TART AND HORSE

Today: finished off this horse-based illustration while watching two episodes of Game of Thrones (because people keep telling me it's good, so I thought I should get around to watching it), did a bit more folio shuffling around, and successfully made my first ever lemon tart (a trial run for taking to my sister's on Christmas day). All in all a reasonably productive day.

 

Hopefully I can get another couple of drawings done before the end of the week. Possibly.

MOUNTAIN PORTAL

pen + ink on cotton rag paper

23 x 50cm

MOUNTAIN PORTAL

 

Currently working on this, intended as a gift: a mountain-portal-window thing. Looks like today is going to filled with inking around tiny little circles of matter.

A PORTFOLIO-THING

It's taken a while to get around to doing, but I finally started putting together a portfolio-thing. I should probably finish putting that together, shouldn't I?

SELF

Side note: that dragon is there by accident - it's been lurking in my pile of Stuff I'm Working on and happened to be lying underneath at that time, although now I'm kind of thinking of somehow incorporating the act of drawing dragons...

MAPPING LEGBA

Only a few more drawings to go for this current book-thing. I think I finally managed to figure out how to tackle this particular character (based on Legba). He kind of evaded me for a little while. And here's my laptop being used as a lightbox for a bit of resizing, because I'm all technical like that.

LIGHTHOUSE

Here's a terrible iPod photo of a lighthouse I was working on this week.

24.8.13

pen + ink on cotton rag paper

18 x 56cm

 

And here's the finished piece, given to my sister and her husband on their wedding day (scanned in two parts, so please excuse the join). I asked her whether she wanted a toaster or a really ugly vase, and she said neither, so this is what they got instead. 

A SLIGHTLY VIOLENT BOOK COVER

 

And now for something slightly different. I was asked by a writer friend if I wanted to cobble together a cover for this black comedy novel thing he's working on, so here are a few sneak peeks at some options I've sent him so far. Computers and dogs and ink and blood spatters and what not. There may or may not be a spot of violence in the narrative.

WEDDING GIFT: IN PROGRESS

BUT ARE THEY MICROSCOPIC?

I've been thinking about dragons from a bird's-eye view, contained within circular boundaries. Maybe microscopic dragons, swimming or somehow suspended in some sort of (primordial?) solution in a dish under a microscope... Or dragons as vast, vast maps, embedded with contour lines [NOTE TO SELF: like Peripheral Inhabitants; dragons of knowledge collection?] or whose bodies are made of Universal Matter.

 

Whatever it's all about (other than a spot of procrastination), I started doodling these ones the other night.

WEDDING GIFT: MAPPINGS

The initial mappings of my sister's wedding gift. I think I want to start working on a slightly larger scale. It was quite liberating working on this piece, although that may have been due to the fact I got to draw many, many circles on this one. Did I ever mention I have a thing about drawing circles..?

11AM vs. 8PM

 

top: 11am sun, waiting for the bus to work

bottom: 8pm post-rain rising forest fog, after getting off the bus home

WOLF: REDONE

This one's getting a bit of a redo today. It was the ears, mostly. The ears were annoying me.

TENTACULAR UNDERWATER EYEBALLS

from the bridge, looking down

I don't know what this plant is, but it's sprouting up all along the river, in clusters that remind me ever so slightly of those strange little eyeball plants that grew out of the walls in Labyrinth (as seen in this scene).

CHEETAHS: I HEAR THEY RUN QUITE FAST

 

Stumbling around t'interwebs for videos of cheetahs in motion, I came across this video by Gregory Wilson:

 

Cheetahs on the Edge--Director's Cut from Gregory Wilson on Vimeo.

 

It's a little bit mesmerising, even if it does unnerve me slightly how the cheetah's head doesn't seem to move at all...

VERY NEARLY ALMOST

Just finished off the eighteenth illustration, which means I'm nearly almost halfway there. Next stop: cheetahs!

LET THERE BE PEACOCKS

To the left we have the original tiny (glass) peacock that somehow sneaked its way into an illustration, and to the right we have the one I said might happen here. Next on the list we have antique weaponry, striped tomatoes, and wolves (which completely explains why I've spent the past two days drawing baby dragons).

GATEKEEPER

Yesterday was one of those days where every line you draw is just...wrong. But I stayed sitting and drawing, determined to get my teeth into the next batch of drawings despite not feeling much hope for anything of use to emerge. It took pretty much all of my willpower not to just cave in and draw dragons (or bake cake) in a bid to pretend I was being 'productive'.

 

It resulted in this little dude. He's a gatekeeper - one of those fleeting characters in the book. He looks a little bit haughty and like he takes pride in his appearance. I might throw a peacock in the final drawing too, because ever since drawing a tiny one as a detail for chapter five I've been itching to sneak another one in there somewhere.

UNBLOCKING

Had a spot of drawing-block. Ended up working on another dragon. Eh.

THERE'S PEOPLE OUT THERE

We escaped to the city yesterday. It confused me a little bit because there were all these...people...around. More so than usual, and it isn't even festival time yet. Then I realised it was a Saturday, a day many people tend to have free from work or school, and that since I usually work weekends I'm more used to escaping to the city on quieter weekdays. It took me a while to realise this, because I'm clever like that. And then I still kept forgetting and wondering why the streets were so busy.

 

I also really, really want a copy of this book.

 

 I've only really managed to finish one drawing this week, thanks to the Easter holidays making work busier, so now I'm off to do a bit of drawing.

MONDAY SNEAK PEEK

 

Another sneak peek at an illustration in progress.

STUFF IN A BREAD BUN

 

Yesterday went from drawing a fairy crouching on a well, to drawing fast food. Nice little jump in subject matter right there. I have to admit I had to consult the Oracle (otherwise known as t'internet) because I am a vegetarian who grew up in a town lacking in a McDonald's and didn't really know what a McChicken Sandwich and a Big Mac actually looked like in detail, other than "stuff in a bread bun". Now I know.

 

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AND SHE SET IT ON THE WATER

pen + ink on endpaper

 

Here's the finished dragon piece I gave to my sister for her thirtieth birthday. In other news, I've completed four of the forty-odd or so drawings I'm working on for this next book commission. Still a little way to go then, eh?

LIKE A MINIATURE BOAT

My sister's thirtieth birthday is coming up. Looks like I'm giving her a tiny, palm-sized dragon who's quite fond of water.

AND ON WITH THE NEXT

I had an early morning text message telling me not to come into work since it'll no doubt be a very quiet day, considering it's snowing again and the world outside has turned back into Narnia. Hopefully this means I can get a fair bit of work done today, although I'm thinking blanket+tea+napping on the sofa in front of a film might happen first.

 

This is the central character of the next book I'm doing the drawings for. The last book is all finished (more on that soon), so now it's time to get on with the third.