I never try to find you...

I've been away. Physically, mentally, metaphorically...but I feel like I'm back now with the completion of this. Creativity comes with it's own set of Faustian terms and conditions. It drags you out to sea sometimes. Or leaves you on the shore when you wanted to get in the boat.

This is part one of two commissioned drawings and the only instruction for this one was to contain two skulls and have ravens involved somewhere. When I draw for other people I see it as a shared idea and what they had in mind when they asked for it is probably definitely very different to what I had in mind...but if you aren't specific, you get something from the recesses of my brain and this idea was already half formed, I was just waiting for the remnants to catch up. I like to weave a bit of a narrative, so it's anthropomorphic skeletons caught between life and death, with a floral vibe. I can't put it any simpler than that...

None of us can tell...

I'm not a witch or a hippy, I don't believe that quartz can save your soul (I don't believe in souls for that matter) nor do I think that Martians built the pyramids in thirty seconds, but the tiny illustrations on a tarot deck have enchanted me since childhood. I haven't a clue what they're meant to tell you about life (I'm guessing bugger all) I just enjoy looking at the pictures. I suppose The Hermit resonates with me (metaphorically of course), I'm no socialite, I spend hours by myself scribbling away at black skies and if I was small enough to put a shell on my head I probably would...I think that bit is optional advice in the fortune tent. If I had a quieter mind, I might be inclined to illustrate the full set but I'll say with some certainty...unlikely.  

The Hermit, 2017, ballpoint pen on paper

What's deceased and what's alive...

Everything you see here has come straight from my mind. The inaccuracies, the bad perspective, the anguish...yes, I claim them all! I think we've all felt like this; the thing we want more than anything, forever outside of our reach. I hope I've captured something of that feeling and also the physical sense of animate vs inanimate; here but not really; vital parts missing...I park my dark in these crosshatched shadows and laugh a lot in real life as a result. It keeps me on the straight and narrow (most of the time). Finding somewhere to keep your melancholy doesn't mean you have to hide it or hide from it. Throw it out there...it works. 

If I could have it back, I'd only waste it again...

I've spent a disproportionate amount of Earth hours doodling away at this and it still doesn't quite feel done...It's really hard to know when to stop. I miss a drawing when it's finished, it's a tiny bit of me gone forever. Then I forget it exists and start the next one. The circle of creative life.

This is my interpretation of the far side of the Moon, first seen by human eyeballs in 1968 by Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders. My name is not amongst those who've seen the dark side so I had to make do with the Apollo photo archives. But since I'm an energy conservationist (lazy), most of the cratering is from imagination. A bit of creative license goes a long way..all the way to the Moon in my case. 

PS - apologies for the weird text alignment, formatting is having none of it today. 

Spinning a yarn...

Some of the people that I know and love put the odd request in here and there (by odd I mean both infrequently and peculiar). This is one that kept me busy for a short time the other day. Since I quite like creating lettering, and in absence of the mental clarity required to upload anything else, I thought I'd share it. This swirly writing is starting to become my signature text, I'll have to keep an eye on that...
If you're struggling to guess what it might be, it's a gift tag for a "hand knitted emergency allotment hat" (hopefully the potential emergency is just unexpectedly inclement weather). And no, of course I didn't knit the hat, I've never even seen the hat! Biros are my weapon of choice, the pen is mightier than the knitting needle.

Carrying around an empty head...

Now, I'm not really the macabre type but when I came across the delicate, fragile treasure of a bird skull on the coast at Flookburgh I just had to bring it home. It's some kind of little wading bird, though there's so many that look identical to the untrained eye, I couldn't tell you what it is (any twitchers out there, answers on a postcard). I really didn't have any intention of drawing it but I never had any intention of drawing anything, I just don't know what else to do with my hands..

Once I started I got a bit carried away and drew it quite a lot of times, which is an incredibly rare occurrence for my non-existent attention span. These are my favourites, drawn in dots (which is a bit habit forming, consider that fair warning!) Some people refer to this technique as pointilism but strictly speaking, it's stippling, which sounds like a style of painting to me. Although it's pointilism that is actually a painting technique. Confused? Yeah, me too. I'm just going to call it drawing with millions of dots. Genius! Like magnified subatomic particles. Actually, nothing like that at all.

This one is my favourite, the underside. These drawings are quite a bit bigger than the real life skull, I can scarcely believe it once housed a miniature brain. 

Sail away for a year and a day...

Talking about Edward Lear the other day reminded me that I'd done this little biro illustration a while back. It was a wedding card for a friend, awww. At the time it crossed my mind to illustrate the whole poem but I think that's been done to death. Be yourself, everyone else is already taken (thanks Oscar Wilde). I do quite like these whimsical little drawings though (when I'm that side out) and there are one or two in my portfolio which may make an appearance here. People seem to enjoy them, they're what one might call a crowd pleaser. Roll up, roll up...

A Moon age daydream...

Tonight's moon is known as a Hunters Moon which is the full moon that comes after the Harvest Moon (and that's a lot of moons in one sentence..) It won't be quite as exciting as the supermoon total eclipse we got last month (if you didn't get up at 2am to catch that, what were you playing at?) which gave us a deep, burnt, blood-red moon that looked to me, as it neared totality, as though there were flames licking up the sides trying to catch it on fire. Just stunning! But it's drawings (not moon related digression) that we're here for, so without further ado...

Sticking with the white on black theme, here's something I've been working on this week. Our beautiful Moon drawn in millions of tiny white dots. This is actually part of a bigger drawing so more will be revealed. Stay tuned. Do not adjust your set. 

Before I change my mind...

Welcome. It's nice to have you here. I'm so glad you could come. I hope you like it...I think you will (thanks Willy Wonka). To avoid agonising over the perfect drawing to start with, I've decided to just go for it and keep it simple with this little Dor beetle. Leave 'em wanting more...