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All sketches are by Vincent Cavanagh © 2026.
And to finish off this post is the original ballpoint sketch and rough, imagined colour guide for a beetle–inspired robot with a heavy dose of Osamu Tezuka–inspiration along with a general 1990s Japanese animation aesthetic. No real story behind this one. Just rumination about pentagonal–shaped beetles (like green June beetles for instance) and how an insect’s segmentation can benefit designing robots, amongst other passing thoughts. Vincent Cavanagh 8 October 2026 [Revised – 9 October 2026] *ALL COMMENTS CLOSED DUE TO SPAM*
Yes, it’s been a long time between posts. Not helped by a self-inflicted depressive mood caused in part by the marathon that was uploading the WYD Lisbon 3-Year Anniversary posts. Yeah, not likely to do that again. So, to break the drought here is a selection of some of the more recent sketches and doodles I’ve made in the past few months.  Some perspective work with a spaceship design. Would most likely be outfitted in orange paintwork. (Vincent Cavanagh © 2026)
Robotic (?) full-face mask, showing the progression from the first draft drawn on a stick-it-note to a more rendered look in the current sketchbook. Although I do prefer the look of the eye-goggles in the post-it-note version. (Vincent Cavanagh © 2026)
Another progression from stick-it-note to sketchbook exploration, this time with an android's head. Both of the sketchbook versions of these two character heads were done from memory and not with the original stick-it-notes in view. (Vincent Cavanagh © 2026)
 Another spaceship, this time in more of a retro science fiction–slash–Flash Gordon–style flavour. (Vincent Cavanagh © 2026)  Rough two-panel sketch of Socket-Head depicting different levels of social interaction dependant on the people he's interacting with. (Vincent Cavanagh © 2026)
Some later sketch developments upon the “Secret Captain Stranger Man” face-mask design. The first one (numbered 3) ended up looking more like a villain with a moustache than the intended hero look. I rectified those issues on the next full mask (numbered 6) by heeding the old dictum “less is more.” (Vincent Cavanagh © 2026)
Vincent Cavanagh 18 September 2026 *ALL COMMENTS CLOSED DUE TO SPAM*
Sketched 7 July 2026. Digitally coloured 8 July 2026.  ‘Socket-Head's new attitude (coloured)’ ~ Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 Out with the spandex and in with the cargo pants! I just haven’t been “clicking” with the ol’ purple leggings on Socket-Head of late when I’ve been sketching him, and then two nights ago it finally hit me: cargo pants (well, actually shorts). It finally provided an anchor to the bottom half of the disaster-prone electrician-slash-plumber’s design, as well as giving him a more plausible outfit. That of a dogsbody fix-it man forced to wear a company-slash-mascot headgear during callouts. Hence the unintentional ‘Daria’-esque demeanour plastered across Socket's face. And, yes, the “lore” (as it is) has moved on a bit since Socket’s first appearance.  ‘Socket-Head's new attitude (original sketch)’ ~ Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 I digitally colourised this ballpoint pen sketch from last night this afternoon. The colours where already filling my mind’s eye after I’d put down the pen. Also, I do know that the anatomy in this sketch is janky. It’s a sketch. Vincent Cavanagh 8 July 2026 *ALL COMMENTS CLOSED DUE TO SPAM*
 15 March 2026 sketchbook (detail) ~ Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 ■ What's Been HappeningWebsite-wise, there are now ‘next-post, last-post’ buttons at the bottom of each World Youth Day Lisbon blog post for ease of navigation through that series. It just took a lot of time, repetition, and wrangling with the Weebly website editor to get it done. Hooray!  Current versus possible future CavanaghArt logo mascots ~ Vincent Cavanagh © 2026. Art-wise, I did have a day spent doodling out ideas for Bishop Stumbers cartoons, which was a positive. Most of them were about what said bishop might get involved in on a WYD pilgrimage. We shall see if some of them might get developed beyond their initial ballpoint drafts. Rattling about my brain at the moment is a possibility of re-drawing the CavanaghArt bird logos to better reflect my current style of art. The original set of birdies are well and truly about a decade old at this point, in 2026, and I’m certainly not the same artist I was back then. Whether anything actually happens on this idea, or it just keep rattling around my head, is another matter. Also, after the suggestion of a friend, I have been down the rabbit hole of investigating what it would take to self-produce stickers from my art and my conclusion was that, for me, it would be far more effort than it was worth. The shear amount of equipment, testing of cutting depths, sticker paper stocks, lamination, and software quirks is, to my mind, on a par with near-professional, home coffee-brewing: metric scales, correct dosage of coffee beans, the right grind size, purified water, puck preparation, flow rate, etcetera. I already have enough furores of my own with trying to convince the home printer to print on the paper-card stock I want it to. The last thing I want is to increase the number of machines throwing hissy fits in my face because it’s the wrong phase of the moon when I’m at my wits end racing to print something off for a special occasion the following morning. I’m not ruling out that stickers might happen, just that doing-it-myself is not for me. On the personal front, after 2025, I’m still recovering from burnout. Though it’s not helpful when one continues to get sucked into the temporal blackholes of YouTube (the “new” smoking), be overwhelmed by dehumanising discourse around ‘Artificially Intelligent’ generation of images online, and catching oneself interrogating any creative idea for art that pops up with whether, or not, it passes cost-benefit analysis. Talk about being brain-rinsed into mechanistic thinking, oi vey! It’s all indicative of the fact that there’s been a distinct lack of humour in my life of late. All fret and no play makes for a crabby, frustrated artist. The sensible thing would be to just say, “stuff the lot of it (AI generation) and do it (Art) anyway!” without expectation for it to — ahem — “perform well.”  2026 Lunar New Year celebrations. (Photo: Vincent Cavanagh © 2026) Thankfully, there have been some diversions in the form of meeting up with WYD friends at a Lunar New Year’s celebration, birthday party invites, wandering around the odd bookshop or two, colouring projects for others, and the odd heritage train ride here and there. A main issue for me is a lack of motivation and sufficient reason for me to overcome lethargy and get outside, physically and mentally. ■ Seoul Issues South Korean flag waving on the evening of the WYD Lisbon Vigil. (Vincent Cavanagh © 2023) I know that one should “never say never”, but with where I’m at right now I don’t see myself going to Korea in 2027 for World Youth Day Seoul. Don’t get me wrong, I do have strong emotions towards the next WYD, and more so the friendships born of the last one, but that doesn’t out-weigh knowing first-hand what the shear toll a WYD pilgrimage can be on a person and how much it truly demands of them. Which isn’t anything I’m willing to put myself through again—especially if it’s not what God intends me to do. At the end of the day, it’s all in His hands, not mine. ■ 2026 Q1 Blog posts8 Jan 2026 – Year in Review: 2025. 18 Feb 2026 – First new bit of art that I have made in a long while. 27 Feb 2026 – Back to Loftus for the annual Tramway Festival. 3 Mar 2026 – Finally posting about the farewell V Set trip to Kiama last year. ■ Parting NotesOn a more positive note, I’ll leave you readers with this Part 2 video by Daniel Folta detailing his process of depicting the Nativity in oil paint. For myself, it is a calm and meditative experience watch him bring his painting to life. It’s not actually been a year, but it has certainly felt like it since I had made a new artwork. The drought broke on February 14th when I received a request from fellow creative and poet Alexandra Pierotti to draw my own version of a Christian meme that can often be found circulating on social media sites in one form or another for a personal project of her own. She has kindly given me permission to share this with you, for which I am truly grateful 🙏
I had three false starts, which would begin okay and then, after a point, I’d go and add too much detail that pushed it beyond legibility. All before my brain had time to react to what I was doing. Recalling a previous (unpublished) “doodle”, something finally clicked for me. What I needed to do was cartoon, not illustrate like it was going to be a submission to a scientific journal or something.
 The completed artwork. ~ Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 You can find Alexandra Pierotti’s poetry on her blog at Poetry For Wellmindedness. Her latest works of poetry can be found on Facebook.
Vincent Cavanagh 18 February 2026 Surrealism incoming! Illustrated 30 March 2024  Vincent Cavanagh, 2024 A spotlight on Bishop Stumbers’ short-lived career in stand-up comedy. Congratulations to anyone who “gets” the cameo appearances on the far side table ;) With apologies to Messrs Astley and Baker. Vincent Cavanagh 30 Mar 2024 / Holy Saturday Illustrated 1 January 2023
 'Pannier Tank and Diesel Shunter' Vincent Cavanagh © 2022 I have painted in a while, but I did thankfully do a small "just for fun" painting on Good Friday (15 April 2022). It's little scene, set in either the early hours of the morning or before dusk, containing a generic-looking Great Western Railway Pannier Tank engine opposite a British Railways Class 08 Diesel shunter that appears to be having bit of trouble starting up. Note the fireworks coming out the top of it. The basis for this picture was not Thomas the Tank Engine; rather it was because of two OO gauge locomotives that we own: a GWR Pannier and a BR Green 08.
For something different I used a "earth tone" palette of colours consisting mostly of Yellow Ochre, English Red and Sepia, with a bit of Ivory Black added here and there. God bless to you all and Happy Easter. He is Risen! Alleluia! ~ Vincent Cavanagh, 20 April 2022. For 2 reasons: 1) I've been preoccupied editing our June Holiday videos and; 2) I totally forgot about the website. Apologies. Okay so let's start with the artwork then; which requires us going back to May:  St Pope Paul VI. First off is this watercolour of Saint Pope Paul the Sixth that I did as a Memorial Card for a friend's Priestly Ordination at the end of May this year (2021).  Pentecost 2021. Then we skip back a week, or so, to Pentecost 2021 for this quick, unplanned sketchbook drawing. I'd been pulling my hair out earlier struggling to do something for Pentecost digitally and it wasn't working out, and then just before, say, 10 or 11 o'clock that night I made this with a black, blue and red ballpoint pens with text highlighters as well. You don't always need fancy stuff to make art.  St Charbel Makhlouf. And now come to the missing blog month of July with this watercolour of St Charbel Makhlouf, Maronite monk and priest, and a patron of Lebanon. At the moment I don't know if, or how long, this "pure watercolour" (ie, no ink outlines or such) style is going to stay. I think, on reflection, that it came about for 2 reasons: 1) during a conversation with a family friend whose eyesight is not what it once was, I realised that some of my more ink-heavy pictures (such as St Joseph and the infant Jesus) had no real clarity.  St Joseph and the infant Jesus (2020). I knew what I was looking at, but someone with bad eyesight couldn't untangle the mess of black ink from the sometimes equally dark watercolours; and 2) I'd been watching some watercolour demonstrations on Youtube (link here) and there was one where the instructor painted an picture of Santa Claus, for a Christmas Card, in with just Red, Yellow Ochre and, I think, Payne's Grey or Black. So that was an added impetus to change my style: I wanted to also try painting a face with just watercolour. And that is the condensed set of reasons why I painted Paul VI in watercolour (see above). Now as I mentioned earlier in this post, I've been, and I am still working, on editing and uploading our June Holiday to South Australia videos to Youtube. If you want to see where we went, I've put the first (in no way chronological) video at the bottom of this blog post. As of 12 July 2021, 12:49pm, there are 3 South Australia videos up on my Youtube channel (link here), with much more to come. So until next time (barring me forgetting again!) God bless and stay safe. |
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