SPOT the difference.

Apparently it was Eric Clapton's birthday Sunday. I'm a bit slowhand. Joe Ciardiello blew out the candles. 

HONEST HANGINGS.

Sketch pads.

Oh look I've sketched a sleeping person on the underground.   That's the back of a man's head. Here's another of a church. That's a table. That's my boyfriend watching X factor it doesn't really look like him. I use watercolour soluable pencil crayonie pastels, chalk sticks, a feather, my fingers. These were done on my recent visit to the wetlands, this is a gull, no it's a shag, it kept moving. That's an alpaca, they're so cute....a what? A llama... it's not a donkey then? - I always carry a sketch pad. 
Unless of course you go to Syria. Or Afghanistan, Palestine or abbatoirs that sort of thing.
  

Sketchbooks? I do use a sketchbook. I use nothing else. These days it is all I use. I run to it. In private.

Predictably the one type of sketchbook I picked up on is now extinct. Can't get the damn thing. I still ask if they still sell them in the local art shop. I asked again yesterday. And the assistant walks round from behind the counter and towards the sketchpad selection and confirms that, that my choice isn't there, and then they will offer an alternative item... I bleet about the texture of the paper and other technical issues, and sink into a sulk. I do this routine every time I walk into an art shop. I know I can search for the sketchpad on line. I know I can and I do until I find some other misery to distract me from spilling the ink.  Walking The Dog was drawn  out on such a sketch pad. Cheap 10inch square sheets of paper. I've just done a job. In oils for christ sake. In a sketch pad. A portrait of a letter. Finally an art director who commissioned some lettering, in this case one character, a capital J - and offered a fee. Many who commission a drawing who slip in 'oh can you do some of your lettering as well?' recoil in horror if I dare utter the dirty filthy slimy word money as reward for the task. Do they ask a typographer 'oh can you just throw in an illustration as well?' No, no there's no money, can't take you long? You try it art director creative type, you do it. I've seen some disastrous efforts when for whatever reason an art director attempts to mimic my lettering on a job that I've completed for them and they screw it up. Foreign editions of books and advertising clients usually. Long forgotten. Waste of trees. And yesterday late afternoon we're driving up the lane and out of the tree a Jay flew across and in front. Must be an omen I said. Turned out it wasn't. Can you make it brighter?  The waiting email read.

Sketchpads? I draw dogs wearing glasses and cats exposing themselves. Important stuff. 

The dog stinks. I can't smell him. She can. He needs a bath. He's chewing his feet. A fatso woodpigeon is warbling outside the window. It's 6:18am. Corn flakes. 

Memory stick.

LARS HENKEL WALL of DEATH:

Lars Henkel you beauty. The boy put his money where his mouth was and I nestle on a wall in his chamber. I'm hung, drawn and flattered. I can only gawp mouth wide open in admiration at the sane body of work that flows from the boy's brain. Wunderba!

Birgitta Sif.

 Birgitta Sif is shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal Oliver deserves to win, very unique, honest and beautifully observed picture book. And different.

   

Does it make sense? Does that make sense. Yes.

It is deceptive. 7 am Sunday. The sky shiny stiff shirt blue. Yellow olive tree skeletons bending in the chill. Fat wood pigeons breakfasting on shoots. Cooing bloody cooing. Daffodils shoved in a green glass vase in front of the window,  green stems bleeding into wrapped up yellow heads. Stubborn buds won't open their precious tight little petals. Mean little bunch. Norwich City defeated four two should be named the daffodils. They get trampled on. Give me a narcissus any day of the week. Spurn sex and die. Pigeons are getting plenty. I have never seen such gigantic wood pigeons. What they frightened of? Flapping fatsos.  Obese. I must stop eating red meat. I must stop eating yoghurt. I must stop gorging on sardines. I must stop drinking pints of Guinness. I have to eat leaves. I have to eat up my greens. Lovely colour green, England's green and pleasant land. God's colour. Marks and Spencer Waitrose Jolly green giant. Green green grass of home. Run out of petrol. Grass is bloody growing again.  One man went to mow.
Dog, Dexter can't stop scratching. Lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick. Bite bite bite bite gnaw gnaw gnaw gnaw nibble nibble nibble, lick lick lick, slurp slurp slurp slurp slurp slurp slurp slurp. Lick lick snort lick snort. Smack smack smack lip smack lip smack smack smack. Take a breath. Chew chew chew chew chew chew chew chew chew lick lick  gnaw bite gnaw snuffle snuffle bite chew, shut up. Shut up.
Old fashioned drawing, 2008. A former chef and a jockey.Glued with lots of stamps.
  

JOE CIARDIELLO

I got a knighthood from New Jersey or something or whereabouts: Yesterday artist Joe Ciardiello reminded me I used to do a blog. I did.