The Letters

I am brimming over with creative ideas right now. Here's another one that I'm bringing to life. I have no idea if it'll work but I'm going to give it a shot. 'Teddy' is the first in a series of letters, each one is a little piece of flash fiction. But, this is flash fiction graphic novel style. Yes, (I've just realised that) I've created a whole new genre. 

The thing that excites me about this idea is (hopefully) how it will unfold in front of me. Now, I am pretty sure that this is not the correct way to go about writing a story, but, I've been creating stories in this way for a couple of years in my Drink & Draw series. In these events, through models, poses and props, I tell a story for sketchers to draw. These stories always unfold, change and take unexpected twists as each model brings their own thing to it, plus poses may need to be cut, on the night, because of timing, that kind of thing. The changes then inform what happens in the next episode.

I recently read the Stephen King book 'On Writing', in which he described how a story should take you on the journey, rather than the other way around. I completely relate to that, it is actually the way I used to build my big drawings too. I'd let them tell me what to do next. I love the idea that a story has it's own life and you're just there to get it on paper. It would be a dull process if it wasn't that way, I think.

Now I'm not sure he'd recommend putting your first bit of the story out there before anything else has been written, but I'm experimenting here. During the time I was creating this letter all sorts of ideas about who the letter was from and who it was too came up. I think I always knew these characters but during this process I got to know them a lot better. And so, the next letter kind of wrote itself.

Anyway, enough talk. 'Teddy' is available HERE.

Thanks for calling by my blog.

Back to Skool

You know every now and then I catch up with the world. Or the rest of the world catches up with me. It's all about how you look at it, I suppose. Well, there seems to be a real thirst for creative lettering out there, and if you're feeling thirsty I have the answer for you. I have a brand new lettering course starting at Sketchbook Skool right NOW!!

A whole month of daily exercises that'll improve your hand lettering. So, if you'd like to find out how to do this....

or this....

or this...

then head on over HERE now. What are you waiting for?

extreme procrastination by Andrea Joseph

So quick, while I'm on a roll, and before I notice, I'm going to blog. I'm only doing it to avoid doing something else, obviously. I've spent months procrastinating to avoid blogging and now I'm blogging to avoid doing something else I should be doing. We're all nuts though, right?

I get quite a lot of students studying my work. Which is ridiculous and fabulous at the same time. And, I often get asked to answer questions and stuff, but I really just do not have the time to answer all those individual questions. I'm sorry about that. If I had the time I would (or, actually, I'd probably like to answer them but, if the truth be told, I'd still avoid doing it because of my terrible case of procrastination). Here are some questions I've been asked recently and answered in a kind of less boring way than just typing them out on a keyboard.

So, if you are a student doing research, or just a person reading a blog, this is a little insight into how I work. Now, I'm going to press publish, or this post will sit in my drafts folder for the next few years. 

One last thing though, if you do go on to read all the nonsense in the drawing below and are curious as to whether I did actually finish the project that I was going to start and actually finish...

...of course I DIDN'T!

Have you learnt nothing???

Nora

 Hi folks, I have a small, limited edition, set of these bag and badge ('button' in the US?) sets for sale.

The tote bags feature my illustration of Nora Hildebrandt, the original tattooed lady, on the front and back.

 The badges feature a couple of examples of my drawings and a couple of examples of my lettering work.

Also, I'm making a donation, from each set sold, to MacMillan Cancer Support, who I am fund raising for this month - by being sober!

 

You can get your paws on them HERE. Merci!

for such a long time now

Oh folks, my technology issues continue. But, as bored and frustrated as I am with it all, I'm not letting it get me down. No.

It's giving me more time to draw, create and make some new products ('citing!).

Still haven't got around to cleaning though, as you can see.

So yeah, I'm coping.

Missing you guys though.

i drag my feet like everyone

Why do I find a broken bench so moving? Yes, because I'm a bit odd. And, yes, I'm a hyper-sensitive fool. But, apart from that, why is it so moving?

And, one more thing; whatever happened to Gomez? They were amazing.

and we remember

On Saturday our lovely Sketchcrawl North group spent the day drawing at the Imperial War Museum in Manchester. Well, Salford to be precise. It's a brilliant place for sketching. There are drawing opportunities around every corner. I absolutely must have visit again.

At the end of our sketchcrawls we gather to share our sketchbooks with each other. I was surprised how little I'd done (too much chopsing) but when I got home I pimped up the line drawings I'd sketched at the museum and produced two of the best journal spreads I've made in a long time. In my opinion, that is. This is not one of them. I'll post them together tomorrow. This Trabant is just a little taster.

To balance it out I also produced one of the worse drawings I've ever made, too. Funnily enough, I won't be posting that.

it ain't necessarily so

Previously I mentioned that I thought that end-paper artist would be one of the most the perfect jobs for me. Here's another; font designer. I couldn't be happier than when I am playing around with words and letters.

One of the reasons it's taken me so long to post this drawing is that, as some of you may know, Blogger have been making changes. And, apparently it's now much easier to make posts. Apparently so.