I can finally show you the work I've done for Goodone, a rather excellent ethical fashion label who are up to many good things at the moment. Lots of fun doing these.

It is with much irk that I stroll around the streets of Brighton and notice the horribly premature Christmas decorations. Is it like this everywhere? It's barely mid November; I've only just had my birthday! Yes, I did have a lovely time, thankyou for asking. Spoilt rotten by my girlfriend, fed fantastically, entertained by the likes of Toumani Diabate, Hypnocoustics and Refractal, with a brief walk around Stanmer park and a good deal of lazing about to boot. Very well nourished musically now as well, as I was given some brilliant albums by Tinariwen and Martha Tilston (as well as a lovely Opinel knife - been after one since I were a lad. Hooray!), and treated myself to some beauties by Pelican, Lost and Found, Bolt Thrower and the newie from Laura Marling. Bonza.

And whilst on the subject of Tinariwen, a brand new illustration of a Tuareg lady and some camels in the desert is one of a new range of limited edition giclee prints that I have available from my newly-installed, monumentally exciting (it's been on my to-do list for quite some time...) WEB SHOP! Yes indeed, head on over there to treat yourself (or someone you like) to some fancy prints, or some Christmas cards! It's never to early to get organised, don't you know (but decorations are another matter). Please let me know if you have any problems with the shop - it's brand new and needs to be put through its paces as e-commerce n wotnot is new to me... I hope you like it.

Here are some photos of some food from the amazing walled garden at Monkton Wyld Court in Dorset, where I recently helped out with a spot of digging and chopping and harvesting and so on. Rather nice it was too.

Yes indeed, sketchbook-o-rama.... no I haven't been on holiday, just having some fun with good old National Geographic. I'm going to start doing much more of this on my blog (ie sketchbook work, photos, work in progress, stuff I've found interesting and the like), as my new website is much easier to upload work to (and talk nonsense on) than it was before and it would be much nicer if the two worked together and had a slightly different slant. Having said that, there's some fresh illustration almost ready to put up too.... I've also just realised I haven't bored you with what music I've been enjoying lately for a while... Penta, Slayer, Laura Marling and John Chibadura mainly. Top banana!

Also, those lovely chaps over at the excellent website Lost At E Minor just asked me to do some writing for them, about all dem cultural tings I been digging of late.... pop over there and have a look - it's a great source of inspiration, weird stuff and all kinds of art and culture that might otherwise completely pass you by.

And whilst on the subject, I've just discovered Andy Smith's lovely blog... if you like hand-rendered type, you'll love it there.

Thought I'd post a few pages from the ol' sketchbook for a change...

Bonjourno.... few things to waffle on about so I shall try and keep it brief... First off, here are some long-overdue photos of the murals I made for DC Storm's lovely new offices.

Illustration took a bit of a back seat over the quieter Summer months while I ran away to the fields to work at various festivals. Twas heaps of fun and returning to the heaving metropolis of Brighton was something of a shock, as it has been once again as I've just returned from a lovely spell working from my newly mobile studio in rural Devon. Had a very productive, and also very relaxing time down there, and even got to see some America's Cup sailing action from the sound at Plymouth. Man, those boats are fast! I also went to a great event run by Encounters Arts in Totnes called Artists' Lab - a workshop of sorts where a very varied and interesting cross-section of practitioners met for a day to share and develop ideas and experiment in a very free, fluid and open manner - hugely beneficial and a real pleasure to take part in.

In between all of that I've been busily redeveloping my website, and have just launched a completely new and fully updated site. I'm dead chuffed with it, so do please have a wee look: www.edtucker.biz.

I also want to mention a really cracking exhibition I went to see at the University of Brighton Gallery before I went away, thanks to a tip from the ever-intrepid Fred Pipes on the Brighton Illustrators Group website. It was a fantastic and extensive show of maps and murals (and also some sketchbooks and drawings and so on) by MacDonald Gill (1884-1947), whose work I became familiar with at the Magnificent Maps exhibition (written about in a previous post). He had a highly distinctive style, a great eye for detail and a really nice, cheeky sense of humour which you don't often see in much work form this period. The man had many talents and was highly prolific, producing a lot of maps for London's tube and bus networks and many other institutions, as well as posters, murals, book jackets, architecture and even gravestones for servicemen! Gosh!

Ahhh, May - what a fine time of year. Especially here in Brighton, as the May Festival gets going and the whole town springs into action. A real highlight of the festival has been Jardin Flambeau, a massive event/installation by these clever French dudes. They completely took over St.Anne's Well Gardens, probably our finest park, and completely filled it with all manner of enchanting pockets of firey wonder. Far from the ... spectacular many were expecting, it was the cumulative effect of hundreds of small-scale pockets of fire, in all manner of shapes, positions and configurations that instead generated a wonderfully calm, relaxed and mesmerising atmosphere. Countless flowerpots of fire rose hypnotically up into the canopies of trees, vest-enclosed candles hung ghost-like from the branches, and gazebos dotted around the park housed curious pockets of eery live music. Very refreshing too was the lack of health and safety - exposed fire everywhere and thousands of people (and on Saturday night!)

Caught some ace live music so far too, namely the great Max Romeo alongside Lee Perry and Adrian Sherwood, Shapeshifter, a lovely recital of Boccherini, Locatelli, Telemann and Bach, and even managed to catch the man like Snoop Dogg at his 'secret' gig at the Dome! Hilarious.

Bit slow to mention this but once again I'm back in one of the best Open Houses around for the festival - the lovely Claremont on Second Avenue in Hove. One more weekend left (it's not open on Sunday but is on Monday), so if you're in the area go and check it out to see a whole heap of cracking artwork.

I've finally finished the biggest project I've worked on yet - very satisfying to get it all wrapped up after many months! Working with interior designer Nicola Gobat, I produced artwork for seven large and four small sections of walls, along with 5 large glass manifestation sections, for the sumptuous new offices of DC Storm here in Brighton. Painting directly onto the walls (which made a highly refreshing change!), I portrayed various scenes of Brighton and the surrounding area in a continuous panorama going around the entire office. A huge job and quite a challenge but a real joy to do. Gotta sort out photos of it all - I'll be sure to post once I do....

Couple of other new bits up there too - the first of a series of album covers for Dubmission Records, my entry for the recent AOI/Serco River Thames illustration competition and some artwork for my latest mix, which you can listen to here:

http://www.mixcloud.com/kokerboom/africa-maximum-vol1/

Hellooooo. Few more tings for you to see.... been very busy lately, but mostly with music so some projects have been a bit delayed. Just completed another remix for the ever fabulous Belleruche, soon to be available via Tru Thoughts Records in some form or another. My EP is also (finally!) finished and is being mastered as we speak. Wooo! Here is the artwork for it, as well as the artwork and linkage for my latest mix, this time a sweet selection of the finest, classiest roots reggae from the 1970s. 'Ave a listen, it's nice. Also a test piece I did a while back for some packaging for the excellent United Design. They loved it but their client didn't go for it unfortunately.

Roots mix: http://www.mixcloud.com/kokerboom/roots-vintage-special/

The rest of my time at the moment is being taken up with a very exciting (and big!) commission producing artwork to go on the walls of some new office space here in Brighton. Also just about to start work on some new covers for Dubmission Records and some cider labels. Good times! And other than that, trying to stay up to date with promotion n wotnot, which is always a lot less appealing than drawing, unfortunately.....

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Consider it done either way. A crackingly-well kicked off new year, somewhat universally it seems - there's a lovely buzz of positivity, optimism, action and creavitity around at the moment - I hope you're feeling that too!

Anyway, had a great couple of weeks off over christmas so don't have much work to show, but here's a picture of the bandstand that's by my house you may want to have a look at. Also got some other work that I'm waiting for permission to show, and some more mix artwork that I ought to upload the actual mix for first really! Music-wise, been loving Antispin, Cornell Campbell (blown away by his The Gorgon Dubwise album!), Squid Inc, Corrosion of Conformity, Concept, another rather tasty Phase One Records compilation and especially Hedflux. HEDFLUX! He's got a new EP out and it's just amazing. Love it.

A few new things - Christmas card designs and prints.

I do like this time of year. Aside from my birthday there's been a month of glorious rugby (especially good this year - shock results a-go-go and every game I've seen has been brilliantly entertaining, England - Australia lingering particularly nicely in the memory), I've ice-skated in front of the Pavilion, and there's now a proper covering of snow everywhere. Lovely. It's also the time of Brighton's Christmas Open Houses, and much of my time has been taken up preparing for the New England House Open Studios, which I'm very happy to have been invited to join again this year. A little different to the houses, it's just open for two weekdays (9th &10th December) but there is much much more to be seen (and bought!). A huge amount of artists and makers, largely selling old stock, seconds and other bargains at supercheap bargainsome prices, it's probably the best place around to get interesting and unique christmas presents without breaking the bank. Check the flyer above (designed by my incredibly talented ceramicist friend Rowena Gilbert) for more info, or this link.

Aside from that most of my time has been spent preparing my EP, now a three-tracker and to be released through Wonkay some time this month.... watch this space for an official release date and links for downloading. I've also started doing some work for Goodone, a rather excellent ethical fashion label. Very nice to be doing some fashion illustration for a change as I've always fancied doing some, and hopefully this'll be an ongoing venture.

And speaking of fashion illustration, I've just been up to the design museum to see their excellent exhibitions: Drawing Fashion and Plain Space by the architect John Pawson. Both were very nicely presented, with lots to see and a good amount of information to read - never too much but plenty to digest. I've always been a big fan of John Pawson so it was great to see a fine range of excellent photos, samples of building materials and exquisite architectural models, alongside a massive table laid out with inspirations, notebooks and the like and next to it a 'bio wall' that was a (predominantly photographic) timeline of his life and his work. Drawing Fashion was exactly what the title suggests - 100 years of fashion drawing with over 150 images and the odd video. I was somewhat disappointed not to see the modern master of the artform, David Downton in there (the show favoured showing a a broad range of work from select individuals as opposed to a few works from a broad range of artists), but my discovery of Francois Berthoud made up for this. Well worth a visit.