just about the glory of winning. PCO members Tim Harries, and Cathy Simpson were on hand to run drawing workshops for children and adults at the event, which took place at the Idea Generation gallery in Shoreditch, London.

Drawn to it: Cathy Simpson hosted a workshop for children

The workshoppers were ably assisted by The Surreal McCoy. All photographs here are by Gerard Whyman, who was on hand as the official PCO photographer.

Cartoonist Tim Harries demonstrates how to draw a Big Board cartoon from start to finish, at this year’s Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival

The PCO provided the all-day cartoon and drawing workshops at The Big Draw. Here, two of our members report on what they did there. Click the images to enlarge

Paul Hardman writes:

The title of the workshop I ran was “Who Do You Think You Are?” It involved a very long roll of paper on which I had drawn about twenty train carriages. Participants were invited to draw a self portrait in each window and then put their names and where they were from underneath. After a slow start (10am) the activity grew and proved to be a great success, continuing throughout the day until we had run out of carriages and children were left asking for more!

An interesting metamorphosis developed as several windows became visual puns on the word “coach”. We had the football coach and the stage coach for example. The results were pasted to the side wall of the “Battle Arena” and made a very effective display.

Tim Harries writes:

Judging by the of amount paper and sponsored pencils we went through, this year’s workshops were thoroughly enjoyed by cartoonists and public alike. Any available large space (blank walls, concourse pillars, some of the heavier cartoonists) was turned into a gallery to proudly display the transport-themed cartoons, comic strips and characters produced. Next door’s Starbucks aided flagging artists and parents as the kids kept us busy from 10am til 5pm, with quite a few families staying the entire day and taking part in each of the five workshops.

My “Creating First Class Comic Strips” workshop was fun to do, as always, and produced some quality work from quite a few attendees who, thanks to the microphone provided, could actually hear my instructions (including the slightly loud and embarrassing “How do you switch this thing off?”)

Other participating PCO cartoonists were Terry Christien, Chichi Parish, Robert Duncan and John Landers. Photos by Gerard Whyman and Royston Robertson.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

The PCO is running workshops for all ages at the Big Draw event at St Pancras International Station in London on Saturday (October 18). If you’re interested in cartooning and fancy having a go, come along and get involved.

PCO cartoon workshops at the 2007 Big Draw

The workshop timetable is as follows: Paul Hardman – Who Do You Think You Are? 10am-11.25am; Chichi Parish – Time Travel, 11.30am-12.55pm; Robert Duncan – Drawing Near the Station, 1pm-1.55pm; Tim Harries – Creating First Class Comic Strips, 2pm-3.25pm; Terry Christien – On Track for Drawing Cartoon Characters, 3.30pm-5pm.

The PCO is strongly represented in the Battle of the Cartoonists (3-5pm) where four teams slug it out to produce the best cartoon banner, because not only does it have its own team but there are PCO members on each of the other three teams.

They are: Martin Rowson and Andy Davey (Guardian team), Ken Pyne (Private Eye) and Matt Buck (the Independent).

The Big Draw: Get involved

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent