New Season

It's officially autumn 2008 and I thought it was time to get back into art. Over the last few weeks we bought a new wi-fi scanner/printer and it means I can scan stuff and work on my own machine in another room to where my wife does her work. So all systems go for the new season....just have to start creating.

Illustration Friday: Mask

I was going to draw a mask - the kind you see to represent the theatre. Then I thought about how our faces can be a kind of mask - depending on our mood and circumstance. Lines in our faces are drawn through our experience, our expressions and their frequency of use. I find faces continuously fascinating.

Illustration Friday: Might

This week's topic was hard. I'm not totally happy with the result, due to a last minute rush. Oh well, hope I find more inspiration with tomorrow's topic. The guy above is meant to be Albert Einstein!

Happy Snowman

Donnatello the Snowman, cousin of Frosty the Snowman

Illustration Friday: Invention

Whenever I draw a spaceship, this is the one that most often comes to mind. I used to love those washing up bottle rockets with the sparkler hanging out the back that the 30s and 40s Flash Gordon serials used to use as model spacecraft. I've taken some of that influence and mixed it with a cockpit that sticks out a little like the Millenium Falcon's. This is the rocket I'm using in a story I'm writing with my kids about an inventor called Professor Popplepot.

Illustration Friday: Thanksgiving

It took me a while to get the idea for this believe it or not. I guess because until this week I didn't really know much about thanksgiving. It's not a holiday over here in the UK. This image of a full table of food with a roast turkey in the middle waiting to be eaten is probably a very obvious image but it has only just come to me that this is what I should do. As a child I used to think Thanksgiving was the same as Christmas just in a different country.

Illustration Friday: Clear

I've thought long and hard about the brief this weekend, I came up with a lot of common understandings: water, glass etc. This morning a new interpretation struck me as I was thinking about a friend of mine.

Illustration Friday: Smoke

An area in England just West of Birmingham is known as The Black Country. Charles Dickens's novel The Old Curiosity Shop, written in 1841, described how the area's local factory chimneys "Poured out their plague of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air". This doodle is my little homage to the area.

Illustration Friday: Ghost

Yesterdays Doodles Today

After Picasso

I thought I'd serve you up a couple of doodles I did yesterday evening. I'm calling one After Picasso because there is something abstract about it and the second one is called simply Strange Thing because erm...it's a strange thing.

Strange Thing

Illustration Friday: Smitten

Worry

Some people seem blessed with no worry genes. They stroll through life, living to the max, not a care in the world. Well, I'm sure that's not true for the majority of humankind and those who seem worry-free are the ones who are good at hiding it. We all worry, I think what matters is the extent to which we can control worry so that it doesn't dominate our life. Not like this poor chap. He seems to have a lot of worries troubling him, its in his eyes.

Syd Barrett

Syd Barrett passed away in July this year. His life story is quite a sad one. He was obviously a musical genious but also a victim of the Bohemian lifestyle of the 1960s. Pink Floyd went onto greater things without him (Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, Wish You Were Here) but some would say there was always the "ghost" of Barrett in the recordings, I guess that'll be more true now.

Ghost Hunter

A drawing on blue Post-Its. I guess I should call this "Don't Look Behind You". Heh..

Bob Dylan

I'm a fan of the whole catalogue of Dylan's work and what a catalogue it is! Such a rich variety but all with wonderful lyrics throughout. His new album is called Modern Times and I haven't heard it yet. There is a DVD with it at the moment, so I think I'll buy it. I hope you like this tribute sketch of the man, circa 2006.

A Crew Member

I don't know where this drawing came from, I don't think it was from a photograph. I think the top looks like a uniform of someone in The Starship Enterprise or some such space going vessel. She looks like she's petit but tough and intelligent, in the way that space girls are. She's either in Communications or Engineering I bet.

Happiness

What makes you happy? For me it's music, freedom to creatively express myself and knowing that someone loves me. This lady looks a little scatty but also very happy and comfortable with who she is.

The Compere (pulled by dog)

Imagine, if you will, that this is a radio show. It will take some imagination, I grant that, but work with me. What every show needs is a compere and this is he. He rides into Radioland on his trusty computer swivel chair pulled by his faithful hound. Any suggestions for the name of said hound?

Exercycler

This is me on an exercycle at the gym. It's quite difficult to draw a bicycle, let alone an exercycle, let alone even more a person on any kind of bicycle. Disregard the fact that you can see through my leg there. I'm usually opaque. Maybe I should practice drawing myself first and then draw the bike around me. Oh well.

Anyway, this is a practice run of a few sketches I have in mind for later. Straight from the hyper hypothetical, twisted mind of Tara. :D

Eva Longoria

FHM's Sexiest 100 women continues to provide furtive ground for my drawings.

This time it's Eva Longoria who gets the treatment. According to her bio, she plays Gabrielle Solis in Desperate Housewives. I don't watch that show, so I had no idea who she was when I drew her.