Remastered makes it sound like an old classic dredged up for a new wave of fans, well, not quite. This is in my portfolio (go compare) and someone saw it and asked to buy a print, so I went to find the high resolution version (because for the site its limited in file size as you probably know). However, some time between 2009 and 2011 when I regularly suffered mysterious but regular attacks of random computer malfunction, like the grey screen of death, spontaneous time capsule blankage, itunes hating me to death with darked out playlists, nonsense like that (lots of fun) - I lost ALL of my artwork that I had stored as well as photos and music and well, shit. It was like being robbed and amnesiac'd all at once. Whatever. I just move on but when someone wants to buy your work you say YES. So I had to make it all over again using the original drawings. Thankfully you can't actually destroy everything over the internet, and as it turns out the new version is much nicer than the old, because of all the little things I have learned in my practice since then. 

If you follow my blog you'll have seen the comic before, but if you fancy doing the dot-to-dot you can see the contents
of this week's Vert in detail here. Also, they are paying me now, which is both awesome and only fair. (Truth). I hear tiny cheers from my ant fans weeeeee. Ok so its a colony I have between two sheets of glass, they can still be happy for me. (Lies) AND our book's got an ISBN number now but more on THAT soon. It's all coming together like it should. Wee.

This is unrelated to yesterday's post but sometimes finding the answer is like a treasure hunt. 

Draweveryday53

draweveryday52

Continuing on from yesterday. Something about the first set here, reminded me of that cat launderette from a while back in the middle ages of 2010. Though looking at it now, it isn't quite how I thought it looked at the time, which just goes to show how perspective works.

draweveryday51

I have been looking at an artist called Jaques Tardi. Really like the mix of realistic backgrounds and more cartoony characters. I need to work on the latter, but thought I'd practice the former using my immediate environment. This is a polyptych - or my attempt at creating one, with a rough 360 degrees. It's a bit like a cartoon about an invisible ghost at the moment! Out of the five, these three are my favourites, anyway.

draweveryday #50

draweveryday no. 49  (for sweet boy)

Page six of six! See the whole mini comic. 

Part five of six! Lawrence is a dude. He allows me to really enjoy what I do. He gives me just enough so I am not wondering what he wants but a huge scope in terms of how and what and where and who! It is a fine art, believe. If you are enjoying this, you are going to love Longship. Hope you are.

Part four of six.

Part three of six (story by Lawrence Rider bearded Pharoah and part time Toad) Page One of two is complete! see it as a full page.

Part two of six. Anyone seen close encounters of the third kind?

The Pharoah ordered an 18 panel monument so that we could awe the competition into submission, I mean enter a competition and thereby raise our profile in anticipation of the great launch of our Longship. So I'll be working on this for the next few days and rather than deprive you of evidence of my labours, we decided to share it as I go. This is part one of six therefore, and if you haven't listened to the music by the Orb you should.

Mysterious object

Work inspired by Moebius, Matisse, Otomo and Kirby. I am really enjoying using a few of my favourite comic artists as a starting point. These are all people who I have gathered are masters of the form and so it is only fitting that I try to absorb and learn what I can. I am not a great one for costumed heroes, but if I can translate them into my own language so to speak, even just a little, I can get a sense for why they are so timeless. And it is true, the characters themselves have life, independent of the artist. Its kind of amazing. Its a little bit of reflected glory (I can see how you might get used to it!). Even just using the palette seems to bring them that incredible presence (batman is blue black and purple, superman in red yellow and blue, though CLEARLY better with PANTS ON).

These images between them reference the lines or work of Mobius, Barks, Stotoke, Otomo and Kusama. (Day or two late. Took me a while to track down the name of the Spider-nam artist, apologies). That is my eye in the rock face, a collage using acetone printing, paper and wire, I made back in 2008. The bamboo forest is in Kyoto and I love the style of 50's signage in Memphis! The automatic letters there is nice because while I choose the images I want to play with the process of building the collage of images is pretty automatic for me, I love doing it, always did. Its practicing a different aspect of image making from drafting or sketching, its more about the exploring the idiom, swapping around structures and ideas to create new ones - overall its about the composition. I also like the oxymoron(ic) effect, of contrasting images and styles. Its like holding several different thoughts in your mind at once (which is closer to the experience of living than the linear structure of pure story telling).

Zoom (repeat). Abe and Article Nine is quite an interesting subject. 

In continuation of yesterday, what the records show. My starting point, re-analysed and layered, expanded upon with todays drawing - some text, were some collages from 2008 and a drawing from 1997 somehow making more sense now than they did at the time. Made me think of time warps, the flow of things, images, places, doors and texts; contrasted with the cold subject of data, theft, politicking and brinkmanship.

Above are details for closer inspection, but you can read the 2 page comic by clicking on the pages below.

Today I drew (yay). This was made referencing some of my collection of various pictures I've cut out from newspapers, fliers or magazines over the years. Some are collages I made years ago, like the man in panel one. Anyway, after yesterday's experiment I wanted to see about making a more coherent narrative, but still using images in a relatively abstract way. If you're into art history I have referenced Klimt, Van Gogh, Herge and Bosch!

Technically I didn't really do any drawing today. Last night I was searching for an old sketch book to check the actual location of the building (with pagodas) in yesterday's sketch. Anyway eventually I found the rest of my sketchbooks from 1997-2004. They stop there, when I seem to have stopped sketching for a few years while my job took most of my energy (boo).  Basically it was interesting looking back at my drawing then, it varied a great deal in quality and spanned from abstract to life much as it does now. My recent sketchbooks 2007 onwards are less experimental, as I tended to draw people on the tube, or be working on projects specifically (most of which I have shared online). These were the early days of doodles and self expression. Anyway, rather than keep them hidden I thought I'd pick out a few and put then into some panels and make a sort of accidental story. My favourite is the last one, silver and gold.