Someone I follow online has been posting his daily moleskin doodles of monsters as metaphors and he inspired me to draw some of my own, there is nothing like expressing things to help you move on with your day =).
I looked at the sports pages (again) and I looked at Kirby and the infinite possibilities were wrested off my mind (for this occasion). Today's doodle is 20% better than yesterday's. I should doodle everyday.
I came to work this morning and wanted to see if flatter bolder colour might suit these drawings better, I am not one for too much dark. Obviously I suppose, different colours make a completely different image, but it never ceases to amaze me. There are an infinite number of variations, I could sit here all day just playing with the palette but I should get on with some more drawings (which I can then also colour!).
Used the inks again on a character I'm drawing, testing out different lines (and then got into colouring)!
Yes, also I painted this, a while back now probably October. I was literally painting without thoughts in order to do something expressive and apart from drawing which can get quite intense and confining. I always painted and always painted for myself. Drawing is different, its informative and specific, it's more delicate and disciplined (usually) and so painting is more freeing, I don't stop myself, I just do what I feel. I had no opinion about the painting except that it was fun to do. It was physically and mentally just fun, but I actually like it now, for that reason, a snapshot on a sunny afternoon or two. But what is most amusing to me is that of the few visitors I have had to my studio of late all have asked about this painting and so I am posting it here for you too.
A friend asked me to design him a logo for one of his restaurants in London. I was going to go with the cockroach and then the mexican in a hat, even tried a chilli in a hat but it really looked silly so I settled for the poncho and cactus combo instead. I am pretty sure they sell tacos, it's a mexican restaurant after all - I really should have gone by now. Hope he likes it anyway. I like the colours, reminds me of many a tequila vision I might have had. Its in Clapham if you are passing and hungry =).
Lots of people post doodles that are rather more professional than my best efforts, whereas these really are doodles - visual notes - nevertheless I am sharing them because I like them. They're interesting, they contain information. (Most lines do.) What struck me when drawing the muscular system is how the new DC costumes are using the body's natural lines to make the lycra-suited-bunch look all futuristic and technological. Anyway, it's amazing how helpful doing a bit of middle school biology can be for drawing realistic silhouettes and proportions.
Seeing as I am working on another project that I can't share regularly I am just going to post a few random things I have done over the past few months. Starting with this request for a feline portrait. Lotty she's called. You would believe the number of people who asked which way up its supposed to be. Yes. About three.
Why hello even numbers. How are you?
Very strangely for me I did not read a single novel all year last year. Any spare moment I read comics or graphic novels or about comics or I read twitter. So on New Years Eve I read a book. In one day, in two sittings. It was "The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes. It was ok, quite good. Compelling but nothing new or spectacular. Nicely written, but then I don't read anything that isn't. I am ordering some Tshirts for my friends who requested their own after seeing one on a mutual friend who wears his often, and some will be printed with different pictures (though most with the Merlin logo!). You can put in a request if you are quick. Been sketching. Not sure whether its good to still share my rough doodlings, but then I used to so why shouldn't I now? I don't mind... I have this blog for precisely that purpose. But this last year has really been about learning and what is going on inside. I feel like so much has changed but I can't tell if it is apparent to those looking on. But it was ever thus. (I did write about the end of capitalism as the 20th century knew it and the need for governments to spend thousands per capita on renewable energy not least to undermine the need for future resource wars and how the world isn't ending it's just changing and how that is good, but it sounded too ranty and earnest a a a and we can't have that now can we?) Also in 2012 I am drawing a book for TIME BOMB COMICS and I have been working hard on it already. Which is quite exciting! And now as a new year greeting here is an illustration by a remarkable Simon Fowler Cataract-Operation.com an analogue artist based in London whose work I stumbled across as one stumbles across anything in this mysterious life we all live. |
The ARTIST
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