I’ve finally had a chance to do some drawing following my day as zookeeper for a day at Whipsnade Zoo a month ago. This is the starting point for my show ‘Compendium’, at The Old Sweet Shop in October. Now I need to develop the drawings into ideas about games and playing.

I spent the afternoon sketching at the Grant Museum of Zoology, part of University College London. It’s an amazing collection of zoological specimens and other oddities, such as the mid-18th century Blaschka glass specimens - beautifully detailed life size models of snails, slugs, jellyfish and squid. Other favourite items included a disembodied chimpanzee hand, a jar of moles (rather like a jar of sweets but more macabre, with little pink paws instead of wrappers), and a large model of an elephant’s heart.

I’ve been drawing frogs, swimming pigeons and a portly superhero in my sketchbook.

A page from my sketchbook…Jill brought me a new year present of a bag of doll limbs she found strewn all over the road. I’ll definitely make them into something one day.

I saw lots of exciting and inspiring wildlife in Australia, from the embryonic Portuguese men o’war that look like inflatable blue slugs to some very very cute koalas including one that sat at the very top of a thin tree just like a pinecone. But my favourite is the bowerbird at the Melbourne Museum - I am going to write a new story about bowerbirds and their love of blue things. The cheeky runaway koala was at Sydney Wildlife Centre.

Here are a few sketchbook images that I showed to children at Wimbledon Chase and Cricket Green schools to introduce the School Arts Partnership project.

Preparatory sketches for a painting of the Wandle Creek Delta

Study in acrylic of the Penthouse Restaurant at Daniel’s Department Store

I sketched these lovely creatures at the zoo - they have very very long tufts on their ears.