The PILLBOX: PROOF.

Title page 1:  Sketch. Proofs sitting on the scar faced desk top of an unemployed commercial artist for hire. The Pillbox. A 'graphic novel' to be published this August by Jonathan Cape/Vintage.
Practice makes perfect, as the piano teacher used to point out with her sharp yellow pencil with a rubber tip.

Yesterday on a sunny day I painted two large panels of garden trellis - my paint brush dipping and dabbing took four hours. A buzzard circled and swooped high overhead. Today it is cooler. One more panel. I have cramp in my right thumb.  

Standing Ovation.

Mediocre photo credit: David Hughes.

Saw song writer Jimmy Webb in concert last week in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England for God's sake! He talked a lot about his life and performed a selection of his classic songs - Galveston, Wichita Lineman, By The Time I get to Phoenix, MacArthur Park. He reminded me of myself, I like to think, good humoured but under pinned with bitterness on his history in the music industry, the record companies, the rip offs, the crooks  the missed opportunities perhaps, but interlaced with great stories featuring Richard Harris, Glen Campbell, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson. Two hours in the company of a genius. An honest beautiful performance. Shame the hall was only two thirds full. Webb and just his piano produced an incandescent operatic version of MacArthur Park, a record that I've both loathed and grown to like in a kind of ironic fashion but seeing and hearing the composer playing like his life depended on it was an unforgettable and privileged experience. Goose bumps and hair raising shivers. 

Here endeth my humble opinion.

I know. I know. I said this blog was dead.

1991: The Observer Magazine: I wouldn't know where to begin these days.......... conceptually, technically, artistically, etc - just saying. Driven by lack of time, juggling the clock, fuelled by adrenaline. Backed by an art editor who kept the faith  - Graham Mitchener. Used to get mail asking if I was on drugs. High on fumes. 

The Pillbox: Proof.

Endpaper 1: The Pillbox 

Mixed media.

From my next picture book, The Pillbox. The next instalment exclusive from the publishers of Walking The Dog, Jonathan Cape.  In the shops later this summer already on Amazon. Set in the East of England.