Docutation

In an introductory session I am drawing artist Kerry Morrison as she goes about her consultation along the Spen Valley Way in Cleckheaton. It took awhile to get into the swing of things, I wasn't sure which pen to use and settled for the quickness and immediacy of a black fine liner. I did try using dip pen and ink but that just seemed to attract the attention of a heard of cows who proceeded to lick and cover my trousers in cow saliva, The joy of being outside, eh?

I edited and arranged the text into the layout back at home, free from green fly, other than that all the drawing was done on location in a sketchbook. Some of Kerry's previous work can be seen here and the project has been commissioned by the lovely people at LOCA, Batley, West Yorkshire.

Lecture Sketch

Today, I joined Helen in attending a lecture by Sean Scully at the Leeds Rose Bowl. Helen being a painter knows of Scully's work, I on the other hand know nothing about him. After a few false starts and cocky comments he starts to talk. My sketchbook shows him as an arrogant Southerner contextualising his existance within the world of abstract painters, so it's with a confused heart that I admit to really liking his work.

Wakefield SketchCrawl May 2010

Photos by Dave Hanvey of the first Wakefield SketchCrawl.

Alicante Sketchbook May 2010

 

Alicante Comic Shop

Spent last weekend staying with friends in Alicante, apart from the terrific weather Alicante also has a great comic shop Ateneo Comics.  This emporium is huge with all the stuff you would expect to find in the best of UK comic shops but then multiplied by the power of ten by European bande dessinée .Then Helen found the independent section. At first I thought be cool, it's just another comic shop, think of your hand luggage allowance and the weight you'll be carrying to and from airports. On a shelf dedicated to the likes of Sfar, Gipi and Blain I found these and couldn't resist spending Euros. 'Soy Mi Sueño' is brilliantly illustrated by Pablo Auladell whose blog I have been following for awhile now and just love his ethereal scratchy and loose drawing style. La Voluptuosidad translates to 'The Voluptuousness' and is by comics genius Blutch. Booth books are in Spanish (where's me dictionary) and by coincidence, deal with dreams, which is kind of where I'm at the moment with DaM.

DaM Page 4

DaM Page 4 Pencils

Jack DaM Ref Photos

Found reference photos on my camera that I took in preparation for drawing, and then totally forgot about. This is the scene where Jack enters the undergrowth in search of something to torment. I've been thinking about the strips title. I like the DaM abbreviation but not necessarily the Die at Midnight. 'Dream after Midnight' is an alternative. It's more autobiographical as I obviously didn't die after midnight.

Drawing DaM Page 3

DaM Page 3

DaM Page 3 Pencil

DaM Page 2

Pencils, Page 2

I have time to do my own thing at the moment, so I'm working on my Midsummer Dreams idea 'speculatively' titled Die at Midnight. Here's the raw pencils for page 2, before I twiddle with it in Photoshop and then, belive it or not, Paint.NET where I find the effects to give a nice inky blackness to the pencil work.