The Haven offers support and respite to families with experience of terminal illness.  As before these workshops are not open to the public.

Keep an eye on the blog for further announcements.  And if you are interested in attending a workshop please contact us; the more people we hear from the more we can offer.

On our gift caricatures for birthdays and retirements:

“Just a note to thank you for the caricature you drew for our friend’s 50th.  He thought it was amazing, fell about laughing and was taken aback by it (and this is the man who has everything)!  So thanks a million to you, Chris and the team!” – I.McCulloch, Glasgow

“Thanks again – so pleased with the result!  It’s being emailed round the school!” – K. Marzella, Manchester

“Our colleague loved it and said that great thought and detail had been put into it.” – S.Leverage, Glasgow

On our caricature gifts and signature canvases for weddings:

“Thanks so much for the painting.  It’s perfect.  Every detail is spot on.” – L. Ballantyne, Glasgow

“Thanks for the caricature for my usher, its great.  I can’t wait to give it to him.” – M. Lockhart, Glasgow

In the coming weeks we’ll be making announcements for our summer season.  As usual you can expect to see us caricaturing at a variety of events around the country.  Stay tuned!

chris sommerville, scottish cartoon art studio, caricaturist, glasgow, conference, badges, caricature

If you’re interested in using caricatures at your corporate event, big or small, then please get in touch.

Please read more and consider supporting this project via indiegogo, where you can also see more preview pages.

Sample page with caricatures by Chris Sommerville & design work by Tommy Ross 

Come along early and avoid the queue, as the last drawing will be made at quarter past one sharp!

Wellhouse Housing Association look after over a thousand households in Easterhouse.  Late last year they contacted us and expressed their desire to develop a short comic explaining the effects and possible ramifications of the “bedroom tax” on two fictional tenants.  The comic would be distributed in a newsletter in February and thereby open dialogue well before the changes to housing benefit took effect.  The comic had to explain, firstly, that the changes were being implemented by the UK Government and not Wellhouse themselves; secondly, that the best course of action for those affected was to work with the association, try to minimise or avoid disruption and manage the necessary change in the household budget; thirdly, that ignoring the problem could lead, in the very worst case scenario, to court action and eviction.

As with all projects of this kind the strip was developed in stages, starting with a written outline from the client.  Drafts of the strip were submitted for approval with each being more polished than the last and suggested changes incorporated along the way.  You can download the full comic as a pdf at the Wellhouse website.  The gallery below shows the development of one page from the story.

Comic strips are a direct, bold, emotive way of connecting with people.  If your business or organisation wants to capture a narrative, explain a process or convey important information using comics then please get in touch.

“We are delighted with your work and impressed that you came in two weeks ahead of timescale!  We e-mailed a pdf of our comic round quite a few of the other Housing Associations and it’s getting a huge amount of applause.” – Cindy Mathie, Community Engagement Officer, Wellhouse HA

The main speaker on the day was Andy “Art of Brilliance” Cope.  Chris caricatured him ahead of time and he was able to use the artwork as part of his presentation.  During the course of the morning we drew all 45 delegates and these caricatures formed a display, a great talking point which everyone was eager to photograph and share with social media.  Finally everyone collected their own drawing as a memento of their day.

Interested in booking us for your corporate event?  Please get in touch.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tommy and Chris for all their hard work at our conference.  The fact that they accommodated all the requests was fantastic.  The staff had loads of fun and the caricatures were fab!  We would not hesitate to use your services again.” – Sandra Haig, Organisational Development Officer, WestScot HA

Following our debut exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2006 four pieces from the Fizzers® collection where acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland.  After the refurbishment of the SNPG one of the pieces – Brian’s caricature of Wet Wet Wet front man Marti Pellow – was used in one of the new interactive digital installations at the gallery.

In two weeks’ time a major new exhibition portraying Scottish comedians opens at the SNPG and Derek’s caricature of Chic Murray has been selected for inclusion.  You can find out more about Tickling Jock, which will run well into next year, at the National Galleries’ website.

We’ll report on the remaining two pieces as the Galleries’ plans are revealed.

There are over 400 famous faces in our caricature collection; if you are an exhibitor, publisher or business interested in using artwork from the archive please get in touch.

chic murray, derek gray, scottish, cartoon, art, studio, national, portrait, gallery, fizzers, caricature, tickling jock, exhibition, edinburgh, glasgow, comedian

We look forward to more workshops in 2013.  Keep an eye on the blog for further details.

Hard to believe a year has passed since the relaunch of the website.  We’ve worked hard to add to it on a regular basis but inevitably when deadlines have mounted around us we had to concentrate on more urgent matters.  Hopefully all the main pillars are now firmly in place and from here we can simply have fun with the site.  Our recent post about The Dandy is a good example of the sort of thing we’d like to put together more often.

It’s been an interesting year with several unusual projects coming our way.  The Golden Jubilee gave all the Studio team a rare opportunity to focus on the same face, especially when our friends in St. Just-le-Martel issued a rallying call for caricatures of the The Queen.   The Olympics brought us into the creative community of Kilmacolm, working with local children and illustrating a book of their stories.  That was just part of a bumper year for workshops that saw us travelling to Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Stirlingshire and around Glasgow to draw with young people in libraries, museums, schools and community centres.  And we’ve been illustrating everything from heavy-duty reports for local authorities to bright and colourful leaflets for visitor attractions.

Here’s some recent reactions from customers.

On our gift caricatures:

 ”Many thanks to you for the finished article. Michael thinks it is ‘bitching’!  We love it too and so does everyone else who has seen it. The attention to detail and the likeness is fantastic.” – K. McGregor, Motherwell

On our live caricatures:

“Just a quick note to thank [Chris] for his artistic work on Saturday evening, our guests thoroughly enjoyed the experience and were delighted with the results.” – S. Wilson, Paisley

On our cartoon workshops:

“[I write] to reiterate how excited the children were after the event and that they carried on drawing and talking about heroes and villains as well as reading about them.  The adults were also very impressed as they learnt quite a lot as well regarding colours etc.  Both teachers wish to express their thanks for a wonderful event.  I think this event could go down well in many other libraries.” – Fallin Library, Stirling

We’re already underway on more projects to be unveiled in 2013: new promotional cartoon characters; factual comic strips; further sequences of children’s workshops; and, as ever, the Fizzers collection just keeps getting bigger!

 See you in the New Year!