A ridiculous way of drawing..

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leo line

I started with his eye. He was nearly asleep. I was sitting on the conservatory sofa with pen and paper… new (secondhand) rotring pen (as I managed to bust the nib on my lovely old one yesterday) and beautifully smooth Bristol Board. I drew an eye, then the other, then an ear and it grew into a cat.

It’s a ridiculous way of drawing and completely against everything I was taught at college. Measure! Measure! Measure! I think it’s the way children draw, you just start at a point and carry on until you run out of paper. Perhaps there is still a measure of measuring in there.. when you’ve been drawing for so long it becomes second nature. I’m not always conscious I’m doing it, but yes, I do. That corner of the eye lines up with that part of the ear. The space between the paw and the eye is a little longer than that between the eye and the back of the head.

Lately I’ve been picking up a pen and drawing without a proper idea of how it’s going to turn out, without sketching or rubbing out and without worrying about ‘mistakes’. It’s a lovely, relaxed way of sketching and learning to use a new tool. And, I hope, of learning how to overcome the whole getting too uptight to draw thing. 🙂

Astro Poetica

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astro-4

This lovely thing landed on my doorstep last week. 🙂  ‘Astro Poetica’, a volume of charming poems about space written by Dom Conlon, with some pictures by me.  It’s full of love and fun and aliens and planets and solar systems..and I managed to sneak my cat in there somewhere too.

As well as being a rather beautiful, nice to hold thing ‘Astro’ is the first time I’ve seen myself in print.  And, by gum, I think I look rather good.  (My work, obviously. Not actual me.)  I’m immodestly pleased with myself.  And with Dom.  I think we did good.  And to think, when Dom asked me to illustrate it I said “Don’t you think you should ask someone who knows what they’re doing?”  I’m pleased he ignored me.

I think children will love this book.  I hope they read the ‘Things to Think’ and ‘Things to Do’ sections and write some poetry of their own.  I have a child on loan at the moment, so I’ll be testing it out later.  I know adults will like it, because I do and I am one.

‘Astro Poetica’ is published by Inkology. If you look here Inkology.co.uk you’ll find lots of free and lovely stories and poems for children. You can follow @InkologyStories on Twitter as well.

You can get a copy of  ‘Astro Poetica’ from Amazon. It is also available on Kindle from Amazon or for your ipad from itunes and there is a rather lovely limited edition hardback version, which has extra content (also on Amazon).

1 Minute Memory

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mary

Yesterday I drew a sketch of my esteemed colleague and friend, Mary. In 1 minute. It’s a tricky thing to do.. no sketching, no rubbing out, no thinking time.  I had to have a few goes at it. This was the 4th attempt. Number 3 was very much Paul McCartney. I think this looks like her. I suspect it gets easier with practice.

Soooo…the point is, in return she gets to donate £1 or more to Alzheimer’s Society via justgiving.com/1MinuteMemory/

It’s a great idea, thought up by Dave Kirkwood. You draw, photograph or write about someone in 1 minute, give them the result (and post it on Twitter) and they donate. You can read all about it here 1minutememory.com then go and do it. 🙂

 

Rotring

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portrait-2

I’ve been busy working on a new illustration project lately (featuring Bears, unsurprisingly) or rather, busy trying to work on a new… ripping stuff up, getting cross, having no ideas and drawing in a very uptight fashion.  If you are familiar with my scribblings you will know that my style is generally quite loose.. messy even.  I use a dip pen and ink and water and pencils and crayons and paint and brushes and fingers…  I’ve also got to the point where I think everything I draw or paint looks like crap. (Sorry, I swear and it will probably get worse than that.)

I had a bit of a moan to a very dear friend about how useless I am this morning. Sorry. You know who you are. x  And decided to put the whole thing on hold for a bit and refresh my brain with completely different things, ie not art.  Having a general clear up of my studio* (*corner of the conservatory) I found an old Rotring pen. 0.2 nib. I’ve had it for years, (slight guilt here) it was given to me by a good friend when her Dad died, as she thought I would use it.  0.2 nib. That’s very fine. And fiddly. I’ve used fibre tip type pens that are very fine and not liked them.  I like the variety of strokes that different pressure makes with pencils and nib pens. And wash. And rubbing things with my fingers. And flicking paint and ink about. Anyhow, I thought it’s not really my sort of thing but I’ll see if it works and maybe give it to a friend…

So I drew this (work in progress).  In spite of being really hung up about drawing anything it sort of worked.  I think it’s to do with being relaxed because you’re not expecting anything.  Whatever, the concentration kicked in. I think I’ll keep the pen. And play about with it for a bit.

Bears can wait. But I’ll be back to them soon.

If you want to look at the drawing more closely click on the photo for a larger view.