night-time

christmas steps

Card designs for Oxford University Arts and Humanities faculty. And a wishful sketch..

a wrap

After a final week's concerted marching i finished all the pictures for the Typesetter's Ark.. are you bored of them yet? Nevertheless, i'll post a couple. For satisfaction's sake.

the humbug

footmen sketches

One of a few pictures I made in a hurry to illustrate parts of the history of the Trojan war. I don't think I like this painting much. It's so very stiff. And Aegisthus' legs are definitely odd, I can't tell why. But there's something about Clytemnestra's face, a feeling I was trying to imagine and catch, that almost came right. And Cassandra's shade in the doorway is OK too. I think I have learned some lessons. Number one: never get cocky about watercolours.

Here's sketches of Ullyses' old nurse being surprised. Sadly she did not come out at all as nice in the eventual drawing...

tomatoman in...

Another workshop comic from the August re-run:

Moscow menagerie

I went to Russia! May I bore you with some photographs? I did think I was collecting lions - but it turns out any number of other creatures crept in. The cat is a rather fluffy and endearing Behemoth, drawn in the stairwell up to the flat where Bulgakov lived.

Apparently this scene is not one of decapitation as cure for toothache. They are characters from the Russian story of the little ball of dough, which pretty much matches the Gingerbread Man. Naughty baked goods get their come-uppance the world over i guess.

Of course there were other things to photograph around and about that city. I'll perhaps post them on Flickr when I have time. And of course there's plenty to tell - though I doubt I could do the place justice. Maybe when those elusive spare minutes occur I'll give it a go.

Comical

A few of the front covers of comics the kids made by the end of the week's workshops I ran at the end of July. Sorry the quality is rather poor.. Come Friday, they'd produced a good few truly epic and hilarious stories to surprise and no doubt delight their lucky reading public.

the ape gapes again!

Another version of the ox and ape spread. I liked the last one too, but maybe there's better movement to it this way.

three-corner hat

I was trying to knit a hat for baby Sam, but without a pattern. The first one came out rather tiny:

Just perfect for a little bear - it seems a shame to take it from him. Anyway I don't think it could have accommodated a baby for long, unless very scrawny. So i had another tangle with the wool.

Too big...

...or too small for bears this time.

But hopefully just right for the intended wearer!

take two: Technicolor

I found a way to get colour on the scene that might do nicely:

sam

I didn't make this one - he's my sister's work mainly. A bundle of nephew, ten times prettier than a newborn chick has any right to be :) Or does that count as auntly doting?

Well he looks quite near perfect to me anyhow ~*

on board the ark

first few attempts at the illustrations for a text by a friend. But how to colour them?! That's got me flummoxed at the moment.

P&G Wells

The inside of Wells Bookshop.. wonky perspective. Can't decide whether i like that.

righto...

Wonderworld Comics, courtesy of Mr Klasch.

Heidi asleep

I've made a painting for a friend who wanted a picture of Heidi's bed in the hayloft. So that meant I had to go back and read parts of the book again. As bedrooms go it does sound magic

As she lay on the large soft bed in the hay loft, with Heidi near her, she looked out through the round open window right into the middle of the shining clusters of stars...

trouble dressing

living statues

These are drawings from a book I just finished last week. It's very short, and has no words, and I can't tell whether the story makes sense or not... also some of the work is pretty scruffy thanks to my using soft coloured pencils without realising they smudge so easily. But as a first try with the crayons, I do like parts of it. the top two details especially. It's getting closer to a kind of drawing I'm chasing after at the moment.