We’ll be tweeting, blogging, videoing, and photographing our way around the exhibitions, workshops, talks and live cartooning. Although I don’t have any cartoons in the exhibitions this year I have drawn the suitably magic and election themed cover for Foghorn (the PCO’s cartoon magazine), which will be on sale at the Festival, or by subscription here.

If you’re thinking of going along, there’s loads going on, so I’ve also put together a Google Map of the venues for Bloghorn (see below), along with a Google Calendar of what happens when, or you can download a PDF of the festival brochure or the S-MILE trail around Shrewsbury.

In other news – keep an eye on my blog for more updates, including my return trip to St Andrews Union Debating Society back in February, and the last Dr Sketchy’s in March.

View map full-screen

I arrived on Thursday night in order to start fresh and early on Friday morning, snapping and videoing the goings-on in the main square. A number of the posts were written (and videos edited) over the weekend, using laptops and the WiFi connection at a certain well-known coffee shop chain in the Square in Shrewsbury.

On Friday night there were a couple of gallery openings – an exhibition of Kate Charlesworth‘s marvellous work from New Scientist (of whom I’ve been a fan for many years), and a joint exhibition of Steve Bell‘s cartoons from the Guardian alongside submissions on this years theme of Science (to tie in with the 200th anniversary of the birth of local boy Charles Darwin).

Saturday’s weather forecast meant the appearance of the marquee to cover the Big Boards in the main Square, but this didn’t proved necessary in the end. Daytime events on Saturday included talks, workshops and cartoon clinics. Whilst Matt and Royston went off to cover some of the other events, I settled myself in at the Old Market Hall for talks by Bill Stott (on The Science and Philosophy of Serious Ranting – and very funny) and Steve Bell who, amongst other things, thanked me publicly for my eyebrows. You see, the thing is Steve was struggling with his caricature of Barack Obama, but it only clicked for him when he saw my rendering of him (here’s Steve’s before and after for an example) in Tribune. Saturday night closed with the usual bacchanalian shenanigans of the cartoonists’ and organisers’ dinner, of which the less said is probably better.

Sunday was a more sedate, with a chance to meet the cartoonists at the Bear Steps gallery, prior to a nap on the train back to Brum. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable festival this year – and certainly nice to see it from a visitors perspective (if no less tiring).We’ve been posting pics and vids from the show on thebloghorn.org all week, and there’s a bit more to come… in the meantime, here’s a selection of my pics (more here).

So, if you’re in the Shrewsbury area between the 23rd and 26th April I’ll be running round town, attending the various workshops, talks and exhibitions. I’ll be twittering and blogging as I go, not to mention videoing, sketching and photographing what I see. There’ll be full coverage over at thebloghorn.org over the weekend, and live commentary on Twitter (follow me at @alexhughes and Bloghorn at @bloghorn), and if I’m not completely blogged out by the end of it all there’ll be a round-up post some time the week after…

If you are going to be around, you may find this Google map that I put together for Bloghorn useful:

View large map

There’s been a bit of a dearth of new posts here recently, so I thought I’d add a quick round-up. Basically, I’ve been a bit all over the place recently…

In no particular order, I’ll start with the photo on the right, taken by Stuart Parker (aka @stuartparker) with his TTV camera setup at the recent Birmingham Twestival, a charity fundraising event organized around twitter.com, the microblogging site that’s been in the news a lot recently. I’ve been twittering away on there for over a year now, you can find me at @alexhughes. The event raised over £1500 for Charity:Water, who are a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

Then last week I was in St Andrews in Scotland (not the Blues ground) to take part in the University’s Union Debating Society‘s Parliamentary Debate, opposing the likes of former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell… more on this later in the week.

Back in January, I captained a team representing the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation for BBC2′s Eggheads quiz show. The episode hasn’t been broadcast yet, so I can’t reveal much at the moment (although there is a bit more here), but rest assured, as soon as I know when it’s going out, I’ll be blogging it!

Incidentally, it’s just occurred to me that I’ve not written much here about the PCO or The Bloghorn. The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation was formed to represent and raise the profile of UK professional cartoonists, and I’ve been Treasurer for a couple of years now. I’ve also been blogging for the recently re-launched Bloghorn, the blog of the PCO, alongside fellow cartoonists Matt Buck and Royston Robertson, where we’re writing about cartooning issues, news and events.

And finally, a bit of a heads up. Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival is back again (see previous years here) on the weekend of the 24-26 April (events diary), and although I’m not on the official list this year, myself, Matt and Royston will be covering the event for Bloghorn.

Line art done – just the colour tomorrow to go…

Well, it’s here again – Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival kicks off this weekend (21st – 23rd April). I’ll be there, and this year I’ve also got a few cartoons in an exhibition: Europe – The Big Idea is on at the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery (1st April – 1st May, and the exhibition is free Saturday and Sunday). I’ll also be drawing caricatures in the Square on Saturday 10:30 to 4pm, and there’s much more on elsewhere in town.

Oh, and for all you cartoonists who are going – it’s my birthday on Saturday as well…