Julia's House.

I drew this picture of my windmill collection (classic grown-up start to a sentence) as a donation to an upcoming charity art auction in Bournemouth. Raising money for Dorset-based charity Julia's House, the call was for images based on the theme of childhood.

The playful use of coloured pencil here hopes to signify the ability of children to see the world with a sense of fun and wonder, and how we should attempt not to lose sight of this throughout our life. Not entirely happy with the composition of the image from an illustrative point of view, I was pleased to isolate the mark-making of the smallest windmill and now hope to utilise him in other ways.

The Art from the heART auction will be 2-5pm on Saturday 10th March at Pavilion Dance, Bournemouth. Bunch of Pinwheels will be available to buy alongside a drawing of some Schwinn bicyles (under the moniker of Biker Gang) and the rest of the work donated by mystery local artists.

Thoughts of a Dying Illustrator.

I did these weird drawings today. The former is of coursemates on the coach into Barcelona, the latter of a very panicked looking family making their way from the plane to the airport - windswept and traumatised, all except dad. Mr Smooth.

The middle image is two old ladies that were on a bench opposite me today in Bournemouth gardens. They knew I was drawing them. They were busy-body types looking at all that was going on, with the lady in red clocking me before I even sat down. They seemed intrigued by my actions rather than horrified, testing my bravery by staring me out for short bursts while I pretended to be looking behind them. I found it really difficult to commit to drawing them for long, and in general drawing on location today felt near-impossible as I was focusing on people who were waiting for something (mostly buses). No-one would stay still or there was no way to face them comfortably.
It's rare in our lives that sitting opposite strangers is the done thing. Largely we all face the same way, alongside each other or in rows, avoiding contact and acknowledgement in everyday situations.

~

On top of these ails, I am also ill. It is a very acute form of ill, but I have been consistently ill for about two months now, and it's grating. It's acuteness is also exactly the problem; if it was worse I could go to the doctor and get better, but as it stands I'd just feel like I was whining and they'd probably tell me to have a rest, which I have. After starting to accept this is just a 'new me', one with difficulty breathing through the nose, a consistently sore throat, head-ache and lethargy, I'm now starting to regain hold of that it shouldn't be this way.

I think I might visit the nurse, and tell her what I just told you.
That, and that I'm giving up bread for lent.

Mile High.

Here are some drawings I did on the way to Barcelona this week; in the airport and on the plane.

Ryanair were a fairly annoying airline to fly with, announcing offers of telephone cards, perfumes, scratchcards every ten minutes throughout the journey. However they got me and my classmates to our colourful destination safely and we had an adventurous and wonderful (if not exhausting) stay, walking and sightseeing all day, and eating, drinking and dancing all through the night.
Really wanted to sketch on the return journey too, but after a pitiful 2-hour-sleep it was beyond me. I have 4 films to be developed though, so the imagery shall be rich.

Now the fun is over it's definitely time to catch some of those sacrificed zzzs! Next is some drawings for the next issue of Another Escape :) I'm a lucky one! Have a good weekend everyone.