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

To be cut adrift...

Every now and again I lose myself (not in a good way) and need something to bring me back into the solar system. Drawing nature usually sets me right so this sketchy little envelope woodpecker let me know I've still got something. And I really threw caution to the wind and got the red biro out...

Once I was in a position to re-enter the atmosphere of the ballpoint pen, I took this little tattoo request as well. It was to be inspired by The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen and needed to include a boat and a lyric. The rest was up to me.

I've always understood it as a song about death and our inexorable (and fast) journey towards it (did I say I was back in a good mood?) so we decided on the reaper in his boat. If he's got one. Has he? Since he's open to interpretation and not real and art is subjective I'm saying yes, he does. 

I liked the idea of repeating the moon so the scythe and boat both became crescents, which all fit neatly into the shape of the moon in the background. Neat doesn't come naturally to me but a plan came together on this occasion... 

Here's the original little sketch I did to throw the ideas out, for once I didn't deviate too far from the original but that's neither a good or a bad thing, just a fact. Apologies for the scrappy, ripped off Instagram pictures but the scanner is also orbiting it's own uninhabitable zone somewhere. I just wanted to talk about drawing for a bit... 

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. 

Hope you're happy too...

One from the archives...Since I'm drawing either very slowly or not at all at the moment I thought I'd share this little ballpoint drawing from a few years back. It was for a (now disbanded) local band that my brother drummed for called J.A.R.S (hence the jar) to promote an EP they made called (you guessed it) My Friend Hope. They were quite specific about what they wanted but luckily at the time I had a bit of a thing for drawing glass jars and bottles. I toyed with the idea of putting something in the jar, I can't remember now what sort of things passed through my thought clouds but in the end it seemed that the title suggested emptiness waiting to be filled so it was left as it was. The typography is a bit dodgy and the perspective isn't right but the lads were quite happy with it...it's all subjective isn't it? 

The keepers of our secrets...

Another little skull that kept pecking away at my own until I finally got round to drawing it. I love doing these strange little skeleton drawings every now and again. They aren't exactly what you'd call anatomically accurate but their tiny bones seem to exude personality more than flesh and feathers do. The intention was for the Blackbird to be contemplating his skeletal reflection but to me, the skeleton seems more taken aback by what it's seeing. Once I start these things, they really do take on a life of their own and the picture in my head is never quite the picture you see here, but think of that as an enhancement. I did have more ambitious plans for the design of the mirror but I really don't have the patience, I think you can have too much agonising detail in your life and smaller than life size bones in ballpoint pen is plenty for me, thanks. 

The dream again nobody understands...

This was intended as a sketch to plan out an idea, but I probably won't bother drawing it properly now, it kind of got on my nerves once I got started. I do quite like the neon exit sign though - I really thought I was on to something when I came up with that...

It was inspired by a recurring dream I started having about a year ago, although this image isn't so true to dream life..In the dream I'm in a building where every room looks identical and I can't find my way out. I come to a space where a Minotaur (of sorts) is standing behind a counter or service hatch and I tell him I can't find my way. He says nothing but points to a door and when I open it I'm outside. Then I wake up. My Minotaur isn't really like the one in the dream, whom I suspect may just be a bloke in a mask. The life of a skint artist, even my dreams are low budget. 

It comes back but it's never the same...

I've been having a really extreme bout of drawing block lately. I've got pictures in my head but I can't seem to send them down my arm and into a pen, the link appears to have been severed. There's a few different ways I usually respond to this depending on the level of meltdown. On this occasion, after starting and abandoning a couple of other things, I thought it best to just scribble it out, play with some textures and see what happened. So here we are...again.

As well as bones, extremes of light and dark have become a bit of a fascination of mine and trying to create illumination from a light source in ballpoint pen presents a nice way to scratch about in the shadows. I can't explain why my lightning bolts shine in different ways to each other and I can't explain why the sea is not as choppy as the weather suggests but it's nice to be back. 

The places you don't go...

This morning I came across some little black cards with nice crinkly edges. I don't know what they were originally for but they're for this now. In theory, I love drawing in white on black paper...in reality, it's a bit of a mare. Theory does not agree with experiment. Unforgiving is the word I'd choose for it. The main problem is that the pen people haven't really come up with a white pen yet that suits my purpose, to be honest I'm still awaiting the invention of the white biro. But it was a nice mental interlude from something else I'm working on at the moment that's taking a really long time. 

These dandelions are quite tiny, the cards are slightly bigger than a business card. I was going to add a third drawing of the seeds floating away but they weren't turning out so well. So I've left it at two because it was a doodle just to use the cards for something rather than throw them in the recycling box...Note to self: don't sweat the small stuff. 

Love without your heartbeat...

This is horribly unoriginal but after poring over the beautiful illustrations by Henry Vandyke Carter in Gray's Anatomy, I got the feeling that I wanted to draw a heart. Once I'd had a look at a few, (pictures that is, I've not branched out into amateur surgery) I tried to draw as much as I could from memory and imagination without checking the details, which is partly why my aorta is very similar to the way I'd draw twigs. I thought about inking it up but I couldn't find the red bottle and magenta wasn't going to cut the mustard so I've left it mono. It works well enough, I think. Do you know, I can't find an actual illustration of a full heart in Gray's book? Disappointing.
Anyway, look after your heart; eat fibre, don't smoke and if you must give it away, be sure it will be gratefully received. Happy Valentines.

I don't want to see what happens next...

I wasn't going to post this. It's sketchy, it's unrefined, it's vulnerable. This is how drawing feels. Like removing tiny but important parts of myself and flinging them into choppy waters. So it's more of a description in sketch form, explaining what happens on the inside in the only way I know how. It took a lot for me to start sharing this stuff, I used to leave the room when people looked at my drawings. Now I can't hold it all in! 

Like scattered black and whites...

A tiding of magpies. This is from quite a while ago but since it's leaving me to find a new home, I thought I'd share it. 

Just a little doodle really from a time when illustrating sayings from folklore was in my head along with drawing flocks of birds. I liked the idea of showing each individual differently despite them being part of a larger group. A sort of metaphor for humans which I'd love to claim was deliberate but has, in fact, just dawned on me as I write this. 

I'm not overly keen on the text, it seemed like a good idea at the time but I think it takes away the effect of perspective. Like many of my "projects" it was subconsciously abandoned after a couple of drawings (actually, I can't bring to mind any others so it could be just this one). I'm scattered, I have a new idea forming before the one I'm working on even gets onto paper. "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" Thanks Einstein, it obviously happens to the best of us.

The tranquility of solitude...

Another weird little creature that wouldn't leave me alone. It was just a matter of where to put her..so she ended up in an egg. I drew this really as a way of starting a new sketchbook. Most people who draw or write get intimidated from time to time by the dreaded blank page, especially the first page of a new sketchbook. I'm not usually big on sketchbooks, I give up as soon as a drawing isn't "perfect" and it becomes another place to jot down recipes and shopping lists, but this one has the purest, smooth, white paper (that's kind of a holy grail for me) so I dived in with this doodle. 

I thought about giving her furniture, a cup of tea perhaps, maybe a picture on her shell wall but as with this drawing, I quite like the emptiness. A cross section, slicing into someone's tranquil hideaway. As for what she's reading...who knows? Perhaps she's revisiting one of her old sketchbooks.

From my window to yours...

I can't say much about this really, it is what it is. A little festive ballpoint illustration to bring some joy (no irony in the voice or anything...) I'm not going to say I like it because I'm not so sure...it's colour again. In paradox to the real world version of me, the planet inside my head where the drawings live is a monochrome place. When I get the inks or the coloured biro's out, it's never quite the same. I think they lose something of the original idea and then it's too late. 

If you're interested, here it is before I coloured it (I feel much better now).

Anyway, I'd like to wish anyone who actually reads this stream of consciousness a very happy festive season. If Christmas isn't your bag, I hope you're able enjoy some peace anyway. A lot is going on in the world, good and bad. Everyone is trying to get somewhere and everyone has lost something precious. Think on. Merry Christmas. 

Where everything is possible and nothing is what it seems...

Focus your visuals...Look closer...Zoom in...Do you see it? I've always been intrigued by the sort of artwork and illustration that has hidden elements. Pictures within pictures and tiny details. They were always the illustrations I'd gaze at for hours as a child so I suppose they've worked their way to the surface. I'm quite pleased with how this has turned out, it went from one idea to the next and settled itself on a dragonfly with a body made from a variety of human skeleton parts. And I didn't even leave it neglected for months on end, this was done from start to finish over the weekend. I don't know why I keep torturing myself with drawing these tiny, delicate bones but I hope I'm getting better at it... 

Drawing crazy patterns on your sheets...

Remember when I said I thought about illustrating The Owl and the Pussycat? Well it turns out I made a start on it (must have been a slow day). I came across this in a half finished state last week and having not much to do that day either, I thought I might as well finish it off. I won't be continuing with this as a project, I'm not a massive cat lover and all those swirly patterns in the sea...I tried to keep the same sort of idea going as the original little illustration and, well, they just don't work do they? My favourite part of this is the owls little brother waving goodbye, he looks so excited. I don't think he really gets it (psst...they aren't coming back!)

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. 

Like drinking poison, like eating glass...

A bit ago I went through a phase of drawing glass jars and bottles. No, I'm not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours (thanks Lewis Carroll). This one was a request for an Alice in Wonderland inspired drawing and because that's another done to death theme, I really wanted to put my own stamp on it. So it got the Holly treatment and became Alice's "Drink Me" bottle, in biro as standard. If I was to go back and add to this I'd make the bottle look more like it had liquid in it but at the time, in my head, it was more of a whirlwind thing going on. I think I must have got my wires crossed between Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Also, because I didn't have a great deal of time, I had to keep it quite small so drawing the tiny objects and animals inside was pretty delicate work. For a bull in a china shop, that isn't easy. For me, it's even worse. 

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.

The shadow is cast...

Last night I saw an incredible video of the surface features of the Sun called Thermonuclear Art. I love the idea of that but since hydrogen fusion is a process that requires a fair bit of effort, I decided to get the pens out instead and leave the nuclear reactions to the hearts of stars. So here's a little drawing of the Sun's atmosphere (also known as the Solar Corona) visible to us during a total eclipse, a celestial event that I've been known to get a little bit animated over. To witness the shadow of the Moon covering the Sun from the perspective of the Earth is breathtaking. There's no denying we are on a spinning ball of rock when you experience that happening and we are in just the right place at just the right time. What a startling coincidence!
As a little extra (unintentional) feature, if you look at this image and blink your eyes really quickly it creates quite an interesting visual effect.