How I Feel Today, Part The Two: Prison Country

I'm enjoying this, even if it is slighty detrimental to what I'm supposed to be doing today!

Just like yesterday I woke up, coffee'd and drew. "Prison Country" is what I've come up with. My goodness... I hope no one with psychological knowledge is following this.

How I Feel Today

Me woke up. Me draw. Me post. Ugg.

I had a booking that finished early, creative artworking stuff, and so I decided to go out last night, see a band, and have a couple jars.

Woke up this morning, a little heavy of head mainly due to the junk food I decided to consume at late o'clock last night. Really. Junk food makes me feel proper lousy, beer not so much. Sugar. That's the key. So, the first thing I did this morning (after coffee and good bye kisses) was pull out a sheet of rubbishy 80gsm, my pen and markers and produce this.

So there. Oh, and when I scanned it, I called the file "How I Feel Today" as I had to name it somefink. Nice. Might try this tomorrow as I'm working from home again.

Pet Peeves: Flying

Now I feel this is a little cheeky as I actually really like flying. I feel great sympathy for people who have a desperate dread of air travel as I totally understand why you would feel uneasy in the air.

I remember the first time I traveled with Mr Iain Welch, a man who really, really dislikes flying. Iain, a great bear of a man, chooses to deal with his fear by plonking himself down in his humorously mismatched plane seat, opening a book and reading with a pathological intensity until the plane opens it's doors on the other side.

Oh and my favourite part of this? The slightly cocked eyebrow he raises at every bump of turbulence that says "don't you dare screw me around, pal".

Get The Spaceman!

Not much to say... Freelance Creative Artworking, my day job, has gone quite frankly mental over the last couple weeks so I haven't been able to do much drawing. Although what I have been doing is messing around with markers. This is one of my experiments. So there. Bosh.

Heavy Head

Oh yes, "heavy". This reminds me of the challenges I faced when suffering from the little known "Giant heavy head" disease, a fate which I would wish on no man (or woman).

The most embarrassing part of "Giant heavy head" disease or in fact any vaguely humorous made up illness is where you go to a lab and get prodded by 6 identical scientists for possible "defense" applications. Of course GHHD would be of little use to a soldier useless they wanted to provide "head shot" target practice for the enemy, but those military scientists have to earn a buck somehow!

Now, I've been inside way too long today so I'm going out for a pint and some of that fresh London rain! Fancy one?

Dracula's Garden

Gardens eh? Gardens are big public places where people walk dogs, Nannies walk multi-language speaking richly attired kids, bankers play football and occasionally you bump into giant rock concerts.

Ok, so living near Holland Park in London may have tainted my views but I do miss the public garden drunks, muggers and drug abusers of my youth. Ok, not that much. If I turn left out of my building rather than right I can still get my junkie and mugging fix. Maybe one day I'll get my own garden and I can set up both situations and see which one thrives! I just see the Nannies forming a defensive corral against the junkies, banded together by their city boy leaders...

Of course that's a much better idea than the one I've done but never mind. Well, it's a much bigger idea anyway. Oh, the stress of choosing what to focus on...

Final Board Meeting

Back in the studio again after what feels like months (in reality a week or so) after freelancing in various studios around town.

Last week at some point I decided to do a final version of this sketch. It's dragged on, but the main thing is I finally finished it this morning, so here it is!

More to come over the next couple days. I'm a illustration producing machine I tells ye!

Men, Women & Music

Double post today! My goodness...

This image is another piece of portfolio filler, or booster if you like. I guess booster's a little more positive! It's based on this article debunking (good word...) a theory put forward by Lesley Douglas, the BBC's co-ordinator of popular music.

"According to Douglas, men and women listen to music differently. Women are more likely to interact with music emotionally, whereas men - walking calculators, all of us - hear it on an intellectual, analytical level".

I respond to music emotionally for sure. In fact I have to go and hide in the pit at Thursday gigs because as soon as the first chordal explosion of raw emotional emo power blasts from the speakers I start wailing and flailing like a infant loosing a prized spinning duck thingie (when was the last time you saw a rattle?). Apparently, I like the author, am not alone.

"Across the country, there are millions of men who react to music very emotionally just like me. I have seen men breathless with emotion at gigs by Doves or the Verve, overcome with something at the proximity to Morrissey; grown men in tears at gigs by Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson. I have seen Liverpool hardcases emerge with tearstained faces from a gig by Joe Strummer. I haven't been to many gigs where male voice choirs emit a unified cry of "But isn't the middle eight bonzer?"

So there. Were all whimps and we've admitted it. Are you happy now? See these tears? Do you see 'em!

Also, apparently, women are pretty good at this analytical stuff. Who'da thunk it?

"There are now scores of female rock journalists, many of whom are capable of stripping a song down to its nuts and bolts as well - and in some cases a lot better - than us blokes, as well as relating to the music's emotional impact."

So there. We're all great and therefore undemographicable (ha! There's the longest word I'll make up this week). I guess musical co-ordinators up and down the globe will cease to pigeon hole the population and stick people into nice little groups and... oh.

Oh well.

Learning to Make a Leap of Faith

Continuing my "business" themed IF posts.  Not a finished image today, just a marker sketch that I did over the weekend.

Getting businesses to change their approach to design, or anything is a super tricky job. In my experience you spent most of your time arguing against "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!". 

Define "broken"...