Currently in negotiations with pop group. . .

. . . to be their exclusive consultant designer! That's what my contact with the band, Real PD, said I should say. It's not finalised yet but it's quite exciting, I just hope I can cope with all the creative egos if I do eventually collaborate with them!

Blogging along nicely!

I am starting to understand what blogging is all about (sort of), why it's worth having a blog, and enjoying having one! I used to write a diary when I was younger but once my mum found it, I was put off slightly, later in life at various points I enjoyed keeping brief notes of films I'd seen/meals cooked/daytrips/holiday diaries, and enjoyed looking back on that when I came across them a few years on. Very sporadically, for therapy really, through more emotional troubles I've written down my thoughts and feelings, but think I would look back in embarrassment (yet morbid fascination) at the person I had been. We do change through our lives, and some of those changes are for the better, I can vouch for that through the cringe-ability of old diaries! Hopefully I won't be writing anything TOO cringe worthy on here.

Yesterday I recieved a really positive comment on my drawings etc that I have posted here and it was suggested that I had enough work for an exhibition, I had thought that the work wasn't polished, or current enough for that, but it has got me thinking about trying to organise one. Thank you to my friend for your positive comments, it is really good to get feedback. Good or bad in fact!

I have added the gadget that lists the blogs I read, with that in mind, if you are a follower of my blog, it would be great if you could add that gadget to your own blog. . . :-)

Now I have to do some more work, and what I feel is hardest, is settling on a "style", I haven't really got one yet, I am dabbling in many different styles but not sure who "I" am yet. Alisdair Gray said he settled on his drawing style simply because he needed to work quickly to generate money. I hear that! Having no real income of my own at the moment. I think I want to have a light, clean, happy style, which will go down well for greetings cards etc. Some of the work I have here seems a bit dark for saying Happy Birthday!

Perhaps I need to use a different picture for my header to that of the skull sketch I'm currently sporting. . .which puts me in mind of Hamlet. . . to be or what to be. . . that is the question. . .

I recommend Words of a Wolf:

http://wolfphotograpy.blogspot.com/

Retrospective: landscape and nature

Most of these were hastily sketched on a recent trip to Loch Awe. I had very little in the way of materials, as I forgot to take them! No charcoals, pastels, paints, which for such an expansive subject would have been useful. Still it was a good exercise in trying to capture an enormous view and a richly textured subject in a simplified way with just a pen, and a few cheap kids colouring pencils. The watercolour is not from that trip, but from years ago, and shows the result of me trying to get to grips with watercolours, working out what they do on the page, not very well I fear, they seem really hard!

Retrospective: life studies

Retrospective: still life

Retrospective : portraits

Some of these look so 80s they are probably quite fashionable now!

With the 80s revival and all. Retro-spective indeed! My favourite mediums when I drew them were pastels and charcoal as they are quick to work with and I feel don't require painstaking accuracy, you can blend them and they are expressive. The orange and black one was an attempt at "graphic" type art and a rare gouache. How's that for 80's revival fashion! Puts me in mind of Kylie's video for Can't Get You Outta my Head.

There are a few self-portraits, not particularly through introspection and self obsession (although I was very young at the time!), but through the lack of being unable to find enough people who would sit still for long enough for me to draw! You probably won't be able to spot the self portraits as I am quite different looking now (older and fatter) and also the drawings themselves actually look like different people anyway! There is another break from the norm, in the acrylic painting, another self portrait though you wouldn't know it.

Doodles

Here are some doodles I've done today with Christmas in mind, very much just ideas scribbled very quickly, and I've played around with the colours in uploading the photos to make them more "zingy" and pop! The 40th birthday card was done a while ago for a friend's 40th, and I included all the things I knew she liked, Morrissey, music, Cath Kidson, Hello Kitty, coffees, shopping, cakes, etc, and 90210, plus some geographical references using bits of old road atlases. And her eyes from a Facebook profile photo. I tried watercolour pencils for the first time and some new glitter pens and writing felt tips. The first two I've added since the original post, today Friday 29th, and this drawing is based on an original 1940s Christmas card design but I've updated it with the addition of tv aerials on the houses, and even a satellite dish. One has been played around with a snazzy little iphone app which I really like. The other has just been photographed normally.