Thursday 31 July 2014

The biggest illustration ever I did. 1997


This was enormous. For an illustration drawn in ink. Bigger than Tracy Emin's 'Iconic' unmade bed. Bigger than Shoreham By Sea's aerodrome. Bigger than Shoreham By Sea.  Had an aircraft to itself. In fact this was the aircraft. It glided across the pond to Entertainment Weekly magazine in New York. Across the Atlantic Ocean. Ink and watercolour and a stamp. Non - porno. No commercial value. Protected. Wrapped in layers of stiff cardboard. Strapped with reels of gaffa tape. Sealed with wax. Sealed with glue. Transported to America. A shadow over Greenland. Newfoundland. Bigger than a flying fortress. In 1997. Big. Too big for the studio. Courier couldn't stick it under his arm. Impossible to fold. It took hours just to build an envelope to put it in. Label it Fragile. Before the scanner. Took it to Ron the printer in the high street to photocopy it in twenty six parts. Ron would out moan me for the gold medal. Probably fed the fax machine to show the art editor it's progress in instalments. Two rolls of fax paper. I took a polaroid  of Elton John singing Candle in the wind at Princess Diana's funeral on the television for reference. Didn't get paid as much for it as Tracy Emin's 'Iconic' unmade bed. The original piece now hangs on a wall near Preston in Lancashire. Had to demolish the lobby to get it in position. Diversions on the A59. Had to close the country lanes to traffic to transport it to it's new home. Near The Inn at Whitewell. In the Ribble Valley Lancashire. In England. That was the nineties. Since 2005 when I converted to digital, it's all digital delivery. It's all memory stick, no fragile labels to stick. A59? It's all less than A3. If I had any work. That's history. Bye gone days. Anyone for golf. Anyone live in the East? Fancy a weekly walk, chasing a little white ball with a set of sticks. Putting the little white ball into a hole eighteen times. Handicap? I was  an illustrator.  

Wednesday 30 July 2014

Stanley Plumly 2010:



I'm still here. I am trying to continue on an illustration theme as a subject. From the archives. There was a young hare visiting the garden this morning. There is a dead blackbird lying on the kitchen roof. Collided with a window. 


Tuesday 22 July 2014

SWAN SURGERY:


8:52. Blood test failure. Go back six places miss a turn. One hour wasted won't get that back.  I should be drawing more important subjects. Drawing what really matters. Drawing is such fun. Keeps me out of jail.

Tuesday 15 July 2014

Not to scale:



Scorch. Hot. Sweaty. To the rear of Goodge Street tube station.  Excuse me....... can you tell me where Tottenham Street is?  The middle aged armed policeman replied Tottenham Court Road?  The middle aged armed policeman replied to the sweaty cretin standing alongside his response vehicle. In the intense mid afternoon heat I tweaked the end of the middle aged coppers nose and smacked the middle aged chump about his thick middle aged head as his younger colleague located my intended destination on his mobile phone. (My mobile phone of course is on a protest go slow and is currently as much use as a choc ice in the pocket). I was less than  a 100 yards from my destination, still it was a brief illuminating detour.

Empty gallery. Had to ring a buzzer. Almost gave up when a friendly face let me enter to stare at the walls for my own personal private view. Drops of sweat staining the gallery floor forming maps of exotic warring territories dripping new borders - which was kind of appropriate as I was marvelling at self described mapmaker Katherine Baxter's small but extraordinary exhibition. And she uses a Rotring pen.........

Dexter was hysterical when I arrived home. It's tragic. It's  official, Dexter is senile. Me as well. Cooked a burger. Swigged a lager. Green salad. Coleslaw, chips. Sat outside. Felt exhausted. Opened the post. Folio Society send me some Juvenal postcards and an empty paged Juvenal hardback book  with nice ivory paper with a suggestion I can make use of it as a sketchbook. Nice thought. I won't though. I have two more just like it already. A Mark Twain and a Robert Graves. Unmarked graves more like. 


Wednesday 9 July 2014

Fritz.


Maestro Kreisler with Wire hair fox terrier from the postal district of Vienna. He didn't play Bach.