Anyone looking at my blogs will know how much I like sheds. This one is on the Orkneys, so we’ve moved on from the Canada pictures and are onto the Orkney ones now. So don’t expect any more trees for a while, there are none, or very few, on the Orkneys. The final print of this ought to have brown, blue and green in there but I tend to make up my mind differently and not necessarily follow the colours in the photo, otherwise I’d just publish the photo. I might even do that, when the whole project is finished, … Continue reading “Oh so much!” Number 6

The last of my Canada drawings for the time being. Again this is near Ucluelet. It’s been a lot of fun doing these and I hope I do the place justice when it comes to producing the colour print versions. This one will have much darkness in the foregropund like this has on the leaves and trees, but I need to go a lot of work on the bits between the trees and to the right to make it work properly. In addition, there was a sea mist in the top left, not sure just yet quite how I’m going … Continue reading “Oh so much!” Number 5

Vancouver Island again, this time of the coast. Again a lot to do to get the atmosphere, but I like a challenge. If you’ve not been to Vancouver Island then go there, this is near Ucluelet, which is pronounced a little bit like “You clue less!” but with a ‘t’ on the end. Great place and the coast around there is very varied, very bracing and the people were lovely. Loads of hippies from the US went there in the 60’s to avoid the draft and Viet Nam, quite a lot have stayed, so it’s ‘cool man’. Continue reading “Oh so much!” Number 4

This is a chip van on Vancouver Island. All these drawings are taken from my photographs and this one was a bright blue summer day. The van was miniscule and the lady in there was sitting in a corner reading a book, I did not like to disturb her! Business was slow. Continue reading “Oh so much!” Number 3

This one’s in Canada too! There is much to do here to get the right atmosphere into the final print or prints. As you will see with all of these, they are all a little two dimensional and I intend to get the feel of distance into the final with the use of colour, added digitally. Like all these drawings, it has a way to go yet! Continue reading “Oh so much!” Number 2

Some of these might not make the cut, as they say in golf. Not that I’m the slightest bit interested in golf, a good walk spoiled! This is the first of a series of drawings and these are the originals, which I’ll spread over the next few days. This one is a view out of Canmore, from a holiday we took there a couple of years ago now. I’m intending to make prints of all those that pass muster, but they all need some digital interference before they get to the finishing line, or the eighteenth hole! They are all … Continue reading Oh so much to do!

Just some of the things we saw today. It would seem that the draught we have been having over here, only recently relieved by a smidgin of heavy rain, has done nothing to stop the abundance of sloes in Somerset. Walking down the Strawberry Line today, an old railway track that is now used as a cycle track and footpath, my chum Richard and I came across some wonderful sloes. They looked like bunches of healthy grapes on the ‘trackside’. Hopefully, someone will find a use for them. As I understand it they are wild members of the plum family. Mr and … Continue reading Sloe walk, sore feet, and Winston Churchill on a bike.

I went to his wedding all those years ago and I’ve seen him quite often ever since. We shared ‘accommodation’ in Manchester at Art College. My memory of him in Manchester is him turning up on the first day in a black and white checked jacket and red trousers! I helped him and his new wife Eileen to move to Kent after our time in Manchester, I drove the truck carrying him and his belongings and furniture on the condition that we skirt the Centre of London This was years before the M25! As we approached Baker Street I turned to him … Continue reading What does 50 years of marriage do to a chap? Don’t ask me, ask him!

I’ve had some very pleasant responses to my recent series of drawings and was particularly gratified by a remark from my good friend Rosalind Forster who is a printmaker of note, who suggested that I offer some of them for sale on Artfinder. I explained that the colour versions are locked in digital netherland and exist only as digital files so far, unless I make them into prints and offer them, which I might! My intention at the outset was to try and replicate screen prints. I love screen prints, but have neither the aptitude or the funds to go down that … Continue reading Orkney Washing, where to from here?

This is in Scotland, and is the last of the ‘proper drawings’ for the time being. I hope you enjoyed them. I feel a need to do some more of this stuff, and take a break from cartoons. Most cartoonists can do more than draw cartoons. In fact, I’d say that all of them can do more than that. The ones I know are painters, sculptors, photographers, designers, graphic designers, website designers, typographers, art directors, animators, writers, teachers, jewellery makers and designers, cooks and bottle washers. But by far and away the most respectable of these skills is, to my mind, … Continue reading ‘Proper drawing 10’

Miserden in Gloucestershire. Closer to home. Continue reading ‘Proper drawing 8’