My silhouette is stationary...

I was looking forward to a weekend of vegetation. The plan was to get home on Friday and turn into furniture until Monday morning. But I woke up yesterday fizzing with energy, I couldn't keep still and the intense, delicate drawing that's consumed my January so far was definitely not the place to channel it. I needed to chuck ink about with no consideration for the end product (or the upholstery). I've used this technique before and I'm not going to say it works marvellously or that I love it, but it satisfies a need every now and again. I paint the shadows with masking fluid; ink in the whites then remove the masking. So here's my favourite from the cutting room floor, an experimental spaceboy. I've added a bit of black and white pen here and there this morning because I just cant leave things alone. I'm throwing him out there, because you don't know what you've got till someone tells you...

Under a blue moon...

Last night was a blue moon, which despite a day of pretty grim weather, I managed to catch a glimpse of later in the evening. One thought led to another and before I know it, I'm making pictures of the moon again. This is a response to the previous drawing in a way, almost a dialogue with myself about day and night which is echoed in the technique. Here, I was removing lines rather than adding them, drawing out the image with masking fluid then peeling it away once the ink was added. Just a little experiment, but I like the immediacy of this style. Apart from waiting for the mask and ink to dry, producing this had a nice energy about it and some mesmerising patterns swirling in the ink and water. 

To me this feels like you're lying on the ground looking up through the branches, completely unintentional but that's the great thing about experimentation: the discovery of something unexpected. 

Masking fluid on application...spooky...

...and after it dried...

And check out the name of the ink! I'd never noticed that before...

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. 

Oh heaven knows we'll soon be dust....

I don't want to give too much away about this because it's not really my thing to share, I'm just the illustrator. So in the spirit of science and rational thinking, I'll just stick to the facts: This little skeleton ballerina is part of the dotty Moon drawing I did a few weeks ago. I had to put a bit of distance between me and that Moon, this happens quite a lot but it helps me to think about how to proceed. The end product is absolutely nothing like the original request. The idea was very specific and put me in mind of the art of Roger Dean, whose style is very surreal and sci-fi and one I would only be able to emulate poorly I think (plus, I don't paint, too much cleaning up). 

As I'm still at the stage of putting things out there quickly before I have chance to censor myself, I'm showing this bit off (because I like it) and I promise the full drawing will be coming soon to a screen near you... 

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.