PETER FALK as COLUMBO

Peter Falk who sadly passed away earlier this month was a bit of a hero of mine during my teenage years; I often pretended I was Columbo whenever I deceptively bumbled about solving murders. I'm currently selling this portrait on ebay with a percentage of proceeds going towards Alzheimer's research.

DAVID NIVEN

A very simple line drawing of the actor David Niven.

MARTY FELDMAN

I did this portrait of the comedian, actor and writer Marty Feldman a while back because I love his brilliant face. I suppose there's always a slight danger of disrespecting a face like his when drawing it but I tried to steer away from that because, as I say, I love his brilliant face.

SIR ALEC GUINESS

A pen and ink portrait of Sir Alec Guiness as he appeared in The Ladykillers.

FINGER PAINTING

I haven't done finger painting in years but I love the freedom and mess of it and ought to do more. This painting was done on brown parcel paper with inks in about 30 minutes.

LOST

This is a charcoal foot drawing I have done of a little girl lost. I painted it, again with my feet, with watercolours.

DOCTOR WHO and the ZYGONS

I did the hard part of this painting some years back, the hard part being the hand painting of William Hartnell and the two monsters. Not being so good at this sort of thing I had to cover up a load of mistakes with spacey stuff which I rendered digitally. I find this sort of thing quite enjoyable to do but at the same time it's incredibly frustrating if, like me, painting this sort of picture isn't your thing.

SYLVESTER McCOY

A fair while ago I went through a phase of drawing portraits just to keep my eye in whenever work was slow or non existant and this is a pencil drawing of Sylvester McCoy. I know what youre thinking here: 'Please, not another Dr Who!'

Sorry about this. I've always felt that one good way to learn to draw is by drawing the things you're really keen on and I've been a bit of a Dr Who anorak since I was about 5. And as a young man it was easier to get hold of pictures of Dr Who than it was to get hold of pictures of girls I liked. Sadly.

This drawing has been cropped because he was wearing a hat and that turned out to be a disaster. I'm ok with faces, more or less, but hats are a right pain. Especially straw ones.

PATRICK TROUGHTON

I must of done this around ten years ago and I'd completely forgotten about it until today when I saw one of my favourite actors ever, Patrick Troughton guest as a villain in an old episode of The Sweeney. So I fished the drawing out and thought it didn't look too shabby for something I did that length of time ago so I'm posting it.

Done in HB pencils, I think some of the drawing is a titchy bit crude here and there in comparison with the way I'd do it now but every drawing is a valuable learning process and that's why you should never throw any work away.

I've always liked Patrick's wistful pose in this drawing and I think he was supposed to be looking directly at you but I went wrong somewhere along the way. Y'know, as usual.

A SKETCH REFOUND

I stumbled across this little ink drawing today whilst flicking through an old sketchbook and realised it's better than a load of drawings I've spent hours labouring over. It's fairly bold and loose and would only have taken a short minute to do.

Like most everyone else who keeps one, my sketchbook is a sanctuary for small drawings like this. Sketches that would perhaps otherwise become lost and forgotten.

ELDERLY LADY

I had a friend once (look at me showing off) and when she's old I think she might look a smidge like this quick pen drawing I've done of an elderly lady.

I did this sketch in black Indian ink with my dippy pen, which lends itself to keeping the lines lively and loose. I tried not to allow the pen to rest anywhere on the paper for too long to give the drawing as much life as I could.

ELISABETH SLADEN

I did this pencil drawing way back in the heady days of August 1992, a month before I started my degree at Camberwell College of Arts. When I was a boy, Elisabeth Sladen would make my heart go goosey whenever she was on the telly in Doctor Who and I did this portrait for her when I met her in London at a signing session. She was so lovely and complimentary about the drawing when she accepted it, my heart pumped up to Goose Factor 9.

Sometimes I wish I did but I don't often do drawings like this anymore because they're so time consuming and although I still have the patience, I'm always too busy illustrating books and stuff.

Other Dr Who drawings can be found on my website.

SKETCH OF A LADIES' MAN

This is a Leonard Cohen drawing I did today that was required as a quick commission. Anyone who ever knew me, I don't know anyone anymore, knows that I spend a lot of my time messing things up. And this drawing is a top example of that as I had his face all wrong after making the marks around the eyes, mouth and nose far too heavy. To be fair though, I'm a bit poorly today and I can't concentrate very well with a headache. And my nose was running and kept dripping on my work.

Frankly my friends, Lenny deserves better than that.

I'm quite resourceful in a tight spot so I took my drawing and popped it onto my computer where I gently over-layed bits and bobs of the original photo I used as reference. I haven't done this before but I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. The main problem was to try and make sure the parts I corrected still looked as though I was clever enough to have drawn them. But I'm not clever, not today. Today I'm a fraud.

Everybody knows.

THE BOY KING

This is an A3 pencil portrait of Elvis Presley as a boy. Elvis grew up poor and there's a distict sadness in his eyes here. The drawing itself is quite loose and sketchy and although I don't know how long it took to do (I did it about 4 or 5 years ago), I don't suppose it took longer than an evening.

There are other drawings of Elvis which can be found in the portfolio section of my website.

AUDREY HEPBURN

This is an ink drawing of Audrey Hepburn which I did in around 10 minutes one day last year. Audrey's a particular favourite of mine and her face is so angelic and beautiful, it's difficult to resist drawing her.

DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEK

I did this tight little drawing with and edding pen I think, although that might not be true as I don't much like edding pens. Mmmm, it was some sort of pen anyway. The areas of darkness were built up with a laborious cross-hatched mark and I decided quite soon afterwards that I didn't really get on with this type of drawing because I'm not all that suited to it since I prefer a quicker, looser line.

But that sounds like a challenge and I reckon I've just goaded myself into having another go at another drawing of this type. In a couple of years or so.

Other Dr Who drawings can be found in the portfolio section of my website.

TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

The picture on the left is just a quick pen drawing of an elderly man which took around 10 minutes. I used waterproof Indian ink and my trusty dip pen to quickly get some marks down on some 300gsm water colour paper. Usually I wouldn't use this type of paper for a pen and ink drawing but I planned to pop a wash over it and needed paper that would stand up to some harsh treatment later on. The fine hairs of this type of paper constantly clog my dip pen which is a major disadvantage as it slows the flow of the drawing.

I applied the wash with a mix of water colour paint and ink and drew back into it again with my dip pen and non-waterproof Indian ink which dries lighter than the waterproof version and is more subtle. But not wanting to be too subtle, I flicked paint and ink over the drawing and sprayed it with bleach.

I've always really liked the contrasts of light and dark in drawings so I try and make something of that when I get the chance. I'll have to look at these drawings in a few days time and decide if they need any further work. Or maybe I've gone too far as it is eh, chums?

YODA

This is a pencil drawing of Yoda and which took a good 2/3 hours to do. With pencil portraits I used to start with a 2H and gradually build up to a 9B for the darkest areas. I don't know if I still do that as I've not done a pencil portrait for some time.

I'm prone to making mistakes and if you look at his left (your right) ear you'll see where I made one which I had to take a putty rubber to. If I remember rightly, I originally did the ear too long and I didn't correct it properly so the picture looks messy there, around the tip of the ear.

The full sized version of this drawing can be found in the portfolio section of my website.

ELVIS PRESLEY

This is a large charcoal portrait of Elvis which I did a couple of years ago. It's quite an involved drawing in which I tried to keep the marks loose where I could. With charcoal, I know that some people would suggest blending drawings like this with fingers but I'd rather cut mine off than do that. I find a soft brush better for blending; a tool from a more civilised age. If, when I was at college, I saw finger blending I used to have to leave the studio to be violently ill outside as I tried to get them ugly smudges out of my head.

I don't get to use of my easel nearly as much as I'd like to so when I do a drawing like this I try and make it last for days and this took about three.

More drawings of Elvis can be found in the portfolio section of my website.

LEONARD COHEN

Last week I saw Leonard Cohen at the O2 Arena in London and found him such an inspiring figure that I had to draw the genius within hours of getting back home.

I started by quickly drawing the key shapes in black Indian ink before painting in some basic facial tones. I try to work as quickly as possible most of the time which keeps the drawing fresh but also means that a lot of the time I'm making it up as I go along. This drawing took around 30 minutes from start to finish.

His clothes and background were done almost at the same time and when I felt the drawing was slipping away from me I whipped out my faithful pot of non-waterproof Indian ink to re-establish shapes and forms that were close to being lost. I'm disappointed that one of his shoulders looks so sharp but I'll correct that in time.

I use dark blue Quink a lot of the time for areas of shadow. Quink is also useful because it doesn't stand up to being sprayed with bleach which I tend to do when I use it. I enjoy roughing up quick drawings like this by spraying on bleach and water and flicking it with paint and ink before drawing back into it again. This process might often be repeated several times over before I relent and stop bullying it.