A searchable archive for licensing
The original version of this cartoon was drawn many years ago, before the start of the recent proliferation in solar panels.
Part of the joke is that sundials are very low-tech devices, whereas the device in the cartoon is very high-tech. Both use the sun as a way of telling the time.
The cartoon questions the need to make everything hi-tech, because the normal sundial works almost as well as the solar panel electronic clock in the cartoon (except when the sun’s not shining of course, but let’s not get pedantic).
There is a companion cartoon that goes with this one in which a traditional sundial is advertised as a ‘solar powered clock‘
A cartoon about alternative technology, garden ornaments.
A cartoon about creating a garden pond, novelty garden ponds, humorous garden ponds, uses for old garden tools and implements, unusual uses for wheelbarrows, novelty garden design.
Part of the humour of this cartoon is that the Loch Ness monster is composed of a series of humps that can be placed individually on the lawn, giving the impression that the creature is both above and below the lawn.
A cartoon about eccentric garden sculpture, humorous garden features, novelty garden ornaments, garden design, innovative garden sculptures.
As well as being a straightforward cartoon about garden design and the pitfalls of garden design, this cartoon is a metaphor for the way that people often can’t tell what they are doing wrong (even though it may be staring them in the face).
The model of the crane in the garden is meant to illustrate the fact that garden features and garden decorations need not be limited to concrete or resin copies of classical statues. The structure of the crane here is meant to suggest modern sculpture of constructivist sculpture to some extent, as well as simple garden frameworks and trellises for plants to climb on.
A cartoon about retirement, changes in lifestyle as people get older, leisure activity in old age, retirement activities, keeping busy in retirement.
Cartoon about health and safety in the garden
A warning sign on a garden gate similar to the type that are displayed on building sites and construction sites
The gardener is saying “The garden’s a dangerous place, what with its ponds and thorns – not to mention the power tools.”
Health and safety warning signs such as the one in the cartoon are, I assume, a defence against the current litigation culture. The fact that the signs are there proves that people have been warned of potential danger, thus placing responsibility for personal safety in the hands of the person who has been warned.
Cartoon about sustainable power generation, featuring an Escher type use of false perspective to make water flow up hill in a garden pond or ‘water feature’.
This is a recently redrawn version of a cartoon that I first drew about thirty years ago in the 1980s. It’s one of a series of cartoons that I drew at the time about sustainable technology – mostly employing absurdist ideas such as the impossible structure here that allows water to flow uphill (borrowed from the work of M C Escher). Other ideas in the series included perpetual motion machines and Heath Robinson devices.
A cartoon about sustainable energy, lawnmowers, garden ponds, garden water features, environmental gardening.
This is a cartoon about garden lawns, gardening in small gardens.
This is a joke about the cliche of the stereotype of the man and his shed – where the garden shed is a man’s ‘den’ or hideaway from his family, where he can do manly (though unthreatening) things.
Part of the joke is that you wonder why the garden shed would have a cellar, and what might be in it.
It is a cartoon about masculinity, male territory, territoriality, men’s interests, gender roles.
The joke in this cartoon centres on the fact that the man who is laying out the garden has no aesthetic appreciation of design or colour in the garden, and is basing his design on categorisation of the plants by name. This is his idea of creating order and control in the garden, and this is what he is happy with.
An important aspect of this cartoon is that the man is arranging his plants in alphabetical order – not in order based on species (which may be a method of planting that places order over aesthetics, but at least such a planting scheme has a rationality to it, whereas planting in alphabetical order is to some extent random and thus is an illusory form of rationale).
A cartoon about planting schemes, garden layout, garden design.
Part of the humour in the cartoon is that the man who is contemplating designing or planning a new garden is a stereotypical old age pensioner – a type of person who probably wouldn’t be interested in creating an aspirational garden design such as a designer garden. He’d normally prefer a traditional vegetable garden or allotment garden in which he could potter round rather than a high status garden that would (hopefully) impress his friends.
The cartoon is meant to imply that an ostentatious high status garden design is more vulgar than an ‘honest’ vegetable plot.
This is a cartoon about cultural types, social class, cultural stereotypes.
By having to pay in order to reach the front door the turnstile stops cold calling door-to-door salesmen, junk mail deliverers, leaflet deliverers, Jehovah’s witnesses and other unwelcome visitors. Only people who really want to visit the house will pay to enter the garden (and possibly get a refund when the front door is answered.
I think I may install one of these devises myself now that I think about it.
The gardener is saying “Its height is very impressive – but it stops us appreciating the amazing delicacy of its flowers”
The flowers are ones that you really need to be able to get close to.
She’s asking optimistically whether there’s room for another plant in the densely planted garden.
The electric cable of the mower is shorter than the length of the lawn, so the end of the lawn remains unmown
A humorous illustration about tidy gardens, untidy gardens, the end of the garden, grass cutting, power mowers, hover mowers.
A cartoon about gardening, garden design, patios, patio gardening, paving over the garden.
Drawn: July 2011
