late at night, when the world is dreaming

No matter how much I try to change (and believe me, I've tried everything) I'll always be a night owl. I just love working at that time of night/morning. It seems that at any given time, I'll have a million and one ideas, never focusing on one and seeing it through, swimming through my head too. In last night's midnight creativity session I was playing around with the idea of making a pop-up sketchbook filled with upside-down portraits of women who have left their mark on this world and on me. I know, I know, it's just so predictable. Everyone, and their mother, is at the pop-up-sketchbook-of-upside-down-drawings-of-inspirational-creative-women thing, right?  Erm, oh, just me then?

well my time went so quickly, i went lickety-splickly

 I've just made these really quick sketches whilst watching a series of interviews with Bette Davies. They took a couple of minutes each. It's by doing these fast and furious portraits, from the tv, that I've become comfortable with drawing faces and people. I've made hundreds and hundreds of them over the past few years. They're not amazing. They're not going to set the world alight. But that's not the point. I've learnt so much from doing them, and more than that I really enjoy creating them.

There's another blog post HERE, from two-ish years ago. Back then, it seems, I was still not confident drawing 'real life people'. Which just goes to show how quickly you can build your confidence through practice. Jeez, I'll draw anyone and everyone now - from the big screen to the real life.

resurrected

This has been in one of my sketchbooks for a while. I had no intention of posting it, but with The Stone Roses being all over the news this weekend (well, they are in this neck of the woods) I dug it out. Some time back I found this great photo, in old edition of Q magazine, of Ian Brown. The photo is by Jamie Beeden. I wasn't really looking out for anything to draw but as soon as I saw it I wanted to have a go.

I drew it using the upside down technique - no, I wasn't upside down, I turned the image upside down, see below, and drew it that way up (down?). Everytime I see a great balck and white portrait I want to draw it in that way. Black and white seems easier. With a colour pic it becomes too confusing, too distracting. I know it doesn't look like him. The eyes are huge (they always are when I use this technique. I don't know why?). The mouth is wrong too. Perhaps I shouldn't have even mentioned who it was supposed to be. But hey ho.  And, anyway, if you think this is bad then you should have seen what I did to poor Richard Ashcroft.

jive talking

So, here's the last few drawings, I'll post, of the jiving (thanks, Elaine!) from the day I spent at the1950s event at Crich Tramway Village. This was a really great excercise in drawing people. You have to work quick - especially when the music was as fast and furious as this. Emmercing yourself in the whole atmosphere and getting caught up in the pace, and the beat, comes through in the drawing. I hope. I couldn't get enough of this whole scene; from them rockin on the dance floor to them watching from the sideline, waiting to be asked to dance.

just love

Quite frankly, there won't be much drawing going on around here over the Easter weekend. There will be lots of eating and drinking and laughing but not not much drawing. So I dug out this little portrait I made from a picture in a newspaper. It's one of those upside down portraits and although it looks nothing like the lady it was meant to be (Wallace Simpson!) I kind of like it.

Anyways, have a good weekend whatever you are doing and I'll be back with lots of drawingness next week. Tra!

saying how do you do

In these times of austerity it's sometimes hard to see any positives, but I, for one, have learnt to be less wasteful. Which can only be a good thing. Take these little Moleskine Volant diaries, and for that matter the Staedtler pens, they have been sat on my bookshelf, and in my pencil case, for a couple of years. They would still be there had I not imposed a new 'no more buying sketchbooks or pens until I've used up some of the stuff that I already have' rule (I'm sure there's a catchier title for that rule but, as yet, I've not found it).

As, I said in a previous post I was never quite sure what to do with them. In my opinion, they are impractical as diaries. Anyway, I've come up with the answer; TV drawing.

Judge Judy

When I'm not doing my usual highly laboured drawings I like to teach myself new things. When it comes to drawing I want to learn learn learn.

The funny thing is, when I was a kid I only ever drew people. Every time I doodled it would be people I'd doodle. Somewhere along the way I stopped doing that. Then when I took up drawing again, a few years back, I focused on objects and the everyday thing that we surround ourselves with.

Mastermind

So, I've been getting back into drawing people by doing these very quick sketches whilst watching TV. Sometimes I get totally carried away with it. Sketching every face that pops up on screen. I think I've filled about ten of the little Volant books so far.

I think I've learnt a lot by sketching in this way. It's almost the opposite to the way I normally draw. You never know how long that person has on screen so you have to work fast.

Oldschool Judge Judy

It's also good for those of us who might not yet be confident about sketching 'real life people'. Nobody is going to say "I don't look like THAT"!

Obviously, there are some programme's that are better than others. Some of my favourites include Mastermind (each contestant/model sits for two rounds, and you get two different camera angles), BBC News 24 (for the news reader and people they interview), Judge Judy (the camera focuses on both the plaintiff and defendant for a good length of time plus you feel less guilty about watching it if you have a reason like drawing), Question Time and I actually believe that I must be one of the only people in the country (I've never met another one yet) who watches the Parliament Channel.

Parliament Channel

There is the odd occasion when I do pluck up the courage to draw a 'real life human being' but it does help if they are asleep!

The train to Sheffield

I've uploaded a whole bunch of these people sketches (portraits, even!) to Flickr. You can see them HERE.

raising the spirit of peace and love

I've been playing the Plastic Ono Band album for about 6 months now. I'm completely obsessed with it. And, it hadn't even occurred to me that there were two significant anniversaries taking place this year. It's hard to imagine John as a 70 year old man. I guess he'll always be 40. And then there's today's anniversary. 30 years since his death. I remember hearing he had died before I left for school. I didn't know then how much he would come to mean to me later in life when I fell in love with music and, of course, the Beatles.

When I came into this world the Ballard of John and Yoko was top of the charts. That makes me happy.

no longer boyish

Here's a quickie. I did it quite some time ago. Probably, er, around the beginning of the year (yeah, the clue is in the drawing). It's another of those upside down portraits. Where you turn the portrait, you are copying from, upside down and draw it that way. As opposed to turning yourself upside down. That would be silly.

I copied from the cover of Rufus Wainwright's Poses album cover. Again, all the clues are all in the drawing.

I think he looks a bit girlie in it. And a bit younger. But I'm sure he wouldn't mind.

the day you happened to come by

I am so addicted to drawing people at the moment. I just cannot stop. These were all drawn on a block of post it notes, which I obsessively finished within a week. There are a hundred or more mini portraits all drawn from the TV. The challenge, I find, is not just a different subject matter, but the amount of time you have to draw. My trademark drawings are highly finished highly laboured pieces, so trying to draw something - someone - in a minute or two is part of the challenge but also part of the excitement.

Old politicians:

BBC news readers:
People from daytime TV:

and a couple of national treasures:

I still haven't plucked up the courage to draw real live people in real life. I mean, that would mean going outdoors, being in the company of people and all sorts of things that are alien to me. But that's the next step. So for now I'll keep drawing folk off of the TV.

Please don't mock me. These people are my only friends.

and it's you and it's me

I love it when one post inadvertently flows neatly into the next. This one is connected to my last post in a couple of ways. Not just visually, via Anah's gorgeous pink portrait. But, also I got this block of post-it notes in Bologna. In fact, Anah got it for me. She was very very good at getting all the freebies and at the Fair there were lots of freebies to be had.

I completely forgot I had these post-it notes until I stumbled across them last week. Since then I have obsessively drawn these very quick portraits of girls, until I'd finished the block. They are all ladies that I work with or from tv. Jacqueline Wilson is probably the only recognisable one. There's also a self portrait in there somewhere. Each one took about a minute or two.

It was an interesting little project and is something I am going to do more of from now. Not post-it note portraits specifically. But drawing people. When I was a kid I only ever drew people, I don't know why I stopped. So that's another of my drawing resolutions. Not just for the New Year but for life.

girl

Still trying to sort out my technical issues. Thanks for the advice which, essentially, was 'try turning it off and back on again'. I have tried that. I've even 'switched it off at the wall', but it hasn't worked. Hmmmm. I have a temporary fix so that I can make some posts over the next few days, but I think that it is just temporary.

Anyway, for now, here's a girl. On a post it note.
A post it note portrait. And here's a previous post poem (if you don't know what I'm talking about just take a look at titles to the previous posts);

Girl,
I'm walking down your street again.
Singing with my feet.

The world is turning, but I get so blown away.
I know that's who you are.

I want you, I want you so bad.
It's written in the stars.

i know that's who you are

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting to be posting this as my Christmas drawing. No, siree. I was trying out some more of those upside down portraits. This motley crew were copied from the newspaper and my dvd collection.

As you can see, at the beginning of this exercise I kept getting confused and getting the book the wrong way up. I absolutely LOVE this exercise, though. Not only are you drawing but you have a real good laugh, too. What can be better than that?

They are all, unbelievably, celebrities. I'd LOVE to hear if you think you might be able to name some. There are the obvious ones; Swelling (as I used to think she was called) Ewing, Boris Johnson (was that obvious, I don't know?). And, then there are some...well...if you could name them, not only would I eat my hat I'd give you my...er...car?

Happy Happy Christmas, one and all.

(Disclaimer: I will NOT really give you my car)