My great pal Phil Gomm has done many terrific things in recent years with one of my favourites being writing and putting out into the world a series of wonderful children’s books called Chimera.

Earlier this year I was excited to hear that Phil was turning the stories into audiobooks and was planning to release them as a series of podcasts this autumn. Actor Dan Snelgrove is narrating the book (you can hear Phil and Dan chatting about the project on Phil’s blog here) and i’m adding images.

I was thrilled when Phil first approached me to talk about contributing to the project as i’d loved the books since first reading them some years ago. The story is a rattling good adventure of a young boy who finds himself in a mysterious world of lost things, which is, at times, wonderful and at other times terrifying. The inhabitants of Chimera and the descriptions of the different worlds to be found there are a gift for any illustrator so I was mightily pleased to get on board with making images for the podcasts, if not a little daunted by the challenge of doing Phil’s words justice.

It’s been a while since i’ve turned my hand to an illustration project but I’ve always enjoyed the endeavour; words are a huge inspiration to me as a visual artist and it’s just great fun working on illustrations for a book I love to bits.

The first task was to produce a kind of ‘cover’ image that would accompany the podcast episodes online. I sketched out some concept ideas to get the ball rolling before we narrowed down the look we were going for.

Phil and I recorded a chat last week, talking about how the image came about, what influenced the look, general musings on childhood, growing up in pre-internet times, and our shared enthusiasm for Halloween, Bonfire Night and Christmas; those few moments in the year when light and colour would pop out for a few days to brighten up the rather dreary world of ’70s and ’80s Britain. You can see Phil’s post and hear the interview here.

We’ve changed the colour palette of the image dramatically to go with the podcasts as it will need to really stand out and be readily readable as ‘Chimera’ when seen on people’s phone’s and mobile devices.

The audiobook will be released as podcast episodes starting soon and continuing up to Christmas. I’ll post more info. very soon!

I painted a couple of small panels this week, based on a recent walk in the Botanical Gardens in Berlin, which are looking glorious at the moment in the end-of-summer sunshine.

The panels were sitting together on my desk and I noticed how I liked the look of them together. Putting the two paintings into a diptych added a stronger narrative element to the piece; there are two moments, a timeline, different things happening. I might well explore this idea further, but not sure how, i’ll have a llook at how some other artists have used the diptych format. It’s tricky; you want the piece to end up being greater than the sum of its parts, but it could easily end up being less. Anyway, a curiosity.

Next week I’m off into the countryside north of Berlin to spend a few days working with three other artists as part of an artist in residence project. The weather looks fine and the place looks beautiful so I hope to come home with lots of ideas for new work 🙂

Life has become a lot smaller for most people this year. For those fortunate enough to have access to an outdoor space, and to have support from friends and family, the experience may not have been too bad, and I’ve heard many people say they’ve quite enjoyed the smaller, simpler life for a while. it must have been very distressing for people cooped up in small spaces with no garden though, or for people who live alone and don’t have people to contact, I really feel for them.

I’ve been fortunate, I know, and I’m very grateful. The lockdown in Berlin was quite relaxed compared to many other places, and the health impact of the virus here has also been less severe.

Life has narrowed down, though, and I’ve been painting smaller subjects, and finding interest in the things at my feet, and places within the city where I live. When I want to paint wider horizons and big open spaces, I have to go to my imagination or my photo library. I’m enjoying exploring the more modest scale, though; the tangle of plans in the parks and gardens and especially in the Botanischer Garten here, which manages to pack in a huge variety of different habitats and types of planting in a relatively small area; the Garden is only about a third the size of Kew but every little corner is lovely and full of interest.

Here’s a drawing of some Aconitum that I found growing in a sunny glade in the Gardens. The drawing was commissioned by a friend in the UK and is now on it’s way to it’s new home there. The flowers of this plant are rather sinister looking, weird and sexual too, and they’re extremely poisonous too, of course!

Less spooky is this patch of wild flowers growing in one of the sunny meadow areas dotted around the park. There are also tiny, trickling streams, rockeries, a herb garden and a lake. Even though the glasshouses are all closed still, there is so much going on in the outside gardens I’m never lost for inspiration. I hope to develop a series of paintings based on the Botanischer Garten over the autumn, the trouble will be narrowing down what I want to focus on, there’s just too much!

I think we passed peak summer about two weeks ago here in Berlin. It was 36 degrees and we were lazing around by one of the crystal clear lakes north of the city, trying to stay cool. But after that, summer has definitely been in retreat. We shouldn’t complain, we’ve had an incredible summer here, it felt like it would go on forever. Germany has suffered from a serious drought this year as well so we definitely need lots of rain now to help the poor trees.

So i’ve been painting big blowsy roses this week, and feeling rather wistful about the summer that seems to have now gone. These roses are from the Castle garden in Whitstable which I photographed a couple of years ago. I like how the wildflowers are growing up through the stems and everything is going a bit shaggy, which is how I like a garden!

I didn’t used to pay much attention to roses but i’ve grown to love them more and more as i’ve got older. I love how they hold the late afternoon sunlight and seem to glow as the light around them dims, they’re like great big lamps.

There are still some lovely days ahead as we go into September, I know, but i’m missing that high summer feeling already…