Peter Underhill's Blog

Merry Christmas Everybody!

2011-12-21T16:02:00.001-08:00

Pig on a Trampoline

2011-10-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

This is an idea I had, a series of images of a pig at the top of its bounce. I drew about a dozen poses, some more absurd than others, before arriving at just these three.
Before any porcinologists tell me, I know, pigs don't bend that way. Well, my argument is, a trampoline can be very persuasive.
The lack of eye contact is intentional because I want the viewer to remain disconnected with the pig. It's as if we've just turned a corner and happened upon her, gleefully bouncing away in her own little moment of joy. She'd never know if we simply, and quietly, back away and leave her to it.

This idea led to a concept for a children's picture book. Hopefully I'll get round to that one day.

Pig on a Trampoline - three pieces, each 408 x 231mm
Acrylic on 140lb Saunders HP Watercolour paper

For those that way inclined, here's a closer look at of one of them.

John Bradbury takes a nap

2011-09-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

John Bradbury. 297mm x 420mm Oil on board.

In April of this year, taking advantage of a gathering of classic car owners, I went in search of people to paint. It was getting late in the day and the spring sunshine had worked its magic on this gent. I took a few reference shots and here's the resulting painting.

John Bradbury is a retired Army Pilot from Tunstall, Stoke on Trent and a thoroughly nice bloke.

As with a lot of my work, I will often have a favourite portion which pleases me more than the rest. In this case, I'm particularly happy with John's earlobe and his shoes - especially his left one.

Mister Weston - detail.

This is about as tightly rendered as I like to paint for my own pleasure. To give you some idea of scale, the head on the original measures 42mm from crown to chin (that's an inch and five eights in old money).

A Good Stick

2011-08-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

What every boy needs - a good stick.
Approx A5 Pen & Ink and watercolour.

The long wait

2011-08-08T04:14:00.000-07:00

The painting 'Bere' I completed in December 2010 is almost dry. This might explain why so many artists in history died penniless. It was because their work wasn't dry until years after they were dead.

I know I could've accelerated the process with medium, but I wanted to know how long it would take without any artificial intervention. Too long!

Doodles before Bedtime

2011-06-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

Quite often, the last thing I'll do before I quit for the night is pick up a pencil and see what comes out. Invariably I'll draw faces. A loose line will suggest something, like a wisp of smoke, and I'll allow that shape to come together. Once I see a face emerge, I might set it a challenge, like convey an emotion or a word.
Sometimes I get involved and settle in for an enjoyable little scribble.

These two came to me before bed last night. Enthusiasm and Mild Disdain.

There's no psychoanalysis here. (maybe there is, but I just don't recognise it). Just doodles.

Some people drink cocoa.

Live by the sword, die by the sword, paint by the knife

2011-05-04T23:46:00.000-07:00

As an exercise, I reproduced 'Bere', a painting I finished on Boxing Day 2010.
This time I restricted myself to only working with palette knife and no blending. It meant the marks had to be more considered in both value and placement. This was done in acrylics because I didn't want the exercise to last a lifetime. The original oil painting I did around Christmas is still too wet to varnish.
Call me impatient!

Character Assassination

2011-03-10T04:38:00.000-08:00

Source Internet Development wanted a slimy sales character for their website to show the type of sales person to avoid. When you think about the many, many hours spent at lifedrawing classes, trying to achieve anatomical accuracy, the most expressive stuff is usually the least naturalistic, and the most fun.

Waiting for Leo

2011-02-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

One morning last spring I was in the Museum Quarter of Vienna waiting for the Leopold Museum to open. On a bench nearby, a splash of colour surrounded by dull stone, was a girl asleep. As soon as I saw her I knew I had to paint her. I took several photographs from different angles, moving around quietly as to not disturb her.
I have no idea who the girl is. I went into the gallery and didn't see her inside and she was gone when I came out. Maybe Leo arrived.

'Waiting for Leo'
Painted in oils on wooden panel 450mm x 660mm

What I did on my holidays

2011-01-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, check further down this blog, I attempted to pick up where three years at art school failed - I tried oil painting. I spent the two weeks of the Christmas holiday 2008 getting to grips with oils, mediums (media?), surfaces etc. Suffice to say I made a few mistakes. However the veil of mystery fell away from my eyes and the belief that everything oily was alchemy and guaranteed to confound me was gone. Last Christmas, I did a little exploratory painting too. So, this year, using the excuse that it was now a tradition, I flung myself into painting.
You might recall a project I mentioned a while ago where I simply had to paint an image I'd seen by the French photographer Virginie Dubois. I'd been working on the final piece a couple of times towards the end of last year. Well, I finally nailed it on Boxing Day.
I'm pleased with the result. This is the biggest oil painting I've ever undertaken - it could be argued that it's the first proper painting since everything before it started out as simple sketches or exercises.
I deliberately avoided any mediums and all paint was mixed straight from the tube with no oils or accelerators or chemical jiggery pokery. The paint is quite thick, so I expect it to take a good six months to a year to dry enough for me to varnish it. Until then, it's a devil to photograph. Here's my attempt to do just that.

'Bere' Approx 900mm x 600mm.

As soon as I'd put this piece to bed, I sped on with another and have managed to take it pretty close to completion before having to get on with regular work. I'll hopefully have that finished fairly soon and I'll show you when I'm done.

Annual Soap Box Derby

2010-09-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

I don't know if young people today would even know what a soap box is since soap these days comes in special pumpy bottles and I don't think it matters anyway since carts that are designed for rolling downhill probably don't incorporate soap boxes. They're more likely to be built using carbon fibre and kevlar with laser beams and genetically modified plastic.
Whatever. This year saw the first of what is hoped to be an Annual Soap Box Derby in the town where I live. Surprisingly it happened without being stomped on by Health and Safety maniacs in hi-vis vests and hard hats. Good luck to them.
Yesterday, to help out with next year's promotion, I did a little pic. I don't know if it'll be used, but it was fun to do.

Mono Oil Painting

2010-06-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I see an image that I feel compelled to paint. Such a moment came recently in the form of an image by French photographer Virginie Dubois. Apart from some illustrations from my days in advertising, I've never really painted in black and white, so it's going to be a departure for me. Virginie has kindly given her blessing for me to do my thing. So I immediately walloped out this small 200mm study in oils. I'm planning to do the final piece about 900mm, eventually.

Tiddles - Tobogganing Champion

2010-06-09T22:53:00.000-07:00

Non cat owners may not be familiar with the behaviour referred to as 'toboganning' where a cat will drag it's bum along the carpet. I've noticed only one of ours do it and never see her do it on concrete or dirt, so I assume it's flooring-dependent.
An alternative caption is 'Tiddles is so clever, he can even sign his name' but it's a bit wordy.

Exploring faces

2010-05-24T04:54:00.000-07:00

Given the option, I'd always opt to draw or paint a characterful face than one considered pretty or beautiful. There aren't enough interesting faces in the world and too many beautiful ones.
Admittedly, for me, capturing a likeness littered with landmarks and recogniseable idiosyncrasies is easier than capturing featureless beauty. Perhaps that's why I enjoy it.
As a little departure this weekend, I dug around in my heap of interesting faces and drew with the intention of pushing the features more toward caricature, yet keeping the values of my photographic reference. It was great fun, especially relaxing not having to strive for a likeness and simply drawing for the sake of enjoying the process.

This is Sian.
A5 size, pencil on plain copier paper.

Storyboarding etc.

2010-05-09T23:23:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to find time to work on my next book, 'Hamilton's Hiccups'. When I originally knocked the principles of the story together in note form, it felt fine, if not a little bit leggy. Since 'Hamilton' is going to be a picture book, it means the lengthy adventure I'd blocked out has to be brutally manipulated to fit the industry template of 32 pages told in approximately five hundred words.
Take out two pages for front and back cover, one for the title page, then there are the endpapers and legals. That leaves around a dozen or so spreads to introduce the character, set the scene, tell the story in a (hopefully) entertaining way, and wrap things up all nicely. It's a bit like starting with a freshly felled tree and hoping to shave it down to a nice tidy chopstick.
It pays not to get too emotional at this stage and apply the simple rule: If in doubt, cut it out.
So, that's what I've been doing - hacking, chopping, cutting and shaving the story - I've not even begun writing the text. Balancing words and pictures. I've made and obliterated seven or eight 32pp mockups so far, trying to pace the story within the parameters. At the moment, my tree is more approaching the shape of a baseball bat, but I'm getting there.

An Illustrator can be too versatile

2010-05-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

My portfolio stretches back over quite a few years and there are styles of illustration that, whilst they did the job at the time, don't represent how I'd approach them now. I need to cut out the dead wood and give a clear view of my current work. Anyone with too many styles and no distinct 'handwriting' will not spring to mind when a particular art editor is looking for an illustrator. If a job requires a 'Steadman' or a 'Grimwood' those artists will be called on to do their thing. I need to become a more clearly defined 'me' so commissioning editors etc. can see who I am.

Tiddles Art

2010-04-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

I finished three Tiddles pieces this morning. This is my favourite.
Without cats of our own, I'd never get that sound right.

A Litter Sketch

2010-04-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

I was putting some ideas together for my chums at Heritage Crafts yesterday and this kind of popped out. Not really appropriate for being turned into a cross stitch picture, but worth sharing.

Say Hello to my little friend

2010-04-08T14:56:00.000-07:00

In the future, when health and safety issues result in the banning of contact sports, robots are created to replace humans in the sporting arena. These robots are programmed to be brutally competitive and ruthless in their aims. Everything was going well, until one day, one of them found a gun...

Inked line, digitally coloured.

Character Development

2010-04-06T15:56:00.000-07:00

This is Millicent, she's far from innocent.
I tried this without the purple eye shadow (not on me, you understand - purple isn't my colour) but it made her face look washed out. Maybe she's just raided her mum's makeup collection.
I don't have a name for the mouse. What name would you give a 'moustronaut'?

I'm in!

2010-03-07T23:00:00.000-08:00

After moving my drawing board into the new studio and building some Ikea furniture, I've started working in there proper. Slowly arranging my space so it feels right.
I decided against installing my huge drawing board. At around 1500mm x 1000mm, it's a bit of a monster and I'm unlikely to do any art larger than my regular board, which is half the size.

If I need to produce anything bigger, there's plenty of space for an easel.

From lively pencil to colourful art

2010-02-27T01:46:00.000-08:00

I've not posted for a long time. My apologies. It's because I've been slaving away on designs I'm not allowed to show you. You probably thought I've been sitting on sunny riverbanks, dabbling my toes in the inviting waters while sunlight reflected from the ripples sends sparkling patterns across my face. This is England in February. Don't be daft!
Something I've been working on over the last few days is a series of illustrations for publication in the summer. One of the images provides an interesting comparison between the first scribble and the final piece.

I like the energy in this first pass. You can see how I was searching for the poses of the characters.

In the final piece, (well, almost final, it's not been approved by the client yet) while it might do the job required of it, I feel in converting it to vector artwork, it loses that lovely whooshy energy of the first sketch.

Even though the tiny pencil drawing is only 70mm wide, it's the one I'd rather hang on my wall. Maybe it's just me, but art produced via computer, no matter how incredible it is, will never have the same appeal to me as something produced by traditional means.

My Garden Studio Takes Shape

2010-01-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

Since the components for my self-assembly garden studio arrived in early December, the weather has been too grim, wet and cold to do any assembly. My brother in law and I grasped the opportunity for what seemed like a string of rainless days (OK, a couple of showers slipped under the radar). The important thing is the bulk of the assembly is done and I now have a box with a roof.

There's still quite a bit of work to do and I don't expect it to be ready for a few weeks but it sure is looking good. I'm really keen to get in and start painting.

Adobe Illustrator, for a change.

2009-12-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

The second part of this week was spent working on schematic diagrams for a new client, a sports equipment supplier. The idea is to show the layout and sequence of various pieces of apparatus and youngsters doing whatever activity is required for each piece. However, that could’ve been the pitfall. As soon as you start drawing children, you have all of the complications associated with covering all the bases – gender, race, hairstyle, fashion, disabilities, etc., etc. So, to prevent the whole project disappearing under tokenistic obstacles, I came up with a purple figure without gender or features. The ideal solution. Quite an adventure really, drawing something innocent instead of a cat doing bad things to a mouse, a hamster or a goldfish. It’s also nice to use the clean precision of Adobe Illustrator after so long using traditional artwork.

Still plenty left to make next week an adventure.

My food gives me the runs

2009-11-02T23:22:00.000-08:00

A suggestion by Jon Blackford of Heritage Crafts led to this image.
I've always enjoyed puns and wordplay, so the combination of words and pictures afforded me by the adventures of Tiddles allows me to have a little fun.

It's like something from 2001 a Space Oddyssey

2009-11-02T00:15:00.000-08:00

Like the black monolith in the film, but grey and lying down. Oh, and it's in my garden.
Taking off the timber shuttering from the concrete base for the new studio - I understand the term is 'to strike' - I'm impressed by the result. This doesn't mean a departure to my regular work. No monstrous pieces of concrete will be littering my portfolio, but it's good to do something I've never done before - and it come out OK.

The Garden Studio Project

2009-11-01T09:14:00.000-08:00

I confess, I'm no gardener, so the sympathetic clearing of the area at the back of my garage to accommodate the new studio was hard work, especially since Dawn pointed out several plants that needed saving. Here was I ready for a slash and burn session but thwarted by having to keep some plants alive.
Anyway, three weeks ago, all cleared, potted, transplanted and a layer of beautifully broken paving slabs as hard core, I laid the concrete with the assistance of my brother in law, Chris. I needed to have the base complete because the building, which arrives in sections, was due for delivery this week and the base needs to have hardened enough to take the build.
All went surprisingly well.
The next stage is to remove the timber 'shuttering' from the concrete. That'll be a tense moment.

The layer of hardcore ready for concrete.

Two weeks after laying, the base looking good.

Creative Hinckley Website

2009-10-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Creative Hinckley now has a proper grown-up website. http://www.creativehinckley.co.uk/
It's even got a picture of me somewhere in there using my jolly smiley face.

This is only the first phase of the website. The next step is to include individual showcases of all of our members, thus showing the breadth of creative talent pulsing and throbbing in this area.
It's going to be an exciting site. Come and visit us to see what we're up to.

The Worrier Done Good

2009-10-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

The little painting I put into the open exhibition at the Ten2 Gallery was voted by the visitors to the gallery into joint third place.
It's the first time I've put any of my personal art out for public consumption and to be voted on at all is a nice feeling.
I'll have to find a space to hang the little fella now. Bless 'im.

A Studio in the Garden

2009-10-05T23:23:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I've lamented the fact that I don't have enough room in my tiny studio to set up an easel or to have unfinished oil paintings hanging around for fear of smearing them as I move around. So, I've taken the bold step of having a studio in the garden. In a few weeks I'll be taking delivery of a wooden building to use as my studio. I'm going to keep any technology in the room where I am now, but move the majority of the messy and space-hungry art making operation into the garden. This will allow me to work closer to my wife Dawn as she works in her glass studio a few yards away. How romantic.
For several days I've been preparing the site with clearing plants and bushes, digging out soil and breaking up concrete for the foundation - all very physical.
Hopefully, it'll be operational by the end of the year - fingers crossed.

Studio Space Gathers Pace

2009-09-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

The conversion of the Victorian hosiery factory into a hub of throbbing creativity is gathering pace. The project, or at least the renovation of the building, is scheduled to be complete late spring or early summer 2010. The development of the creative community won't end there, it'll roll on like an unstoppable leviathan. Ooh, that sounds too much like a game trailer.
The interior of the building , decades of paint and factory crud, is being sandblasted away to leave a clean interior - a blank canvas if you like - to accept its new role.

Also this week, the website for Creative Hinckley was launched.
www.creativehinckley.co.uk
This is phase one. The second phase will have individual pages for members allowing them to show their work, talk about themselves, run their own blog and eventually to sell their work from the site. All very exciting stuff.

Next on the agenda is to get the branding going. We have a name for the building, so we need to work on an identity. More of that another time.

My Chum Don Coker

2009-07-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

Don Coker, a friend in Columbus, Georgia, after many years working in the newspaper business as caricaturist, illustrator, art director and designer, recently found himself out of work because of the global economic downturn. He now finds himself with time to develop a business as a freelance illustrator/fine artist. As part of the process, he's taken up something that I'd love to have the time for - he's going to paint a face a day - every day. Take a look at his blog at: http://www.doncokerart.com/blog/
He's already done some fantastic little paintings and each one is for sale - well, an artist has to eat, right?
I like sites that get updated regularly (yeah, OK, my isn't updated as regularly as I'd like but hey...)

Anyway, go and have a look at his stuff - often.
He's ridiculously talented and I really can't understand why the penny-pinching newspaper let him go.

By the way, that's not him in the picture.

A Private View

2009-07-28T00:39:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended a Private View at a little gallery where a piece of my work was accepted for inclusion in an open exhibition. I mentioned a while ago about how I'd never put anything of mine forward for an exhibition - it never really crossed my mind. So, for the first time, a painting of mine is on the wall in a gallery, for sale and everything. It'd be rude not to go along and see it 'working'. Clearly a very popular moment for many people. It was a bit of a squeeze.
Too many people in not enough space isn't the way to appreciate art. Still, my lovely wife Dawn and me hung around and eventually the crowd thinned and we could get a better look at everything.
My little painting, 'The Worrier' (I won't bore you with another photograph - see previous posts) resplendent in sumptuous gold frame looks just fine among the bigger kids in the playground. I'm proud of the little fella. If anyone just happens to be passing, feel free to call in and see 'The Worrier' here:
http://www.ten2gallery.co.uk/Ten_2_Gallery.asp
Everything in the exhibition is for sale and there are some excellent pieces.

A Wet Weekend

2009-07-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

I spent last weekend in Cornwall with a group from the TVR Car Club. I enjoy camping, so jumped at the opportunity to spend a few nights under canvas. It gave me the opportunity to spend a day with my good friend, artist Patrick Woodroffe. Patrick was a very busy illustrator when I was cutting my teeth as a designer and illustrator in the seventies and eighties. I always loved his work, so it was fantastic for me that we became friends. You can see some of his work here:http://www.patrickwoodroffe-world.com/index.htm

We spent the day catching up and walking around his home town of Falmouth. Lovely, lovely man.

Here also is a pic of some of the twenty or so cars that travelled down for the weekend. Mine's the dirty one in the foreground.

Bzzzzzz

2009-06-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

Working away on the computer today, I a tiny movement out of the corner of my eye.
On my windowsill I have several mugs with pens, pencils, brushes etc.
A tiny black parasitic wasp (I assume, I'm no entomologist) about 5mm long, carrying something bulky, disappeared into one of the caps I put over some of my steel nibs to protect them, and me from getting accidental tattoos.
I tapped the pen holder and the bug flew out of the open window. Curious I lifted the lid to expose the nib to find about a dozen stunned aphids stuffed into the hollow at the base of the crowquill sized nib - food, I assume for the wasp's babies.
Some of the aphids were black and bloated, so I guess they were the ones with the eggs already inside.
Now, I'm an easy going guy, but I can't tolerate wasps nesting inside my tools, so I tipped the stunned aphids out of the window and their inevitable doom.
Am I a bad person? I think I can live with myself.

Furry Feline Fun

2009-06-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

Even though I feel I'm racing ahead of a tidal wave of work and conflicting deadlines, I still like to squeeze in a quickie if I can. My chums at Heritage Crafts wanted to extend their range of feline embroidery designs, so on Father's Day last Sunday, I whacked out this shape in pencil and coloured it up in Photoshop over the next couple of days, snatching time between surges of other work. I would one day consider a more complex version of it and probably introduce a few more cats, perhaps in pen and ink. This version is deliberately quite basic because the image is always further simplified to be able to reproduce it in cross stitch.

Frustration

2009-06-21T14:30:00.001-07:00

Just because you have a key, doesn't mean you get the treasure.

Fat Chunk 2 - Zombies Now Available

2009-06-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

I'm one of the sixty or so artists contributing to the Fat Chunk comic anthology.
This, the second issue, has a zombie theme and one of its many pages has a piece by little me.
Apparently it's now available from comic stores and assorted outlets that peddle comic type stuff.
It's good to be involved with something like this that is so different from my regular work.
It's always good to wander off the regular path to smell the flowers.
Anyway, if you want to sample the delightful combination of zombie and comic - and can live with something that only has one page of me in it*, go and grab yourself a copy of Fat Chunk 2.
Go on, it's only little, I'm sure you can find space for it.

*I don't want anyone coming to me and complaining that they dashed out and bought it on the strength of wading through tons of my work - I contributed one page, that's all, but there's lots more pages of icky gooey zombification from heaps of talented artists from all over this lovely little planet of ours.

Something to worry about

2009-06-07T00:15:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, during my first foray into using oils proper, I did a thing called 'The Worrier'.
Looking at it again, I realised that the subject hasn't got anything to worry about, so I added a few shadowy figures in the background and I'm pleased with the effect. The characters can represent anything the viewer wants - I won't make any suggestions. I think it's down to the individual to decide.
Here's an updated version.
In support of my local art materials supplier, I'm considering putting this tiny six and a quarter inch square painting forward for their summer exhibition. The problem is, the paperwork asks for a selling price. I'm terrible at putting a price tag on my work, so any suggestions are welcome.

Time Flies

2009-06-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

Time flies - that sounds like an insect that I need to incorporate in a story or something.
Over the last few weeks I've been swamped by requests to produce some good old-fashioned graphic design work on the Mac. Having been working mainly in illustration and writing for the last seven years, it's been quite refreshing to do the kind of work I carried out for over twenty years. Meeting deadlines and delivering stuff on time has meant I've not had chance to work on any of my own projects.

One interesting development in recent weeks - my book 'The Boy with an Axe in His Head' has finally found its way into Waterstone's stores. Due to an administration hiccup, they were prevented from placing orders for the book.
All sorted now and the orders are coming in weekly.

Crikey

2009-05-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

May already!
We had a meeting recently about the building that is being converted into a centre for creative excellence. The work is progressing well. The building is being made weatherproof so the interior work can begin in ernest - good old Ernest. At the meeting we were specifying details like how many electrical outlets to go in the workshops and where the radiators should go in the gallery space. All very exciting.
The project has also been cut. It looks like the handover will be late spring, early summer 2010, so it's full steam ahead.

I did some schematic diagrams in Google Sketchup to help the members of Creative Hinckley understand what's going where in the huge space. All the colours overlap, but this might give you some insight into the scale of the project.

Mary had a zombie

2009-04-03T01:28:00.000-07:00

When my pal Jamie Smart asked if I'd like to contribute to the comic anthology Fat Chunk, I thought it an ideal opportunity to air an idea I had. A zombie version of the poem Mary had a little lamb.
It was this idea that led to the 'My Little Zombie' project I have in development, but this was a chance to share the idea in its essence.
I'll keep you posted of when the anthology is published. Meanwhile, here's Mary.

Feline Foibles

2009-03-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

Our cats Tom and Poppy often bring us presents. I wonder how they decide which portion to eat for themselves and which to give to us.
Another thought I had - if cats rather than humans had evolved to be the the primary species, would they do something about their washing habits? Ewwwww!

Bumper Sticker Tiddles

2009-03-04T07:50:00.000-08:00

A more compact approach - well, it saves me having to draw all those toes.

Covering all angles

2009-03-03T08:54:00.000-08:00

Using Super Sculpey I blocked out a maquette of Tiddles' head for when I need to draw him from anything other than full face. The first attempt looked fine from the front, but the profile looked like he'd had an argument with a wall, and lost.
Since I'm only using this as a rough guide, I'm not going to get hung up on the detail, but it has to be worth a coat of paint, surely.

Identitiddles

2009-03-03T05:47:00.000-08:00

If I'm going to bundle Tiddles up and present him to people, he should have a logo.
I tried a few images of cat flaps, paws and shredded fabric, but in the end, settled for this.

A Tiddle in public

2009-02-20T14:08:00.000-08:00

A client, Heritage Crafts, asked me to spend a day on their exhibition stand at a trade show this week. I've done 'live art' sessions before, but they are usually spent at an easel with pencils and acrylics. The images I wanted to work on at the show were extending the range of Tiddles images. Tiddles art is coloured with acrylic inks with linework in black rollerball executed on the level because of the flooding of ink washes I like to employ to avoid too flat colour.

The day went well with people stopping by to chat and to see the images take shape.
I was pleased to leave with a couple of pieces to add to the Tiddles collection.
I'm hoping to expand the range with a view to getting Tiddles on greetings cards etc., but to do that, I have to make the images 'event specific', like birthdays, anniversaries etc.
More things for my 'To do' list.

For me? Thumbnail

2009-02-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

Found it underneath some drawing board debris. Crikey, look at the size of that head!

For me?

2009-02-01T03:39:00.000-08:00

It was my friend, Gemma Wegner's birthday on 31st January, so I did her a bit of art to mark the occasion.
I had no idea what I was going to produce until I scribbled out a quick thumbnail sketch, which is now buried somewhere on my drawing board.
The finished piece was done in pencil and watercolour at A4, perhaps one day I might have another go at it in a different medium.

Alchemy!

2009-01-15T23:06:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, until a few weeks ago, I'd never seriously used oil paint. Way back in Art School you'd think would be the obvious opportunity, but no. For me, any painting or drawing was done in acrylics or gouache, pastels, chalks, pencil, ballpoint pen, but no oils.
I've travelled the varied road of a creative career and produced a huge range of images and for some reason I never got round to experiencing oil paints.
Maybe two years ago, I decided I should give them a try, because, lets face it, oils have been the medium of choice for some magnificent art. So, I researched - possibly a little too much. I bought a range of what I thought I'd need, but that was when the confusion set in.

So far, the only liquid/medium I'd added to my paint of the moment was water. Suddenly, here was such a bewildering array of oils, turpenoids, dryers, retarders and accelerators that it made my head spin. Alchemy! That's what it is. I was confused and confounded. Which is the right combination for me to use? I studied books on the subject and not one book agreed with another and each went into greater depths of how to triple filter this and distill that. I just wanted to make some coloured marks on a canvas or board to see what it was like!
That was the crux. In any other endeavor, I'd pretty much waded in to see what happened. I should just do the same with oils. I spoke to my good friend James Ryman, a seasoned user of oils and also took the advise of Rose Allinson, my local art materials 'pusher' and educator, and using a combination of linseed oil and turpentine or Liquin as a choice of mediums, I got down to it.
I decided to dedicate my Christmas break 2008 to sampling the process and, even though the results will never grace anyone's wall, I really enjoyed the process.
I had three images on the go using a different approach to each.
Interestingly, the one I found most enjoyable was the more loose, slightly impasto style furthest removed from what I'd consciously produce.
I'll definitely be doing more with oils, once the deadlines and pressure of paying bills backs off a little.

The Minnie Mouse image is from a photograph on Deviantart, the face of the politician is from a newspaper image and the worried guy is from one of my sketches.
I make no excuses for quality or style - here are the results.
Minnie - 6.5"x7.5"
Politician - 10"x8"
The Worrier - 6"x6"

Masque with a dash of colour

2008-11-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

Every time I looked at the angst-ridden mask wearer I wanted to add a little colour - so I did.
A little rough round the edges, but it'll do for now.

Interpret this

2008-11-24T23:20:00.000-08:00

It is said that doodles can be interpreted as an indicator of the the state of mind of the doodler.
Last night, with no particular purpose, I was pushing the pencil around, and this image seemed to emerge from the shapes. It felt logical to go with it, so worked into it and made it more presentable. I wonder if the passing psychologist could have a look at it for me and tell me what it means.

Show yourself

2008-11-21T03:50:00.000-08:00

Isn't there a theory that an artist will often include aspects of themselves in their work?
Why is it then, that when I have a brief break in the adrenaline and I have the temerity to have a doodle just for the sake of it, I will draw skinny naked guys?
Here's me, in reality making a fine job of looking like Captain Plumpy, and at a time when I could be absent mindedly revealing my true self, I do stuff like this? What's that about?
No doubt any passing psychologist could provide a rational answer.

If you know anyone, please drag them along to tell me what the deal is.

Not so Dark Satanic Mill

2008-11-18T00:29:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I went on a site visit to the old hosiery mill that is going to become the vibrant centre for many small creative businesses.
I mentioned a while back that I'd become a member of the steering group involved in putting the plan together and making sure it works. What started out as an excuse to drag myself away from the drawing board for a while has turned into quite an adventure.

The venture is really exciting. We're going to have an art gallery, studios and workshops for a wide range of creative processes. There will be rehearsal rooms and recording studios in the lower ground floor, a stylish cafe vibe on the floor above, performance space for intimate little gigs and a place where the resident artists, and those from the Hinckley and Bosworth area, will be able to offer their work for sale. There's also going to be a space to hold workshops for stuff like community art, teaching sessions or group events.
In addition to providing the space for fledgling and established artists to do their thing, there's going to be all the technology and business support to help everyone make a real go of building their passion into a successful business.
At the moment, it looks like it'll take a couple of years to get the place into shape, but I'll keep you updated as things move along.

The photographs show the outside of the building, the space with the folks in hi-vis jackets is the size of the gallery and the other image is the area that will become individual studio workspaces.

All very exciting.

A cat goes forth

2008-11-06T13:48:00.000-08:00

Tiddles, the cat I drew for the first time a few weeks ago, seems to be running away with himself. The feedback I've had for him has been great and there have been wonderfully positive posts about him on various forums. My friends at Heritage Crafts asked me for another - apparently it was their intention to have a set of four Tiddles designs, however, such is the enthusiasm for the character, they want more so they can keep producing more of their cross stitch kits of him.

It's my intention to try and get him onto other merchandise. I just have to find the time to get him out to see people. I hope he's not hungry when other people meet him - it could get messy.

OK, so he may not be as cute as a fluffy kitten, but he's honest and doesn't pretend to be something he isn't. A bit like me, really.
Here's Tiddles the fourth.

Tiddles the third

2008-10-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

The feline fiend makes a third outing.
I like it when words and pictures work together.

Word Play

2008-10-25T05:13:00.000-07:00

Last week, I submitted some designs for Christmas cards. The client - a well known high street stationer, in response to my initial designs, asked perhaps could I provide some one-liner jokes and an accompanying description of the image. I realised at that moment that this particular client is more concerned with the text than the image - which is fair enough. At the same time, I baulked at the idea that I could be happy to deliver a gag without the image. For me, the two are a symbiosis - one cannot exist without the other. So, even though it meant spending far more time in getting my idea across, I continued with producing pen and pencil roughs with accompanying caption.
In recent weeks I've been putting quite a lot of thought to Christmas card ideas for specific areas. A by-product of which, while I'm tuned in to the whole festive vibe, I came up with this image.

Imagine if I'd captured that thought with this:
Caption: "Tiddles wishes you a very Happy Crisp Mouse"
Image: Cat holds a dead mouse on a skewer over a candle.
See what I mean? It takes away the impact, a little, don't you agree?
My chums at Heritage Crafts have since snapped up the design and have created a kit enabling you to do some festive stitchery - see http://www.hcrafts.com/new.html

The design has been so well received, they asked me to do another. Here's one I finished off yesterday morning. Interestingly, I had to draw thirteen different fish before I arrived at a couple I was happy with, but the cat came out right first time - weird.

Ding Diddle Ing Ding....

2008-10-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

Special Agent?
A long time ago I had an agent. As I see it, an agent is meant to do all the legwork that an artist would do to sell their work if they weren't too busy being an artist.
Imagine doing a piece of work that you're quite pleased with and that you believe is suitable for some commercial application or another. What you have to do then is tell the commercial world what a loverly thing it is. So, you have to put your salesperson head on and start showing it around, discussing deals, applications, territorial exclusivity and a ton of other stuff that you have to do if you're going to benefit from your toils.
About ten years ago, my agent and me split because I was working like a nutter, but he wasn't doing all the twiddly things that he was supposed to.
I'm a busy little sausage and I know what Tigger does best, so this year, I decided I need someone to do the legwork for me. I found an agent in the form of Advocate (www.advocateart.com) that fits in nicely with the way I work. So far it's been very interesting and the work they've asked me to do is very enjoyable.
I never realised how far in advance companies prepare for Christmas. It's now October 2008. For the past few weeks I've been producing ideas for Christmas 2009. Talking about thinking ahead!
With global markets in freefall and banking systems crumbling, at least I can look forward to next Christmas!

Hamilton's Head

2008-09-22T01:39:00.000-07:00

At any one time, I have several books in varying states of development. One that I'm currently working on is called 'Hamilton's Hiccups'.
Hamilton is a dragon who, as you probably already guessed, has hiccups, and asks the help of his friend, Tilly, to cure them.
To help myself with the illustration process, I sculpted a maquette of Hamilton's head.
It's so much easier to draw something in front of me than to try and imagine how he might look from any angle. The body will probably never appear in the same pose, so I'll draw that out as I go along. Meanwhile, here are a couple of photographs of Hamilton's head.

Whoops!

2008-09-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

There are two kinds of tasks in life - 'Got to do' things and 'Want to do' things.
The key to a happy life is getting the balance right.

I had a letter from my accountant last Friday. In it he asked for my accounts for last year. Gulp! I'd completely forgot to do them and I was three months late. I've been too busy doing the things I wanted to, that it completely slipped my mind. Well, that was pretty much my weekend sorted. Crunching numbers and shuffling paper. Not the most fun I've ever had, but I got it done.

In this case, my 'Want to do's got in the way of my 'Got to do's and I suffered the consequences.

No Fish

2008-09-09T15:12:00.000-07:00

Brilliant! No nasty fishy burps from my Sainsbury's Crumpets.
They must've changed the recipe.
I'm now looking forward to my breakfast in the morning.

Over recent days I've been practicing drawing characterful faces. For some reason they've been coming out long and thin, but they've been fun to work on.
I decided I'd like to add some colour digitally and wanted to try an idea I had.
When I paint with acrylics, I lay down a block of colour of the darkest tone of the subject, then progressively bring the tones up to the highlight - the opposite of working in watercolour where white paper is progressively overlaid with colour to arrive at the darkest tone.
I wanted to try the acrylic method digitally.
I scanned my drawing and created a separate layer in Photoshop to apply colour and went for it.
I deliberately kept the brushwork loose because I was just doing this to explore the process and didn't want to overcook it. I like art that keeps a look of energy, which is often lost on highly finished pieces.
I started a few days ago and showed my progress to my good friend James Ryman (www.jamesryman.com). At the time I'd used a purple secondary light from the right of the image and he advised I make it warm. So, tonight I continued with the image, taking James' advice. It works. He's called 'The Worrier' for obvious reasons.
I'm pleased with the result and will definitely explore the method further - when I get the opportunity.

Fishy Burps

2008-09-08T23:47:00.000-07:00

I've just had two very nice crumpets for my breakfast.
While I stood in the kitchen, munching away, I looked at the list of ingredients printed on the side of the wrapper.
There was nothing in the list that might help me with a question that has bugged me for years - Why, if I eat crumpets for breakfast (or any meal, for that matter), a matter of hours later do I start burping fishy flavours?
I love eating fish, but I can confirm that no fishy substance has passed my lips for a while.

Let's see what today holds.

Free Biscuits!

2008-09-04T00:55:00.000-07:00

Working from home is an odd existence. These days I seldom need to leave the house for business. I might have to walk 100 yards to the Post Office to send parcels etc., but other than that, I call someone if I need materials and most of my communication is via email.
So, it's all too easy to detach myself from the world and scratch away in my little bubble of self-containment.

A while back I saw an article in our local newspaper about a group of local professional creative folk who were working together to develop an old sock factory and turn it into a 'centre of creativity' and they were having a meeting to launch the scheme. I was intrigued. You mean there are other creative people in this area? They must have their own bubbles of existence, or maybe mine is double insulated. I decided I could do with getting out of the house for a while, besides, there was the added lure of a drink and some food, so I went along to see what kind of biscuits they had.

The meeting was interesting. There were far more and diverse creative people in my area than I'd expected. To cut a long story short, I put myself forward as a potential member of the committee. Me! I've never been on a flippin' committee in my life. Committees are what grown-ups do. Organised, rational people go on committees to be rational and organised.
The aim of the group is to bring together all threads of the local creative community and and use the old building as a place to do it. Proper community spirited and all that. A proper adventure outside my little bubble to be sure.
The food was nice too, but no biscuits as I recall.

The first committee meeting I attended turned out to be at the studio of a photographer I'd used many years ago for some work I needed for a brochure. He was a fellow committee member and our common involvement with photography proved a good icebreaker.

My first contribution to 'Creative Hinckley', for that's the name of the project, was to propose I did a corporate ID with which the group could represent ourselves.
The existing one had been put together by a member of the committee and it needed a little help.
Now, it's been a while since I did any ID work, but it's something I've always enjoyed, so I rattled out some ideas and Lo, we now have a logo.
Interestingly, a colleague on the committee showed my work to someone who needed an identity for another project, so I was asked to do something for that too. What's more, I got wonderfully positive feedback from him. It's always nice to receive a good response to stuff, whatever it is.

It's been really refreshing plunging back into the world of people. I'm even looking forward to the next committee meeting. At the last one we had chocolate biscuits!
At the first one I went to there was cake too!

I'll let you know how things go - outside my bubble!

I can do horses!

2008-09-03T22:58:00.000-07:00

If you're familiar with my biography, you'll know I grew up with the notion that I couldn't draw horses. Well, wonder of wonders, I found out after all this time that I can draw horses!
I had a request from the charity Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) if I could produce a piece of artwork for this year's Christmas card. They sell the cards to raise funds for their very worthy cause.
I have to admit, a shudder ran down my spine at the thought of doing anything equine.
My belief that horsey art was simply beyond my capabilities must've become so deeply entrenched over the years because I'd never actually been called upon to do any.
So, I looked at a horse or two and started sketching out ideas - Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, it needed to be cartoony and, hopefully, funny.
I sent off two drawings as proposed designs, and waited.
The reaction was that the RDA liked both ideas and they would like to use one now and the other for next year's card. Brilliant!
Chuffed to bits, I completed the artwork and sent it off to the printers.
Samples and a letter of thanks arrived this week and I have to say, I'm delighted with the result.
As an extra way of the RDA raising some funds, I donated the artwork for them to sell. That'll be on eBay during the first week of December this year, so look out for it. I hope it goes to a good home and manages to raise a few pounds for the charity. After all, it's a very important piece of artwork for me - it means I can now say "I can do horses!"

One cat, two homes

2008-08-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, one of our cats, Poppy, disappeared. Any number of things could've happened to her. She might've wandered off and been adopted by another family or got lost. She could've been hit by a car and ended her pretty little life.
One day, after she'd been gone eight or nine months, I was talking to a neighbour about nothing in particular, when Poppy appeared on the fence beside us!
She was huge - not having kittens, we'd had her 'seen to' years ago - she was a fat cat. She was always the lean, mean, mouse catching machine and here she was, almost spherical!
Not a healthy situation.
"I thought you were dead" I told her.

The neighbour told me that after one of their own cats had died, Poppy has been living in their conservatory. She'd never thought of coming twenty yards to tell me our cat, wearing our collar with our address on it wasn't in our house!
Seems like Poppy saw an opening of a cushy lifestyle and took it.
I asked Mrs Nextdoorbutone not to encourage her to stay and shoo her away which she agreed to.
These days Poppy lives with us. She's a healthier shape, but will often disappear for hours to languish on a wicker sofa in the neighbour's conservatory - they have a cat flap and she gets in while they are out.
That's what happened yesterday. They were out - she went in - on the day I'd booked to have her immunisation booster jab.
I couldn't get to her. The neighbours were out all day and I had to cancel the flippin' appointment!
I made another appointment for today - Poppy is under house arrest, at least until she's had her injections.

The Top Spot - Again!!

2008-07-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

I heard today that my design for Heritage Crafts, 'Is that all?' was their best selling embroidery design for June. That's two months at the top spot. I'm so proud of my forlorn feline.

Once upon a slime

2008-07-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

I had an idea of a story that explored the relationship between slugs and snails. I know they're closely related, but what happened to make one branch of the family become different?
Did they begin as shell-dwelling creatures and one faction cast off their shell or was it the other way round - squishy creature fancies getting a caravan?
It felt like a good basis for a story, but then I started working on the characters and things went a bit daft.
I realised that snails and their shells offer far more potential for development and I flung myself into a maelstrom of molluscy mucus - drawing snails.
I've done twelve so far. The pirate is one of my favourites. He would've been a key character in the story - if it had got written.

I have to confess, I did get a bit carried away when I started working on the sports range.
Taking the ball and turning that into the snail's shell and adding other aspects of the particular sport, I could turn any sport that uses a ball or into a snail. I even gave the sporty snails a name of their own - Slimeballs. Logical, really I suppose.
The world should embrace snails!

Crossing your eyes and dotting your tees

2008-06-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

All finished. Time to let my book go off to the printers.
All of the pages, pictures, files, typefaces and bits and pieces are collected and put onto CD to take the book to production.
Apart from various stages of approval, signing off page layouts and answering minor questions, I just had to sit back and wait.
So, freed up from the intensity of The Boy with an Axe in his Head, I can swing my focus onto one of my other projects. I have several books in various stages of development and there is also this illustrative thing I want to do with snails.

That's not to say I'm finished with Maxwell. I'll get involved again when the book is delivered and the process of promoting the book begins.
Time for a cup of tea, I think, and maybe a nice biscuit.

Thank you Weddington Primary

2008-06-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

My thanks must go to Weddington Primary School for showing me where I'd got it wrong.

An interesting thing about writing in verse. You can slog away for ages, shuffling words around, getting the rhyme to work, counting syllables and getting your stresses all mixed up, but until you actually read it out loud, you never really get the feel for your own words.
Perhaps it was the haste in putting the book together for the school event, or that I simply made some errors, but reading The Boy with an Axe in his Head to four classes of children at Weddington Primary emphasised to me so many points that needed addressing.
I'd initially decided on an April 2008 publication, because it seemed logical timing. However, having come away from the school with a list of things in the book that bugged me, I changed my plans.
It wasn't exactly back to square one for me, but I took quite a big step backward.
I spent the next few weeks tuning and retuning my words. I don't think a single verse came out without some change, albeit quite small.
Of the illustrations, I tidied up the one with Maxwell's sister on the swing and made a change to one of the earlier pictures. Finally, I decided that I should totally re-work the illustration on page 30. The original one wasn't 'homey' enough, so I replaced it with this one.

A little distraction

2008-06-17T04:35:00.000-07:00

Just to change the subject for a moment. In the current issue of the magazine (June 2008) 'The World of Cross Stitching' there is an article about the work I do with Heritage Crafts in Staffordshire. I've worked with them for quite a few years now and they are lovely people to deal with.
The article talks about the 'Cats Rule' range and there's a page solely about me! I did an interview about where my ideas come from and what else I'm working on etc., etc. Heck, there's even a picture of me!
I was delighted recently to receive a phone call from Susan Ryder, the boss of Heritage Crafts, telling me that one of the designs I did for them under the name of 'Cats Rule' was their best selling design for the month. It's always nice to hear that a design has been well accepted.

Wow!

2008-06-13T04:21:00.000-07:00

What an amazing week that was.
Everything went according to the planned list, but one thing I added was, as the children came into the classroom, I decided, rather than me just stand around like a spare part, I'd do a drawing.
So, I took in an easel and drawing board and drew out the thing that triggered the idea for The Boy with an Axe in His Head - a bear with... well, you know.
It was a little bit of a performance thing on my part, but it proved to the class that I could at least draw a bear. I put the finishing touches to the drawing and added the caption during registration.
After a brief introduction from the teacher, it was my turn.
When I attend signings or public appearances of any sort, I often has a degree of uncertainty about how the occasion will go. Will it be difficult? Will it go wrong? Will I make an idiot of myself. These four mornings were similar. Until I began, I had no idea what the outcome would be.
So, away I went. I spoke, I pointed, I waved my arms around quite a bit. I read my book.
But the amazing thing for me was the enthusiasm from the children. Maybe it was the subject matter, perhaps it was the chance to do something different to regular lessons. But it was so rewarding to work with all of the children and get the wheels and cogs of their imaginations turning. Luckily, the teachers kept an eye on the time and sent children out for break and lunch, otherwise, I'd still be there today.
I had no need for any of my worries beforehand - I assume it's similar to stage fright.
For each of the mornings, I was carried along on a roller coaster of energy provided by the children. Propelled through the morning until, when lunchtime arrived and my morning with the class ended, I'd be buzzing with energy and excitement from the experience.
Interestingly, on the first morning, no one asked for an autograph. On the second morning, one or two children asked me to draw the bear on a sheet of paper and sign it. The third day saw more autographs and sketches. Day four, I was still signing and drawing bears with axes in their head when the class came back in for the afternoon session.
Another effect I noticed - often, when I write captions, envelopes etc. I'll use a cartoony serif type of writing. Some of the children picked up on this and asked me how I did it. "Easy" I said, "just give your letters hats and boots" and demonstrated by writing some of the children's names. Funny how a typographical element derived from Roman antiquity can be summed up in such a simple fashion. Hats and boots.
As I left the class, I saw some of the children practising writing their names in a serif font. Viral education - I often wonder if I cased an epidemic of typographic proportions.

My Baby!

2008-06-12T00:25:00.000-07:00

There's a warm fuzzy feeling I get when I hold a new book for the first time. A book encompasses lots of hours of thinking, typing, scribbling and pacing up and down (and quite a bit of chocolate eating). So, even though these twelve copies of The Boy with an Axe in his Head were digitally produced copies before the main production run, they still made me go all squiggly inside.

A couple of days before my visit to school, the books arrived and I put some thoughts to what would be happening during the four mornings at Weddington Primary School.
I'd discussed what I'd be doing with the children with Mrs Ward, the head teacher and Miss Booth, the literacy co-ordinator.
I was to spend a morning with each of four classes. Each morning would go like this:
• I'd introduce myself and explain what I do and how I came up with the idea.
• Explain the process of creating the book - words, drawings, page layouts etc.
• Hand out copies to the class and read to book to them while they followed the pictures.
• After a brief explanation of the mechanics of poetry, have the children write a verse of their own.
• Once a verse has been arrived at, create an illustration, bearing in mind how it would sit with the verse on the page.
• Finally, the children would read their verses and show the illustration to the rest of the class.

That was quite a lot to fit into a morning, but I was sure the teachers knew what we could achieve.

I gathered up my preliminary drawings and bits and pieces - and twelve fresh copies of the book - and headed off to school.

Full Steam Ahead

2008-06-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

My deadline was looming and I feared I was running out of time. So, in case that happened, I took the last four or five illustrations that still needed colouring and really quickly dashed in some colour. Imagine being told you have five minutes to finish something that you know will take hours. I worked like that. The result was a bit messy and I went over the lines more than I would with the final one, but if it came to it and I had to send the job to print before I completed the real version, I would at least have all of the pages coloured. Black and white line drawings would stick out like a sore thumb.
In the end, there was only one illustration that appeared in the digital copies - the one where Maxwell's sister is on the swing. It wasn't too bad. Anyway, better than nothing.

So, off it went to the printers with my fingers firmly crossed!

To Print or Not to Print

2008-06-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

I'd spoken to the printer I intended to use for the actual production run of the book and had been told that it would take around three months for them to deliver the final books.
Since I'd agreed to be guest author at Weddington Primary School in Nuneaton in mid-October and it was now September, it was clear, so I'd have books ready to use with the classes, that I needed something much quicker.
Digital printing was the answer. A friend of mine, Ron Hoe of Ocean Digital in Coventry had agreed to turn around a dozen copies for me in a week and a half. Brilliant!
I'd never used this type of digital printing before and went to see some samples. I was amazed at how good they were. It was such a relief because I didn't want to create something that wouldn't resemble the real thing.
I set a date when I needed to get my completed artwork to him and began laying out the pages.
Things were going to be slightly different for the digital copies. These were going to be paperback rather than the hardback of the final print run, and the binding was going to be a little different too.
So, once I'd made up several small mock-ups of the book to decide what went on each page, I assembled the artwork as it was going to be printed.
As I completed the illustrations, I'd put a page together, including the verse. It soon became obvious, by the number of pages with no picture, that I had a lot of work to do in a very short time.

On a roll - well, maybe on a little bun

2008-06-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

There's a great feeling you get when things start to come together.
I found I was belting out images with some confidence. I could be working on perhaps two or three at a time. It would seem logical to start at the beginning and work my way through to the end, but I found it didn't happen that way.
Because each illustration needed to pass through three stages, these being:
Pencilling - working out the shapes and how they would sit on the page and 'embrace' the verse.
Inking - Putting down the black linework on material similar to tracing paper, which would be scanned into the computer to take me to stage three, which is...
Colouring - adding colour using Photoshop and saving in a format that can be placed on the page,
not every illustration was at the same stage. Depending how I felt when I started a session, I would flip through what I had left to do and choose something. If I felt like doing colour, that's what I did. Similarly, if there were still pencil stages to play with, I might do that, if the mood took me,
Eventually, of course, all of the pencilling was complete. Then I did all of the linework, which left me with many hours of colouring.
While all of this is going on, I have to earn a living because working on a project like this, which is a bit like a hobby, I'm not earning money. So, I'd get up at 6.00am, like I normally do, and work on The Boy with an Axe in His Head until 9.00am. At that time I'd work on the things that earn me a living - creating all kinds of stuff like embroidery designs or characters to be sculpted as figurines for people to collect.
At 5.00pm, I'd go back to my book illustrating maybe grabbing something to eat when my belly began rumbling too loud I couldn't hear the music I play while I'm working.
I'd then work until sleep made my eyes close and flop into bed. I'm lucky enough to work from a studio at home, so I can work as long as I feel like.
Whenever I tell people I work from home, they often think I get up when I like, take lots of breaks, an extra long lunch and finish early.
Nothing could be further from the truth. When you do something that you love for a living, which I am so fortunate to say I do, you find that you happily put all of your time and energy into your work because it's special. It's not like school homework or something that you are required to do.
So, here I was working between 16 and 18 hours a day between July and the first week in October and I loving every minute.

A Spectre Hovers

2008-05-17T02:42:00.000-07:00

No, not a spectre hoovers. Nothing to do with ghosts vacuuming. All the time I was working on the illustrations, I'd revisit my words. These are words that I'd looked at many times, made minor changes and then put down again, thinking the story was complete. As I've said before, every time I'd read them, I'd be convinced that I could make a nip here, a tuck there, to get the words to work better together. So, the spectre of re-writes never really goes away. I just learn to live with its intervention and be happy with the results.
On one occasion, I realised that one piece of fine tuning took a verse back to a form it was in a couple of weeks before. I'd changed and re-changed and arrived back where I'd already been.

I began laying out the pages to accept the illustrations as they were completed.
Because of the way they are printed, books work with page quantities in units of eight.
32 pages plus covers worked just right to have a verse per page with a couple left over for title pages etc.
At this point I decided I wanted to have an X-Ray type image for the front cover, so added that to my list of illustrations and began collecting reference and researching X-Ray images.

Inking and colouring

2008-05-17T00:58:00.000-07:00

Once my drawings were laid out in pencil, I'd lay a sheet of detail paper over the top and ink directly onto that. I'd decided during the design stage that I wanted a border around the page. That would prove useful when I'd scanned the line artwork because the drawings were larger than the image area of my scanner, so they all had to be scanned in two pieces and put together in Photoshop. The borders enabled me to see the overall shape of the image, thus making the stitching together easier, and quicker. In retrospect, making the artwork fit the scanner would've made the process a little faster, but then I would've been doing my drawings at a smaller scale, which would've made the drawing process less relaxed and constrained and thus less 'free' in style.
In my first colour test, I made a conscious effort to keep the application of quite scruffy and deliberately went over the lines in places. The lines are quite hard and solid, so a certain looseness in the colour would be more fun.
One beauty in working in Photoshop for me is being able to work in layers. I kept the linework on the top layer and added colour on another. As I worked I could view the colour layer alone to confirm I was doing OK. I quite liked the look of the colour layer on it's own, but perhaps that would be something I could apply to something another time. I had no time for experimentation. After all I had thirty one illustrations to complete!

No time to lose

2008-05-17T00:32:00.000-07:00

I've always said that adrenaline shouldn't get involved when making creative decisions, but, on this occasion, I had to choose a method of Illustrating The Boy with an Axe in his Head that would help me get the book finished in time for 'Book Week' in October.
My first choice was whether to go for traditional media - ink, paints on paper or board, which I often prefer because there's a 'real' piece of art at the end to show for my efforts, or would I opt for digital methods?
Ultimately, I'd be doing the assembly of the artwork myself in Quark Xpress, a piece of software I've used extensively since I first began working on Apple Macs in 1991. So, at some point my artwork would have to be digitised, either by scanning or having been created in the computer from the beginning.
By this time, I'd got most of my illustrations roughed out. Five were ready to begin work on, the rest were waiting like greyhounds at the starting gate.
Looking back through my portfolio, I noticed that within all of the styles I've adopted over the years, there is one which I'd say isn't derivative of anyone else's work. One I drop into when I'm 'getting into the groove' and it was one I could simply apply to what I'd done so far.
What I'd do, was create inked lines of my drawing, scan them into the computer and apply the colour in Photoshop - another of my favourite packages.
A 'EUREKA!' moment.
This way I'd only be scanning in linework, so the scanning process would be faster. Applying colour digitally cuts out all of the time mixing colours, cleaning paintbrushes, spilling water all over the place (OK, so I'm occasionally clumsy) and cleaning up afterwards.
Time to get to work!

Get Scribblin'

2008-05-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

So, the words existed, I had my hero, so it was time to put some shapes down.
By now, I'd worked out a rough sequence for the book and had put a rough visual together indicating the content of each illustration. One thing I'd yet to establish was what style of illustration to use and what method.
I'd been toying with various media, for example - ink line and watercolour wash or perhaps acrylics.
I'd penciled out four or five pages. There was no reason why I couldn't lay out every page before deciding on how to complete the illustrations.
On an unrelated subject, I was talking to my accountant, Jim Simmons, about a theory I have that I could teach someone to draw using an unusual approach I'd arrived at. He suggested I'd be able to try out the method by visiting a school, of which he was a parent/governor. I did just that and went to see the head teacher, the very helpful Mrs Ward, of Weddington Primary School in Nuneaton.
I was telling her about my idea for teaching children to draw and, in passing, mentioned the book I was working on. Suddenly, all thoughts of me helping to develop the artistic abilities of kids at the school and I'd agreed to be 'guest author' for the book week the school was holding in October. I explained that the book was far from complete. To which the Head said "I'm sure you can get it finished in time."
That was the middle of July. I was going on holiday for two weeks the following day, which meant I had two and a half months to finish the book! Gulp

Got him!

2008-05-10T00:51:00.000-07:00

It was quite a relief to be able to pin Maxwell down and say "That's how he looks".
While it is quite liberating to be able to work for yourself on projects like this, there is a common theory that if you are your own client, you are the most difficult to satisfy.
It seemed to take weeks on and off, deliberating and pontificating, agonising and pondering. But then I said to myself - Hold on, this is meant to be fun!
So, rather than adopting a style to do the job, I simply took the style that comes easiest and went from there.
With no particular purpose in mind, I would draw Maxwell in a range of activities - running, jumping, looking up, down, in profile or from behind. He was my new best friend and I needed to get to know him because we were going on a journey together!

Establishing a style

2008-05-10T00:28:00.000-07:00

Because I've been producing illustrations for a lot of years, I've used a wide range of styles.
So, when it came to selecting which style to use for The Boy with an Axe in His Head, I was unsure which would work the best to help tell the story.
As this was my own project, I could do what I liked. There was no client paying me to do the work, nobody telling me what Maxwell should look like. I explored a little further.
By this point I'd decided on the proportions of my character. Using the head as a measurement, a regular proportioned man is around eight heads tall. For Maxwell, I went for four.

Fixing a face

2008-05-10T00:11:00.000-07:00

I began to draw faces. If I'm trying to establish a character's face from scratch, I simply draw face after face after face. Each one different from the last, in a random fashion, similar to speed writing where you write thoughts as they occur. I drew faces as they came along. Once I'd done one, I'd swiftly do another until I had sheets of faces.
From these exercises I chose faces that felt they had potential. Yes, I needed a face for Maxwell, but I'd also have to draw his friends, so nothing was discarded, just in case.

Maxwell the first

2008-05-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

My very first sketch of the boy, Maxwell, came out like this.
If I'm going to draw a character several times from different angles, in various poses, in a range of activities, the character needs to have signature features that identify him or her.
Having worked on the poem, it required the boy to be older than this, also, to be able to draw him in the poses needed for some of the illustrations, he'd have to be slightly better proportioned.

Write and rewrite

2008-05-05T01:25:00.000-07:00

If I produce a drawing or painting and leave it alone for a while, when I come back to it, there are things that stand out that need changing. I'll question why I did it like that in the first place. It could be that, while you're in the process of doing something creative, you can be so involved with it that you fail to see small errors and misjudgments made along the way.
For me, writing is the same. Having typed the words into my computer, I revisit them with a fresh eye and often have to make changes. A tweak here, a line modified there.
It could be that every time you leave a piece of work, you go away and undergo subtle changes in yourself. Your perspective might change, opinions might shift based on experiences that might happen to you whilst separated from your work. Then when you come back to it, you make changes to the work to realign it with your updated view on life. I wonder whether this process would ever end.
There comes a time when you have to force yourself to step away from the piece for fear of overworking it. How finished is finished?
After weeks of jotting, scribbling and word juggling with The Boy with an Axe in His Head, I'd arrived at something I was seeing as a whole. Sure, there were places I could still go, but somehow it didn't seem necessary to explore absolutely every aspect of having a handle protruding from the boy's head. The boy, by the way, is called Maxwell.
It was time to start thinking about the visual aspect.
Time to sharpen my pencils.

2008-05-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

Another thing I discovered with writing in verse, I need to work longhand with pen or pencil on good old fashioned paper. I push thoughts around by scribbling key phrases, setting up rhyming partnerships and fooling around with word relationships by simply jotting them down. One idea will give flight to another while something totally unexpected can pop into being by the collision of words on a page. I find typing into the regimented format of a word processor restricts this organic process.

One benefit of working with pen and paper is that I can work anywhere. No bulky laptop for me to lug around. No problems trying to hook up to a Wi-Fi hotspot or power outlet.
The little notepad I use to capture my thoughts really came into its own. On a train, sat on a park bench, sitting in the car - the world was my studio.
As I arrived at material with which I was reasonably happy, I clattered it into my computer for safekeeping.
In my early notes, I'd put down situations to be explored - shopping, sports, clothing, etc.
I had no set sequence in which to work. I planned, once I had a verse for each of my ideas, to arrange them in some logical order, but that was to be some time in the future.
I'd take an idea that appealed to me at the time and begin scribbling words. I didn't always have my notepad with me, so any available paper would be recruited as a launchpad for my words. This led to me regularly stuffing mismatched sheets, napkins, drinks mats etc. into my rucksack to work on later.

By this time, I'd decided on a title for this piece of work 'The Boy with an Axe in His Head'. Simple and to the point. I didn't see any point in trying to mislead anyone.

The Silence Goblins

2008-05-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

I don't like silence when I work. A few years ago when I worked in a design studio, my chum, Paul Crowley and me created these fictitious characters 'The Silence Goblins'. When the music stopped, they'd creep out of the shadows to tamper with our creative thought processes and make us rubbish at our work. Well, that was our excuse. So, when it fell quite, we'd look at each other in mock panic proclaiming "The Silence Goblins are here!", to which one of us would have to respond by hastily putting some music on.

The music I have on in the background is often dictated by my state of mind at the time.
Sometimes it can be soft and floaty, others it could be banging dance 'choonz'.
One thing I have discovered, if I'm writing from my imagination where the words are being lined up in my head before I squeeze them down my arms and out of my fingertips onto the keyboard, I can't have music with lyrics - I think they're called songs. I find the words in the music get all tangled up with the ones I'm trying to line up, like disruptive naughty children in a line of soldiers on parade. It all goes wrong and I have to put on something instrumental to chase away the unruly little rascals.
Interestingly, if I'm typing from experience, as if making an entry in a diary, lyrics aren't invasive at all. In fact, as I'm typing this, I'm listening to REM, Accelerate - an album plump, juicy and fit to burst with rich lyrics and they're not bothering me in the slightest.
That probably means something, but I don't have a clue what.

James

2008-05-03T02:46:00.000-07:00

James
Unwisely Santa offered a teddy bear to James, unaware that
he had been mauled by a grizzly earlier that year.

With acknowledgement to Tim Burton.

One of the characters from Tim Burton's 'The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy'.
OK, it's not written in verse, but you get the idea.

Thick and fast they came

2008-05-03T01:57:00.000-07:00

It's really quite astounding, how an idea can run away with you. I carry a notebook everywhere I go (well, almost everywhere) just in case something pops into my head. Pinning down ideas is like catching falling leaves in autumn. They can flutter around and are so elusive, but if you can catch them in a book before they join the mess of fallen fragments on the floor, you stand a chance of doing something with them.

Ideas of what it would be like to live with a handle protruding from my head were popping into being like falling leaves on a windy day in autumn. So much so I decided I wanted to make them into something permanent.

For some time I've been an admirer of Tim Burton's poetry, particularly 'The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy' - a collection of tales of bizarre and startling characters. He has the ability to make the absurd acceptable and his delivery in verse makes it all the more intriguing.
So, to follow his lead, I decided I would write a poem about how it would be to live with an axe in the head.
Fairly quickly I came to the conclusion that to write the poem about a bear wouldn't be as interesting to read because bears just don't get involved in similar circumstances to us humans. I settled on a boy because I was one, a long time ago, so I could perhaps trawl my memories for situations I might have encountered. I did briefly consider having a girl go through the experience, but somehow, a boy seemed logical. I mean, whoever heard of a girl with an axe in her head? Anyway, axes are just so 'blokey' aren't they?

So I started writing and writing and writing......

I had an idea...

2008-05-02T23:16:00.000-07:00

I was designing a greetings card with the caption 'I can't get you out of my head'.
On the card was an image of a cuddly bear with a huge axe in its head.

The image got me thinking what it would be like to have an axe like that permanently sticking out of my head.
Let's forget the gruesome part of blood and stuff. It's a cuddly toy bear, so they don't have to worry about such things. I mean the physical presence of the handle.
I started thinking about all the things that I'd be able to do. All the things I'd be prevented from doing, all because of this new extra part of me.

The idea intrigued me and I decided to explore the concept and started jotting down situations where the handle of the axe would make a difference. I was surprised to arrive at quite a few situations where it would be a benefit.
I'm not very tall, so to be able to reach an extra couple of feet could work to my advantage. Imagine trying to reach that tasty apple just out of reach on the tree. Not a problem. I'd simply be able, with a flick of my head, to tap the apple from the tree into my waiting hands.
This could be the start of something quite interesting. Let's see where it goes.

Test

2008-04-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

Testing...1...2.....3