Sketchbooks vol.2

I have been finding all sorts of stuff in my old folio recently. There's another picture of Paul I'm gonna put up, some more kid's book stuff and an abundance of the above. They're not dated, but a good archaeologist might pin them to the age of the Maggie Moore classes... They're not stunning by any means, but tonally I quite like them.

Sketchbooks Vol.1

There's a lot to be said for sketchbooks - in many ways they're like a demo of a song. People always talk about how sketches are better than the finished pictures, and in many ways they are. The one thing sketches have over their more accomplished counterparts is character. Their character can be replicated, but often not equalled.

I love sketching, nay, adore skecthing. The sketchbook is the purest synthesis of an artist's imagination. They shouldn't be precious, and every effort should be made to spill things on them. They can have shopping lists and random thoughts, and doodles that in the cold light of day mean nothing but to the artist. Sometimes the artwork is stunning, othertimes crap...

These sketches were done in a variety of places, most notably France when I should have been drawing the scenery.

There's a reason it's blue.

I can't draw cats. At all. Or horses. Ugly men and naked women however...

Down, Winona, down...

The Replacements have just released a best-of CD called 'Don't you know who I think I was?'. It covers their entire career, as opposed to All for Nothing - the major label hack-job that only covered their last four albums. But you know all this, right? The cd comes with two new recordings - Message to the boys and Pool and Dive. I have been playing Pool and Dive constantly...probably because it reminds me of what I felt when I first heard them.

More information can be found at Rhino, and at Kath's page. Also stop by Color Me Impressed. Rhino are streaming the entire album, so you've got no excuses...

Who's afraid of the bardenites?

Continuing on the from the theme of the last post, here's another two watercolours from college. Children's book illustration was what everybody wanted to do. I was no exception. These two pictures were from a story I was working on called 'Who's afraid of the bardenites?' I never decided what the bardenites were...but the creepy old woman in the story used to tell the child that if he never went to bed then they would fly out of the cellar and eat him - you know, usual children's book fayre.

Most people really like the second picture. I know why, although with time I can see the faults. Is it daft to over-analyse illustrations? Are they as valid as say - a six foot oil painting? I think so. The only art I like nowadays is illustration (see links ). The first was a double page spread...I was never sure about some of the elements in it - I thought it was too cartoonish.

I WILL get to posting some newer work soon.

The boy with the porcelain head

I was going to do a post on sketchbooks, and finally get some of those ideas online. But I came accross this old picture. It's been sitting on the computer for years, and I'm so used to seeing it there that I've never paid it much attention. It was never included in any of the mail shots I used to do, possibly beccause of obvious comparisons. Bearing in mind this was when everyone was reading THIS book. The logistics of my title were not really workable. All my watercolours from college looked like this.

I think I was still trying to find some sort of recognisable style at this stage. Have I found one yet?