Yesterday afternoon i took the boys to a jubilee party at the British Legion. It was good fun, but the strange children’s entertainer they had hired finished off his show with a performance of Mr Punch. I’ve never sat through a whole Mr Punch play before, and i found it all a bit disturbing! Firstly Mr Punch was introduced to the audience - a girl in the front row was asked to come up and bow to Mr Punch, at which point he struck her on the head with his killing stick. Then to get her revenge, the girl was asked to beat Mr Punch on the head with his stick. “Harder!” the man cried, “HARDER!”, at which point all the kids joined in. “HARDER! HARDER!” It was horrible.

The story was a bit garbled and frenetic, but from what i could gather, the long suffering Judy is involved in a self destructive relationship with the psychopathic Punch. He tries to knock her out regularly, but she’s wise to his ways and has learned how to avoid a pasting. Instead, she asks him to look after the baby. (Their baby? Her baby? A kidnapped baby?) I couldn’t work out what happened after that, but it involved Punch beating a policeman to death, where he then got dragged to hell by Beelzebub who he ALSO managed to murder, and then there was some sort of nonsense with a crocodile and some sausages. The whole thing was very dark and sinister, made worse by the chanting, braying kids, who by the end were so impressed with Mr Punch’s bloodlust that they were chanting “PU-UNCH clapclapclap PU-UNCH clapclapclap”. I think they just thought it was really cool that he got away with it all, which i suppose is quite rare these days.

I love this!

sophiafosterdimino:

( №. ≻   [⁍ᴥ⁍]

(via kerinjo)

Hello. I am David gilmour. (Taken with instagram)

I’ve just finished the drawings for a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood, as part of Boxer Books Story House series. The book is aimed at the very young, so i had to skirt around the whole “man kills wolf and retrieves grandmother from wolf’s guts” issue. I’ve drawn the mssing image and uploaded it for posterity here, for which i am very sorry. 

Had a great night with the mrs last night. Went to a private view at Firstsite, then made the most of having no kids for the evening by slinking home, drinking too much wine and having a good old sing up. Here’s us doing one of my tunes about a kid losing his marbles in the wild.

I realise i haven’t posted any new work online for AGES, despite being completely flat out over the last few months. My little pencil hand has been like a pink mist. I THINK i’m allowed to post up some images of the stuff i’ve been working on now though. If this post disappears in a couple of days, you’ll know i was wrong.

The bulk of my time has been spent on a series of 4 books called MONSTROUS STORIES. They’ve been really good fun - very silly tales about mutated pets rampaging through American towns. They were for Boxer Books. Here’s a couple of them from Boxer’s Autumn catalogue….

Also for Boxer i’m working on a re-telling of little Red Riding hood. I’m REALLY enjoying these, and have completely fallen in love with the wolf. I was GUTTED when he cashes in his chips at the end. It was like Game of Thrones all over again. Here’s a sneaky peaky…

I’m also illustrating a book that’s been written by a local author, set on Mersea Island. It’s going to be a very pleasant summer drawing boats and swirling sea mists. Lovely. Here’s a VERY EARLY pencil sketch…

And finally, i’ve just sent over some character samples to a VERY WELL KNOWN children’s author. Can’t say anything yet, but it’s proper exciting.

Lovely video for a dreary Tuesday morning. I’ve gone from 0 to inspired in ten minutes!

drawnblog:

Here’s Quentin Blake demonstrating, step by step, how he makes the illustrations for his books.

It’s from this great page on his website, How I Draw, in which he describes the process a little more:

In the attempt to combine planning with an air of spontaneity I’ve employed various techniques of which the one I have found most successful, and have used for the last thirty years, makes use of a light box.

…

What happens next is not tracing; in fact it’s important that I can’t see the rough drawing underneath too clearly, because when I draw I try to draw as if for the first time.

Lots of work on at the moment. Great/scary. (Taken with instagram)

FASHION TROUSERS (Taken with instagram)

I was recently asked to do the CD artwork for Tom Parke’s most excellent country/rock/soul outfit The Ghost Train Porters. I had fun doing it, and have just received the final printed copies through my letterbox. I am thrilled with how they turned out. I was a bit anxious that the concept of having the burned-out fire being revealed when you take away the CD wouldn’t work , but it does!

And not only is the packaging great, but the music is fantastic too! Tom’s lyrics are excellent - he creates such a sense of place and story with his songs, and they have just the right mix of wit and pathos. Plus the band play great (and there’s a pretty good bit of harmonica playing on track 7….)