My hols, volume 2!

I took a sketchbook: I even took it out of my bag and made mucky smudges on the pages! These are the ones I'm not very ashamed to show anyone...

Holiday snaps from Alicante and Valencia...

Top L then clockwise:
A detail from La Lonja, Valencia; a dolphin at the oceanografic; me!; the cite of arts & sciences, and finally, the castle at Alicante, looking over the city.

Fame at last.

Drawing gets on tv! Except that it is in a very toned-down innocuous form, and only exists to be ripped in half for a production of a Victorian comic novel.

Still, this is the nice version, before it got made gungy coloured. Because I was silly to think that they had colour in Victorian times. It was all brown and sepia wazzenit. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Our day out!

Mr G & I have been to the V&A, and I feel instantly more cultured and intelligent just by having been there.

Here are my artistick photos of the Volume installation in the courtyard. Brilliantly hypnotic, with some far-out sounds and the colours, man... I wonder if this is a scheme by the V & A to implant subliminal messages .... buy things from the shop..... give us all your moneeeeeey...... write to your MP about more generous subsidies for musseeeeeuuuumsssss .....

Gawd, it's been a while since I posted on here.

I've been drawing and painting away, but it just seems a bit of a slog at the moment. Not that the work isn't OK - I'm quite pleased with a lot of it and I'm having fun with Dr Martins Radiant Watercolour Inks. It's just that when wrestling with my Muse, the Muse seems to win most of the time.

Anyway, this is for a weekly drawing thing that is run on the AOI discussion board. The word was 'Artiste' and I kept trying to think of things and doing bad drawing and eventually got very frustrated and a bit cross and went for big squishy scribbly lines, which was just a bit of a steam blow-off, but strangely enjoyable.

Coincidentally, I'd done this the week before, which I could have used, but I wanted to make myself do something new. In my usual style, but quite pleasing to do.

I present to you The Amazing Wilf and Gladys.

Also, here's her face, closer up. I was quite happy how she came out, although the original Wilf was not very good, so I redrew him and comped him on the computer.

While house clearing (long, sad story not to be told here) my sister-in-law came across old magazines about the theatre, 'The Play Pictorial', bound into books. We think they're Edwardian, and they recount plots, praise actresses (all Miss somebody) and actors, and go into great detail about the costumes, stuffed with photographs, and all described in marvellously flowery language.

On a play called 'Passers By':
"Let me own up at once, and without circumlocution, that I was among the great majority of the audience who wept. Not a distressing weep, but just a gentle, pleasurable cry that makes us ejaculate to ourselves, or nearest neighbour, 'how nice.'

"Next to laughing heartily there is nothing for pure enjoyment which can beat the mellow moistening of the eye, when the sentiment catches your breath and the little rivulet of emotion produces the silent sob."

I don't know why there is a prevalent idea that the Victorians and Edwardians were completely stiff-necked - in my limited knowledge of the art and literature of these periods, there may be a stern moral code at work, but they're also just oozing with sentiment. Absolutely no shame attached to shedding a manly tear. Constantly weeping like leaky buckets, the lot of them. Have you read no Dickens, man?

Anyway, point is, I'm drawing using the pictures as reference, for position, costume, etc, and just because some of them are frankly pretty daft. Here is a somewhat rough pen & ink drawing of a serious- looking actress I drew from a photo. I think I may have shrunk her hat slightly: it made her head look the size of a tennis ball in the original pic.

A nice, self-imposed brief. Some friends are the proud owners of a brand new mark-1 baby, not even out of warranty yet.

I decided to do a card, and toyed with several options. I tried drawing a new baby from a picture, but it looked a bit creepy, frankly. I tried adding some (scanned in) gingham, to make it cuter but...

it still just looked a bit evil. I know just-born babies aren't always sugar-coated cute. There's something about the way they stare at you, very unfocussed, but at the same time very intense. I felt like this baby was going to open it's eyes and staaaarrrrre at you, making you feel a bit unsettled. I felt unsettled by it and I drew it.

Next attempt:
Bingo! Not my best ever drawing, but appealing without being too too sugary, and reasonably amusing. But not sickly yuksville.

I was thinking through ideas about growing something new, and came up with the seed packet. Also nice in-joke as the infant has a 'flower' name!