Take me to your leader

I'm quite pleased with this gag from #ShapeChallenge as it is another one done on iPad/Procreate/Pencil combo.

England v Russia (Euro 2016)

So England v Russia Euro 2016 for England in Marseille where the fans had been involved in clashes for three days, and following a victory for Wales who showed that British teams can win their opening matches the England team performed quite well.
  With the veteran Wayne Rooney now withdrawn into midfield as a midfield general (drawn above) they were making lots of chances that unfortunately no-one managed to get onto the end of.  It was all potential, pressure and no goals in the first half and in the second half Russia came more into it until Dier scored from a free kick and Roy Hodgson hauled off Rooney and Sterling for Wilshere and Milner as we looked to see out our victory.
  With Russia it is never so simple and in the 91st minute they scored an equaliser with one of their few attacks.
  In the aftermath where a draw felt like a defeat I drew this cartoon showing parallels between 1812 and now (although whether Borodino which was not the clear victory Napoleon was looking for exactly equates to a 1-1 draw is debatable).

Andy Murray's French Open 2016

For major sporting tournaments I sometimes try and give myself a challenge like drawing every member of the GB Davis Cup team last year.  Actually what really happens is I start something for fun and then find myself having to finish the set much like Novak Djokovic found himself trying to complete his set of Grand Slams at the French Open this year.

Most of the time when I follow tennis it is either Davis Cup, Andy Murray or Wimbledon but this year I could watch the French Open on TV so I thought I would keep track of how Andy Murray was doing after his impressive win in Rome over Djokovic on clay when I drew this quick cartoon (it was also his 29th birthday).

The big news going into the French Open apart from Djokovic's desire to win it, and Andy Murray's form was Federer pulling out of his first grand slam in 17 years due to injury.

The first cartoon show's Andy Murray's route to the final which at first was thought to be an easier half of the drawer since it didn't have Nadal in it (who was to pull out injured).  His progress in cartoons was:

• Round 1 - Radek Stepanek.  An old man in tennis terms at 37 Murray was two points away from leaving the tournament in the first round before he turned it around to win in 5 sets.
• Round 2 - Mathias Bourgue.  After the wily veteran who fought his way into the French Open through the qualifiers we thought the young wild card Frenchman Mathias Bourgue would be a much easier and he wasn't taking Andy to five sets.  I originally drew him as a Star Trek Borg so I could use the tagline 'Resistance is Futile'.
• Round 3 - Ivo Karlovic.  Just when you began to believe all of Andy's matches would be five set rollercoasters he managed to sweep aside the big serving Ivo Karlovic (also an old man at 37) in straight sets.  Of the caricatures I drew I probably like his long drawn out face the most although I am sure he is more cheery in real life
• Round 4 - John Isner.  The big serving American didn't give Andy Murray too many problems either and suddenly with the fixture congestion due to rain affecting Djokovic's side of the draw it was looking better for Andy.
• Quarter Finals - Richard Gasquet.  The last remaining Frenchman Richard Gasquet looked like a tricky test and took a lead in the first set and took the second set to a tie break before collapsing quite spectacularly in the third set to get "bagelled" by Murray (6-0) before succumbing in the forth.  I was quite pleased I could make his outfit blend into the flag in the drawing.
• Semi Finals - Stan Wawrinka.  Perhaps Andy Murray's finest hour in the tournament was to despatch reigning champion Swiss Stan Wawrinka in fours sets playing some fine tennis on clay.  I liked Stan the Man's yellow outfit and the way he was always taking selfies at the end of his matches so I tried to incorporate these into his caricature.
• The Final - Novak Djokovic.  It was perhaps inevitable it would come down to these two and while the betting odds were clearly in Novak's favour with his experience of winning many grand slams, part of you couldn't help wonder if Andy Murray would continue the tradition of other players frustrating him at the French Open.  He lost the opening game to love, but then went on a fabulous winning streak that broke Djokovic twice and netted him the first set.  When he almost broke Djokovic in the first game of the second set it was still looking good but Djokovic stepped up a gear and won the second the third sets 6-4.  The fourth set may have been a chance for a Murray comeback but he was broken twice and his late rally only put off the inevitable when Djokovic won 6-4 to claim the only Grand Slam he hadn't won.

The other talking points that spawn cartoons were the weather and the outfits.

The lack of a roof (the Australian Open has three, Wimbledon one and the US Open will get one this year) coupled with some pretty abysmal weather for northern France meant a lot of play was rained off with one day being lost completely and other days where very little play occurred.  Despite this they did get through the schedule in time to have the men's final on the second Sunday but with some forecasts this wasn't looking likely.

Secondly Adidas players were wearing a funky black and white zebra pattern outfit based on the dazzle camouflage of WW2 allied shipping.  I drew a picture from one of the battle of the Zebras when two adidas players Thiem and Zverev were battling it out in the third round.

It even got a retweet from the Roland Garros twitter account.

@cartoonsidrew Taking adidas/Thiem/Zverev/RG fan art to another level. Très bon!

— Roland Garros (@rolandgarros) May 28, 2016

So a wet French Open was good for the unstoppable Novak Djokovic and nearly great for Andy Murray.  Now the grass season is upon us and in a month or so it will be Wimbledon.  No idea if I will do anymore for that given it falls in a busier time of year for me.

Cleft Awareness Week

The post is a bit different to my usual efforts.  Instead of the usual attempts at humor and topicality I wanted to look at something closer to home.

Seven years ago my son was born with an undiagnosed unilateral cleft lip and palate (it wasn't detected on any of our pregnancy scans) and so for Cleft Awareness Week (May 7th to 14th) I wanted to try and tell the story from my perspective (of a parent) of the first seven years.

My objective in tackling this was to raise awareness rather than sympathy.  My son is not his cleft, it does not define him, but it is part of his story and its not a very common story with only 1 in 700 births leading to some form of cleft lip and palate.  Indeed if you met him today you wouldn't know think there was anything different about him until you looked closely then you would see the scar between his lip and nose from the first surgery.

However this is only our story and while parts of it may be familiar to other families their experiences will differ depending on the what type of cleft their children had, what the outcome of their surgeries were, and what, if any, problems they had to deal with.

Condensing all that has happened into a single page can be misleading.  It can make it look like we've done nothing but hospital visits and appointments, and whereas the first year was busy with two surgeries/ hospital stays, the years since have consisted of only a few appointments a couple of times a year.  It also ignores the major portion of his life both the fun and mundane with nursery, school, hobbies, holidays, friends, families which make him the wonderful kid he is.

Finally a few notes to clarify some points from the cartoon itself:

• Andy Murray winning Wimbledon is obviously not a big a day as any of the weddings, births, 
• Our son was our second child and when he was born we had no idea from any previous scans or appointments that he had a cleft.  His sister does not, nor is there any history of cleft in our family.  The science of what causes clefts is not fully understood although genetic and environmental factors can play a part.
• We were fortunate that our son was born in the Queen Mothers hospital in Glasgow (no longer there) right next door to the Yorkhill Childrens Hospital (which is also moved now), because there was a Cleft team there who could be paged and a great nurse who could come and speak to us almost immediately.  Had we been born elsewhere we may have had to wait longer to get some quick assurance about what a cleft lip and palate meant.
• I'm sure most people know what 'Wet Burp' is a euphemism for.
• The hearing tests really did at one stage involve being in a dark room when some sort of scary monkey would make a noise with cymbals which even adults would find terrifying.

For more information about cleft lip and palate and the charity setup to support people with clefts and their families visit clapa.com.

William Milkshakespeare

Terrible pun I know but since its the #Shakespeare400 celebrations and Twitter is awash with Shakespeare jokes I had to find a different angle for the Thursday #PortraitChallenge.

R2D2 Rant

Usually it's all about the drawing but when I started this #ShapeChallenge about a ranting ageing R2D2 I almost couldn't fit everything on the one panel.  Indeed I cut entire sections in my head about how he took down two battle droids, and how Princess Leia entrusted him with the secret plans to the death star without which there wouldn't have been a Star Wars in the first place.

Party Balloon Vikings

Recently I have started taking part in Twitter #ShapeChallenge which is one of Sarah McIntyre's Virtual Studio challenges.  I quite liked this Shape and made it into a fierce Party Balloon viking.

Unfortunately we don't know much about the Party Ballon Vikings due to the way their weapons and armour were popped and flew away meaning their ancient art of balloon animal making was lost for centuries.

BONUS VIKING CARTOON
My very first ShapeChallenge was also a Viking I give you Hareold the Fluffy Bunny Viking