John Shelley - Illustrator

Back from London late last night, a rail replacement bus from Ipswich to Norwich due to a fallen tree on power lines. It was a long haul. :(
#railproblems #transport #sketchbook

A wind turbine with wonky blades no less, and what's going on with the weirdly un-Scottish architecture?

Witnessing the odium spewing from the orange one on the other side of the Atlantic like....

Close-up of a terracotta horse on four wheels, a rider is sitting on its back.

Kids loved playing with toys in #Roman times too!

Some 1,800 years ago, a child in Cologne was buried with a terracotta horse with a rider on for wheels. It was definitely a beloved toy that the kid was also meant to play with in the afterlife.

📷 Römisch-Germanisches Museum Köln

🏺 #archaeology

Loved the interview with the eminent @elizabethalker.bsky.social on BBC 6music just now, though winced at the mis-pronounciation of Kankyō Ongaku. Otherwise, brilliant listen - catch up on BBC Sounds if you missed it :)

No more sexual abuse images of women and children: ban X and Grok AI X's AI chatbot Grok appears to be making sex abuse images of women and children - and Elon Musk thinks he can get away with letting it! I’m calling for a full ban on X here in the UK and you should to...

When are the BBC, UK government and other major media organisations going to quit Musk's mire and come over to Bluesky I wonder? 38d.gs/ban_x_df

I understand the pressures on the BBC, but Radio 4's coverage of the Minneapolis shooting is an example of "bad balance".

It's all "the Trump regime says she was a terrorist, but Democrats say it was murder".

The BBC has the footage. It doesn't have to treat truth and falsehood as equally valid.

One picture, describes it all.

あけましておめでとうございます！2026年があなたに力強さ、エネルギー、そして勢いをもたらしますように！A very Happy New Year to all my friends. Hoping this Year of the Horse will bring you strength, energy, and momentum! #謹賀新年 #NewYear2026 #謹賀新年2026

Bloody hell I made it! Another year! Whoeoeow!

I created the cover and lead feature illustration for the latest issue of 'The Author', the Journal of the @societyofauthors.bsky.social , A lovely early Christmas present!

#societyofauthors #kidlitUK #kidlitART

Christmas illustration of 6 herald angels forming the shape of a star-filled christmas tree in the night sky above a landscape.

Wishing all my friends a magical, angelic Christmas!
皆さんに素晴らしい天使の気持ちのクリスマスを祈ります！

#christmas #christmas2025 #クリスマス

Bring the magic of reading to children this Christmas​ A gift from you could mean a child finally has a book to call their own.​

BookTrust have launched their Christmas appeal #MagicOfBooks www.booktrust.org.uk/xmas to help raise money to send surprise festive parcels to children who are vulnerable or in care. www.booktrust.org.uk/support-us/b... @booktrust.org.uk #kidlit #kidlitUK

I've long felt this way about Instaspam. The crunch was after I ran a year of daily drawings, every single day. Naturally followers increased, all lovely people for sure, but no commissioning clients. I concluded it was all wishful thinking and flattery. Then along came AI to steal all our art.

Quote with your starry art ✨

From 'Yozora o Miage Yo' 「夜空をみあげよう」#picturebook (Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers, Tokyo) #福音館書店

#kidlitart #kidlitUK #illustration

Left to danger: Norfolk council inaction leads to flag-related violence As Norfolk refused to act on flag complaints, locals removing them instead found themselves threatened and violently attacked

One flag removed by the council. Hundreds left to residents. And now a man in his sixties has been beaten for taking one down. This is what inaction looks like.
eastangliabylines.co.uk/politics/loc...

Oops, I over-estimated! I counted them - currently precisely 212 records. About 20 are from my old lost Japan collection, returned by a friend last time I was in Tokyo. A few more are gifts from family members. The rest bought from dealers & other 2nd hand sources over the past 6 weeks.

Would also love to recover some of the early 90's Jungle/D&B I had in Japan, but prices for these - my goodness! I'll starve! I might have to start DJing again to pay for it all... though that's v. unlikely. So back to drawing pictures again - hobbies can be expensive in more ways than one!

Since I bought my new set-up I've been scouring 2nd hand sources, currently stands circa 250 - mostly familiar territory of '90's House / Techno / downtempo electronica. As it's just for my own home fun, hope to explore genres I didn't collect when I DJ'ed in Japan (Latin, rare groove, folk etc).

Indeed, I was surprised by a recent radio feature about promoting reading, and all the PB recommendations were 20thC veterans, it could have been a broadcast from the 1990's.

Back in the groove. I gave away or sold all my records & DJ equipment when I left Japan, but recently took the plunge again, currently rebuilding an all-vinyl collection. All analogue, no digital!

I had permanent residence for 20 years until an official at Narita wrongly cancelled it on a re-entry. Immigration admitted it was a mistake, but I never got it back.

Masaka! This is not the Japan I remember.

Pen and watercolour Illustration of a town at night with characterised smiling face moon looking over.

Moon Town, an old exhibition piece from Japan days. #illustration #townscape #kidlitUK #kidlitART

The illustrated cover of the 'loss and grief reading list' shows multiple rain clouds with a sun poking out from one of them. It is superimposed over a bookshelf.

Nov 17-23 is Bereaved Children's Awareness Week.

The Loss and Grief reading list is a curated selection of 24 titles that focus on the topic of bereavement. It is a guide to stories that empathise, comfort and hopefully connect with young readers.

childrensbooksireland.ie/our-recommen...

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Hi Bluesky friends! What's the best alternative to Google as a web browser? I'm really getting fed up of seeing 2 or 3 pages of sponsored ads appearing before proper results, plus all the unwarranted AI guesswork.

I'm chiefly an illustrator, a good part of my career was in Japan, where I lived for over 20 years. But recently I translated a Japanese folktale つるのおんがえし (Tsuru no Ongaeshi)) for an ESL app. It was an interesting challenge, the reading age is quite young so many subtle nuances and requirements.

Picked up a mint condition Technics SL1210 turntable at auction. Grief over my wife's death led me to abandon all my vinyl in Japan when I returned to the UK, it's 20 years since I've spinned discs. But now, maybe pick up the pieces again. All I need is another deck, a mixer, and some records!

I left Musk's miasma a year ago for exactly these reasons.