out of the blue.
Just a quickie. I suddenly had the urge to draw a travel toothbrush. No, I can't explain it either.Labels: around the house, ballpoint, blue
an online sketchbook
Just a quickie. I suddenly had the urge to draw a travel toothbrush. No, I can't explain it either.Labels: around the house, ballpoint, blue
A bit of kitchen kitsch. I've just noticed that this is my 250th post. That seems amazing to me. All those drawings I've drawn, all that rubbish I've written and all the fine folk I've met. Thanks for all the visits and encouragement.Labels: around the house, collection, ink, inventory, moo, sepia
Well, when I posted this, this morning, I was really frustrated with the drawing. And myself. I'd worked on it most of the weekend and had a clear idea of where I wanted to go with it. However, I did not achieve what I'd started out to do. So, this morning, I wrote a really grumpy post. Now, I've had some distance from it, though, I don't feel so bad. It may not have turned out like I'd imagined, but hey, so what?Labels: sepia
As you might imagine, it is a rather sophisticated and professional setup here at AJ head-quarters. Recently, I have relocated my studio - from the armchair to the kitchen table.
Also, recently, I have been rediscovering the work of, a childhood hero of mine, Ronald Searle. His work had such an effect on me when I was a kid. It was around that time I fell in love with illustration. The magic of illustration. I was thinking about all of that when I did the bottom of the two drawings.
I've made a deal with myself; I will not start my new Moleskine until I finish this, first, one. I only have a few pages left, but I can't seem to get it finished. This page had been depressing me for a long time. I'd put the bottle shaped bottle opener in months ago, and then didn't know where to go from there. I added a few bottle tops to the page, then some wood grain, but still it had no real direction. Finally, over the weekend I decided to finish it once and for all. I quite like the result.
I hope you'll all join me in wishing GrIfF a HaPpY sIxTh BiRtHdAy. It's hard to know what to draw a six year old boy, as I'm ToTaLly RuBbIsH at drawing SuPeRhErOs and CaRs. In fact, gRiFf is mUcH MuCh better, at drawing those things, than me. So, I settled, inexplicably, for AlPhAbEtTi on ToAsT. You've got to love aLpHaBeTtI, hAvEn'T yOu? And, you can wash it down with a lovely CuP oF tEa like ThIs OnE.Labels: colour pencil
I had been saving this for a rainy day. Well, it's been a rainy week. The thing, I find, with doing such labour intensive drawings is that you end up feeling totally wiped out when you've completed one. That's how I feel right now. So, I'm going to take a little break from drawing. Maybe just a week or two.Labels: collection, ink, sepia

Labels: collection, ink, sepia
A while ago I asked you if anyone could guess the song that inspired the drawing you can see HERE. The answer was Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails single 'Hurt'. It's a stunningly gorgeous song, great album and, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful videos ever made. You can see that video HERE.
Labels: collection, ink, sepia
I've been kicking about some ideas on the the theme of 'mail', which is how this drawing came about. I don't know how I feel about it. Well, I do, but I won't say! I'm trying desperately hard to be less self critical. I don't think it's very helpful, and sometimes, I think, it sounds like I'm fishing for compliments. Which I'm not. These are just the thoughts that go through my head. The habits of a life time are hard to change.
Here is the first entry that I made in my little Japanese Moleskine (well, as much as I could fit on the scanner anyway) for the Moley Exchange project, that you can read about HERE. And, get this; yesterday this little book arrived at France Belleville's place in New Jersey and today Suzanne Buchanan's Moleskine dropped through my letterbox! How crazy, and fabulous, is that?
I used to be a hoarder. Then some years back I decided to declutter my life. And was quite successful. Then I started drawing. Now I have boxes of stuff. Lots of boxes of little things. I have little boxes for red things, green things, and orange and purple things. I have boxes of badges, bottle tops and buttons. A separate box for novelty buttons. This is a box of tags, labels, tickets and bits of paper. Now I see everything as drawing opportunity. Now I say to people 'oh don't throw that away, I'll save it...' and they just go 'yeah, yeah, to draw'.Labels: illustration friday
Wagonized and I are having a camera-off. It's like a face-off but with drawings of cameras. I lose, dismally, with this dull attempt. I obviously wasn't paying attention at cool school that day. However, France gets top marks for THIS very, very cool drawing of Tom's cool camera.Labels: MoleyX

A few weeks back I was listening to my MP3 player on a long drive home. One particular track, which I've listened to a hundred times or more, was playing and this drawing just popped up in my head. Just like that. This exact drawing. From nowhere. I love it when that happens. It feels like a real gift.