Original Art & Photography

Enjoy 170 pages of Christmas colouring, paper crafts, models, cards and educational activities, including a Parents’ Christmas Survival Guide. Created by Charlie Poole in Derbyshire, building on the original Timesavers Christmas File first published in 1989.

Browse the preview pictures below to see what’s inside.

Available through our Etsy shop as five downloadable PDF files to print at home. No physical book, printed pages or finished models are supplied.

Celebrate Christmas with Charlie Poole’s festive collection, created here in Derbyshire. Discover our 170-page Christmas Activity & Colouring Book, packed with crafts, colouring and educational activities, alongside our Bedlington Terrier Christmas cards.

The activity book is supplied as five downloadable PDF files to print at home. The Bedlington Christmas cards are printed cards delivered by post. Both are available through our Etsy shop.

A collection of original motorcycle art and photography celebrating classic machines, racing heritage and the freedom of life on two wheels. The collection includes detailed illustrations, restored archive photographs and creative photographic compositions, bringing together historic motorcycles, memorable riders and stories from across the decades.

Beatles photography and guitar art come together in this collection of original archive photographs and music-inspired artwork. Featuring rare Beatles images from the 1960s, Rickenbacker guitar designs, musicians and live performance, the collection combines my lifelong love of music with photography, illustration, watercolour and digital art.

This project reveals how my original photography can develop along two different creative paths: into a traditional hand-painted watercolour and into a series of digitally composed photographic artworks.

I began with two photographs I took of a 1965 Mini Cooper S. After selecting the strongest angle, I made a rough crop and then carefully removed the entire original background by hand in Photoshop. A temporary red background helped me inspect the edges and spot any areas I had missed.

Using the prepared photograph as my reference, I created a light pencil outline with my Copykake projector and painted the Mini by hand. The six stages shown here are scans of the same watercolour as it gradually develops from its first faint outline to the completed painting.

The original cut-out photograph also became the starting point for several completely different compositions. Using Photoshop and Corel Painter, I combined it with a 1960s Mini brochure, a clean period-style design, my photograph of weathered buildings at Portsmouth Dockyard, and a colourful layered background created with Painter’s painting tools.

Every finished image began with my own photography and my own creative work. No AI was used.

The Great British Escapade Collection celebrates Britain's remarkable heritage of motoring, aviation, railways, sport, travel and eccentric adventure, giving the classic Art Deco poster a playful contemporary twist.

Cars leap, aircraft swoop, trains charge forward and occasionally the subjects simply refuse to stay politely inside the artwork.

Each poster combines vintage-inspired Art Deco styling with a touch of British humour to create something distinctive, nostalgic and just a little unexpected.

Every artwork is individually researched and developed using genuine original photographic reference material, with the collection inspired by real-life experiences. Using CorelDRAW®, Corel Painter® and Adobe Photoshop®, each image is carefully refined to combine period-inspired design, recognisable detail and contemporary digital craftsmanship.

The result is a collection celebrating British engineering, adventure and eccentricity — together with the unmistakable British ability not to take any of it too seriously.

Inspired by the classic railway and airline travel posters of the early twentieth century, this collection brings together destinations from around the world in a distinctive Art Deco-inspired style.

Every artwork is individually researched and developed using photographic reference material. Many of the designs are inspired by places Helen and I have visited ourselves, drawing on my own photographs, memories and first-hand experience of the locations. Other destinations are developed through careful research and reference material.

Using professional digital illustration techniques with CorelDRAW®, Corel Painter® and Adobe Photoshop®, each image is carefully refined to capture the character, atmosphere and recognisable landmarks of its location.

The aim is not simply to reproduce a photograph. Individual elements may be interpreted, rearranged or combined to create a stronger composition while retaining the character of the place that inspired it.

The result is a collection combining genuine photographic reference, personal travel experience and contemporary digital craftsmanship with the colour, optimism and timeless appeal of the classic Art Deco travel poster.

My watercolour art begins with photography. Most works are based on photographs I have taken myself, with others drawn from my father’s photographic archive. I use these references to establish accurate scale and detail before creating the original painting, usually at A2 size on Bockingford watercolour paper.

The finished painting is then carefully photographed and brought into my digital studio, where the creative process continues using CorelDRAW, Corel PHOTO-PAINT and Photoshop. I may adjust colour, remove or add elements, combine separately painted subjects and backgrounds, or blend selected photographic details back into the watercolour.

The finished work is not always intended as a literal record of a moment or place. Trains, cars, aircraft, buildings and backgrounds may come from entirely different photographs. They are brought together to create the scene and story I wanted to portray.

My fascination with aviation began in childhood, when my father gave me photographs of aircraft, particularly Lancasters and Spitfires. Instead of buying balsa-wood aircraft kits, we began building our own from drawings, scaling the plans and constructing the airframes ourselves. Before long my bedroom ceiling was full of them — and I had developed a lifelong fascination with aircraft drawings, blueprints and aviation history.

That fascination has stayed with me throughout my life and continues in my aviation artwork today. My work combines original illustration, photography and digital techniques, with subjects ranging from pioneering aircraft and the golden age of flight to the iconic military aircraft of the Second World War.

A collection of original motoring artwork and photography celebrating classic, historic and distinctive cars. From detailed illustration and watercolour to original photography, the collection reflects a lifelong interest in automotive design, engineering and motoring heritage.