This is not quite the ‘Trooping of the Colour ‘, more like the ‘Trooping of the Black and White ‘. I was asked to wear a Birthday Hat by my youngest grandson, helped my next one to do a painting, and my oldest grandsons did vital work on the crown I was to be wearing. We all paraded and much fun was had by all, especially me. My real Birthday is in October. Continue reading If the King can have two, so can I.
This is one of a lot of drawings I did more than 20 years ago for a signage type of company. The idea was that the drawings would be used, after they had amended suitably, on a CD that customers would buy. They paid me no fees but promised me a royalty on sales. I enjoyed doing the drawings, but to be frank, the royalties would not have bought even a very small camera, or perhaps a small caged budgie. Continue reading Photographer
It started with the photo taken near Tideswell in Derbyshire. Lovely spot. We went there for a week’s holiday some time ago, it was clear and seemed really bright. I took a number of photos and from that week and have done quite a number of drawings from them. There’s a folder on my desktop called experiments and really they all should be titled thus. All the imagemakng is an experiment, I’ve tried a number over the last six or seven years and more on these landscapes. First came the line drawings. I’m at home with black and white line … Continue reading “Boots on Carruthers, we’re off on a new adventure. Step forward my good man”
Taken from a photo some months ago, for full information on the story behind it go here I’ll keep it brief in this scorchio weather. Such a shame that this field is no longer used for cricket, mind you, it’s a game that to me, is not as interesting as watching paint dry. Stay cool! Continue reading Dalai Lama’s cricket field
Close to the Roman Villa at Chedworth. Charcoal on paper, any old paper; I’m not one of those who go on about Japanese-made paper rolled by Tibetan monks, but I draw the line at cardboard boxes. There’s a bloke on Instagram in Australia who paints on nothing else; fine paintings at times ruined by THIS WAY UP print. I’ve told him but he won’t listen. Continue reading River Coln
They were the true journalists, parked out on the streets in any weather, always wearing the same ‘plumage’ of the gaberdine mac and flat hat. Their call was unintelligible to most, but generally horse racing-related, with an ability to keep a small Wild Woodbine stuck and still alight throughout their shouted calls. Unlikly to be seen at all these days. Continue reading Newspaperman
Well in the last heatwave it was me. Nothing culinary, but I was ‘as boiled as a cup of tea ’, as my grandson said. He was right, and I needed several cups of the amber nectar to cool me down. What is it with heatwaves that people suddenly think that a cup of tea won’t refresh your thirst? After all, it comes from India, where they are used to this sort of weather. And as for cooking, it didn’t happen much. No wonder the Spanish don’t open restaurants till after the sun has gone down. It surprises me that … Continue reading What’s cooking?
The last two postings were paintings; this is more in my comfort zone. For the interested, this is drawn on layout paper, then the half tone applied with charcoal or pastel. In the old days I would have coloured it with a Magic Marker, those heady pens that probably did me no good whatsoever, but these days I drop the colour on in Affinity software ( it’s free and a bit like Adobe Photoshop, but Adobe is eye-wateringly expensive, so I’ve gone for this new software: yet another learning curve ) The drawing was done some time ago, and I’m … Continue reading Is this me watching the football on Monday? No,I’ll be asleep…
You may be familiar with the scenario: your child is drawing and painting, with the regulation tongue sticking out towards the nose and deep in concentration. The work looks brilliant; if you leave it, he or she will overwork it, and it will become ‘not the work it was’. You’d like to whip it away, but that might light the blue touchpaper for a mini meltdown from the artist and end with a right Jackson Pollock. I’m sort of at that stage with most of my own paintings. I’m not sure of the direction to go, and there’s no such … Continue reading Finished? No, just started.
It is in Derbyshire and is one of my recent paintings, based on a photograph taken some years ago. Did you know there’s a small factory in Tideswell that manufactures bone dust. True! Continue reading Tideswell
A couple of roughs for a poem written by a writer friend. I was thinking of him in a waistcoat and a flying scarf in the top one, and then made him look more like a Stalinist Bee in the second. I’ve been painting too and am not sure which I should be doing: daft little doodles or attempts at abstract landscapes. A heady mix of both. Why not? Continue reading Squadron Leader B Bumble and the Stingers, should I be doing this?
Paul Davies Cartoons & stuff 