iPhone4 pictures

Here are just a few of the photo's I have been snapping away at with my iPhone4:

Its non stop at a wedding and the only time I leave the easel is to go for a toilet break, then when I get back someone else has usually taken over at the easel...

One of the great aspects to my work is that I get to visit some interesting places for weddings, this is a converted railway shed that is next to the Rochford railway station, still in full use on the main line. The shed is now a venue for events and weddings...

One of the many drawings I did inside the railway shed that night....

More iPhone4 photos to come over the next few weeks, here on the blog!

Thank You

I want to say a big Thank You to everyone who reads and follows this blog on a regular basis.

I really do appreciate the fact that you take the time to click through and load the blog on your browser and spend your valuable time reading my ramblings and thoughts!

Soon my wife and I shall be back in the USA and I hope to be elected to the role of President of the ISCA, it means that I will have an exciting challenge in front of me, one that I am very excited about!

So thank you for following, I hope that the coming months will provide some very interesting posts for you to enjoy here on pencildreams.com

I always welcome any feedback and or comments, drop me an email at this new address infowithsteve@googlemail.com

Sunday thoughts

People often wonder how others become successful. I sometimes think about this. There is no great secret about success. It comes down to hard work and being prepared to take a few risks.

Do not fool yourself into thinking success can be replicated like a kitchen receipe. You may learn of ideas and business processes from successful people but you can't really copy them.

What you should do is look to see what habits successful people have that help them attain their success.

The management guru and author, Stephen Covey has two books on this subject, all about the 7 habits of successful people, the other book is called the 8th habit!

I would recommend these books if you are thinking how you can become more successful.

Simply ask yourself the question why certain people are successful, so why is Richard Branson successful? Is it that he attempts so many odd stunts or is it his way of managing the ethos of the Virgin companies?

Take some time and wiry downyour questions and answers, then go over them and look to see if anything pops out at you. What is it that you can do to help make yourself successful?

BBC appearance

I am very pleased to let you know about my recent filming with the BBC for a show they are running this fall!

The show is called 'The Slammer' and is a variety show that show cases acts under the theme that they have been locked up in prison for crimes against entertainment and they have to perform to secure the permission to be let back out into the free world to entertain once more!

The star of the show is Ted Robbins, who plays the Governor of the Slammer!

I took part and filmed for one of the editions of the shows next series, it starts next month and runs through to December and I can now let you know when I shall be appearing on the show:

19th November on CBBC at 4.30pm!

Click here to stop by the CBBC website

I get to draw a couple of children and I will let you watch the show to find out what happens!

It was great fun and I loved every minute of the day I spent with the cast and crew at Ealing Studio's!

I am always available for filming opportunities, so do get in touch if your in the television or film industry and need a caricaturist!

Inside the Shed

This weeks show all about Artstudio drawing app on the iPad:

iPad sketch & USA roads

I created a sketch on my iPad the other day of my friend Kamal, I only used my finger to draw this in the ArtStudio app and I am actually very happy with the result! Click on the mage to view full size:

Sketching and drawing on the iPad is so much fun!

There is a road in Clermont, west of Orlando that has a very cool name....

Click on the image to view larger and look at the street name hanging, you should see a very cool road name...

My wife and I were there a few weeks ago, visiting our very good friends, Ted & Marie, who live in Clermont. We have some other very good friends who also live in the town, it is a really loverly area and we love visiting there!

I must thank the local government of Clermont for naming a street after my name, it is very thoughtful of them!

Respect On the Road

I respect the road

AXA Respect On The Road

AXA Car Insurance



Sponsored Post
Driving around the country is something I do a lot of with my work and from both day time to night time driving, I have often seen a mixture of both good and bad driving habits. These driving habits take place on any road, from the motorway to the country lane and even in and around the busy town centres. At anytime you can experience some strange driving habits but even worse if the lack of respect that some drivers have towards their fellow road users, as well as pedestrians!
Sadly these bad driving habits leave a sour taste in your mouth and I wonder why people seem to be so lazy or rude with their driving habits?
Road Rage Kids is a video that shows an interesting tale on how bad driving and a lack of respect can effect our kids:

You can visit the YouTube video of the RoadRage Kids here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i8NUfl7tW4
We have heard how bad road rage can get, even leading to criminal abuse of another road user and in the extreme cases, one driver attacking the other with some terrible consequences. There would seem to be a lack of respect on the roads in Great Britain today.
Well there is now at last a campaign to bring respect to the roads again

AXA  Car Insurance have launched a website that is dedicated to raising awareness of respect on the road and it includes some really cool content, from latest news all about the subject, downloading the AXAdent  app, some fun stuff that will have you laughing out loud and the ability to post your thoughts and comments on the subject. All in all, a website that has some excellent content and information and that is very easy to use! You can even obtain a quote for your car insurance if you so wish.
There is also a CabCam where people in a London cab shared their thoughts on respect of the road:

You can visit the YouTube video of the CabCam here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvwM-NBeQS8
I am fully behind the idea of generating greater respect on our roads and I have the AXA website book marked in my browser and shall be stopping by on a regular basis! I think it is commendable that a company like AXA are behind this campaign.
You will even find the celebrity Charley Boorman, TV adventurer and travel writer of the Long Way Round, the show with Ewan McGregor  where they went out on motorcycles from London to New York with some detours. Charley is also fully behind the AXA Respect on the Road campaign and you will find him on the website, so be sure to check him out!
So make sure you stop by the AXA Respect on the Road website, click here to visit the site and take a look at everything there, you may just be surprised at how cool the site is!
Also stop by the facebook page and 'LIKE' to show your support for Respect On our Roads - Facebook fanpage: www.facebook.com/irespecttheroad
Together we can make a difference and bring Respect On the Road again!
Stop by the YouTube video for Respect On the Road: YouTube: www.youtube.com/respectontheroad
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Busch Gardens

While we were on vacation in Orlando, we had a day in Tampa visiting the Busch Gardens theme park. We really like it there as it has a great mix of thrill rides, animals and plenty to see and do!

When we are there we always have lunch at one particular restaurant, that is the Crown Colony House.

The setting of this restaurant is wonderful, it is on the top floor of the building and is very pretty and has great views out to where some of the animals are!

The food is can only be described as awesome! We LOVE the Clam Chowder and never miss a chance to order that with our meal.

On our visit there this time, I had the Clam Chowder to start with and for my entree, I had the Salmon:

I also had a very nice red wine with my meal and it was all very delicious!

Busch Gardens is a great theme park and if you go, you must visit the Crown Colony restaurant!

Above from left to right is my wife Wendy, yours truly, my daughter Louise, my son David, my nephew James, my brother in law Kevin, my sister in law Julie (just about see her!) and my niece Charlotte

We all had a fantastic lunch there which made the whole day that so much more special!

iPhone4 Apps

I wanted to share and review for you the iPhone4 and the Apps you can download onto the phone.

I have now had my iPhone4 for a week and I really like it. Reception with T-Mobile is good and I have not experienced any real problems or issues to receive or make calls with the phone. Occasionally when the signal strength appears to drop very low, I have noticed the iPhone4 goes into a searching mode and I have found it struggles to reconnect to the signal. The way around this to connect back to the signal reception, is to turn off the phone and then turn on again and it connects back once it starts up again. This is a little frustrating but not a real problem and at least I have a solution if I find the iPhone4 drops the connection for the phone.

The 3GS has been great I have been able to surf the web, download from the app store and also upload to facebook without any problems and it makes the iPhone4 very interactive to be able to do these things.

When I am at home the iPhone4 connects to my WiFi wireless and runs perfectly with that connection.

Apps are available from the Apple App store and you have a huge variety of both apps you can buy to download and also a huge choice of FREE apps to download at no cost at all, all you need is an iTunes account to do this.

So lets take a look at one of these apps, for Virgin Atlantic, you can see the app in the lower left hand side of my iPhone4 in this picture, click on it to view full size:

I travel on a regular basis and when I fly international, I use Virgin Atlantic. The app they have created allows you to check and follow in real time the status of their flights and it is very handy but also very cool, the graphics and look of the app is excellent:

You can see the opening shot of the app above

Once open it shows you the globe and the position of all the planes that they have, in real time. You can zoom in by pinching the screen and get a closer look at the planes, they have the Virgin flight number assigned to them so you can check on any particular flight that you may be interested in!

They also have 3 other choices from the app, a games page, a settings page and a menu page:

Above is the Settings page

 The menu page

The games page above.

The app works and runs fine with the use I have put it through and I really like it. It fits the Virgin brand like it should, it is different and fun and cutting edge for the type of app it is.

Best of all it is a FREE app!

The one problem have always mentioned with the iPhone4 has been battery life.

Well I can say that I have been using my phone like I would in a normal day to day situation and with some heavy usage with the app store and surfing the web, the battery has been fine and I have not seen a deterioration of the battery life that suggests it is weaker than my other samsung phone I have had for a number of years.

The iPhone4 battery life seems perfectly OK to me and is no different to the other phones I have had.

In summery I have to say the iPhone4 gets a big thumbs up from me and the Virgin Atlantic app is also a big success!

I shall be reviewing more apps as we go, so look out for more posts and YouTube videos from me on this, I will include the iPad as well!

Orlando 2010

While in Orlando the other week we had the pleasure of having dinner with our very close friends the Parham's!

Below is a photo from the restaurant, we had a wonderful meal and it was fantastic to catch up and spend some time together. Keelan, Barbie, Brady and Kaley are loverly people and we love them all dearly.

I can highly recommend the restaurant to anyone visiting Orlando, click here for their website and do make sure you stop by for a meal, you will love their food!

iPhone 4

I can access my blog with ease using my phone and keep you all updated almost in real time!

So I am typing this from the Fenlands in Cambridgeshire at a company family day event!

I hope to explore further how I can best do this!

Inside the shed

The latest show...

Copyright issue

Well it seem that my Meerkat art on my Zazzle store has caused a fuss and has infringed on copyright for the company who have the original compare the meerkat dot com marketing.

I have been informed by Zazzle that the products with my meerkat art are to be removed.

That's OK, I will have to work on so e new ones that are meerkat related but in no way emulate the compare the meerkat tv ads.

No problem, just means I have some work to do over the next few weeks!

I will keep you updated!

iPad today

Leo Laporte is a very well known computer and technological knowledge house who has been broadcasting about computing sine it all began, well almost, but his shows, which are now the famous TWIT podcast and videocasts have a large audience (I am one of thousands who listen/watch every week) and have proven to be excellent content related subjects that people want!

He now has the new iPad Today show all about the iPad of course and it is great to watch and discover stuff about the iPad!

I thought I would create a nice clean simple and fast caricature of Leo on my iPad using Artstudio, here is the result above, which I have emailed to Leo and have my fingers crossed he will like it!

I have also made a futuristic Sci Fi painting on the iPad, using Artstudio, titled 'OutPost' and here is the painting, hope you like it...

Please click on the images to view full size and let m know what you think!

Also please let me know if you have an iPad and what YOUR thoughts are about it!

iPad review

So I have had my iPad for a week or so and first off I have to say that I really do like it, in fact I love it!

A couple of years ago, I was tempted to buy a MacBook Pro so I had portability with my computer but price prevented me from that purchase and I also felt it would give me too much in terms of why I need a portable computer.

The iPad has met and exceeded my requirements for a portable computer and is a dream!

It is a fantastic tool for content consumption but with the app store and downloading apps that let you draw on the iPad, the iPad is also a content creation device as well!

So, browsing the web really is as Apple say, a wonderful experience and a pleasure to use, pages load up Very FAST and viewing a website is easy and fun.

Email works perfectly on the iPad although I have not discovered how I can Attach something to a message and I am not sure if you can? Please let me know if you can? Just to say that in the photos program you can send a pic via email and that works just fine, but as for creating a message in email and then attaching a pic from theorem I am not sure it can be done?

The battery also works as Apple claim and it does last all day depending on usage. I have not had to charge up the iPad every five minutes like you do with a mobile phone!

The App store is good but more apps need developing and of course that wiil happen even as we speak, so checking the app store on regular basis is a must!

So for what I need in terms of mobile computing, the iPad is a huge success in terms of au solution.

I really do feel that is is going to change how we interact with computing in the next five years or so. As more people get one, the more the function and abilities the iPad delivers shall create a new step change in computer hardware.

I can see the iPad as a hot Christmas list must have for so many people this December!

Even if your not sure about how you will use the iPad, once you have one at home you will soon fall in love with it!

I do not often go mad about computers and usually I like to be critical, but the iPad has got it right right first time and all credit it to Apple for creating this wonderful device!

I shall post some images here on this post later!

Better late than never..

Busy day catching up with emails and bookings after 2 weeks away.

The really good news is that I have ordered my iPhone4 today and it will be delivered tomorrow morning!

So I am a very lucky boy as not only do I have an iPad, I also will have a new iPhone!

It makes sense as I will be fully 'Mac' and all my devices will sync up nicely!

Hope to post tomorrow with pics of my iPad and iPhone!

Learn the iPad

I am currently using my iPad as much as I can and learning the in and out of it's functions. There are one or two small points that it needs, like when I type and I want to move back a space to correct something, you can only do this by putting your finger on the place where you want the cursor to be and that often is a fumble and you end up on the wrong place. With a standard keyboard you have move arrows that allow you to position the cursor exactly where you want it, but not it seems with the iPad keyboard. Now this is a small issue and I feel Apple may address this in the future but the iPad keyboard in general is excellent and I love it! It is ver interactive in that I am able to type faster with the iPad keyboard, much faster than I have ever typed with a standard keyboard!

I am still trying to work out how I can attach a picture from the photo gallery on the iPad to an email? There is no right click available or maybe I have not figured it out yet?

If you have te answer to any of this then please do let me know!

iPad drawings!

On the plane over last night I started to play with my iPad and draw using the sketchbook pro app I had purchased and downloaded.

It will take some getting used to but it really rocks!

Here is some simple sketches I did from memory, after visiting Sea World and the Penguin Encounter, which I loved!

These were drawn on my iPad using the Pogo sketch pen and sketchbook pro app, just the simple outline shapes of penguins and birds...

When it's over?

Well time to fly home from Orlando, my second home. We have had a fantastic vacation and had an absolutely wonderful time with our very close friends here. So its time to pack up and say goodbye but we shall be back in Orlando next year for two visits!

Next week I hope to have some video to share with, from the vacation and also a review of the restaurants we ate in!

Until then, have to run, have a plane to catch!

Learn from Disney

While I am enjoying a vacation in Orlando, I am also once again impressed by the way Disney run their their theme parks!

After visiting the parks of Disney, Universal and Busch Gardens, it is clear that Disney have the best business model and for me, demonstrate a better customer experience!

From the moment you enter a Disney park you just know that it has been designed to give you a superior experience and make you feel like you are a guest, even though you have paid for the privilege!

This leads onto the guests, as Disney call their visitors, to happily spend their money In the parks. From food to gifts, in Disney it is a positive experience.

We can learn from Disney and try to apply so e of this business model to our own businesses. It is known as the Disney Magic and it really works!

Marker pens

My good and close friends Keelan, Barbie and Ted, got me some Markette pens that I desperately needed, so a BIG thank you to them for helping me out!

But they have introduced me to the new Chartpak marker pen and I really like it! So when I get home next week, I shall be researching to see if I can buy them back in the UK!

A marker pen is my main tool to allow me to do my job!

It is hard to explain to a non artist how important it is when you find one that you love!

I shall be posting here my result of my search next week!

Check back to see how I get on.

Orlando vacation

Well we have been in Orlando a week now and we are having a really great vacation!

Last Friday we spent the day in Universal Studios where my close friend and brother, Kenny Durkin joined us, along with his two loverly kids, Cathy & Alex. It was a fun day and then for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, Kenny's wife, Andi joined us all with special guest Jett, Kenny & Andi's loverly new son!

Today we are off to Minneola to visit our close friends, Ted & Marie Tucker!

We may end up at the Tikki Bar for lunch and if we are lucky, Kenny may join us and our other close friend, Michael.

I really do love it here!

Normal Service will resume...

Hi, I have been very fortunate and purchased an iPad, which I am using to type this with! As I type I am in the Florida Mall, where the Apple store is located. The guy in the store was very very helpful and it was a pleasure to spend my money there!

I now have a wifi 64gb iPad, case and pogo sketch pen!

All for the same price as a 16 gb wifi iPad in the UK, how about that!

I will try to keep the posts updated for you.

Orlando is awesome and we are having a great vacation!

Inside the Shed

I have created a new youtube blog that will be the basis for my future youtube blogging activities!

It is called, wait you guessed it... Inside the Shed!

After converting my shed to my studio, I kind of liked calling the studio the shed!

So do stop by my youtube channel and subscribe to ensure you don't miss an episode!

Click here

YouTube video Fun!

In case you have not seen this yet, I posted this last week before we headed to Orlando:

Meerkat fans look here!

Do you love the meerkats? Then check out these cool greetings cards available on line....

Click here for the above Birthday Card

Click here for the above birthday card

Click here for the above birthday card

All cards are of the highest quality and they make for a fantastic and unique birthday to send to someone, order yours today!

A little sketch for fun

Completed in photoshop,a little digi sketch...

Orlando here we are!

We are in Orlando and today we may visit the Kennedy Space Center!

Back home my brother is working hard on the new kitchen!

Where ever you are, I hope you have a great day!

Fly away!

Yes today we shall be up in the air, flying our way to Orlando International Airport in Florida!

We have almost 2 weeks of vacation to relax, have fun, spend time with our family and my wife's sister's family, there will be 8 of us all together!

We shall be catching up with some very close friends while we are there too!