... and three attempts at Emma...

I was quite happy with the first drawing I made of Emma (bottom) until J. pointed out that the hatching on her face made her look a bit, erm, 'excessively wrinkled'. It's certainly over-hatched. I find it really difficult to apply hatching to women's faces without making them look ugly, or old, or hairy. I think the strokes need to be shorter and finer — maybe drawn with a different sized nib to the one I usually use.

Anyway, I redrew the picture and initially, I thought it was an improvement on the original. What was I thinking? It's TERRIBLE. I gave her a really fat neck and tiny squinty eyes that she doesn't have in real life. At least, they weren't there when I last looked.

So, preferring to salvage what I could of the first attempt rather than go for a third version, I scanned in the original drawing, deleted the offending marks with my digital eraser, printed out a copy and rehatched the affected areas. The new version isn't markedly different from the old, but I'm much happier with it. We'll just have to see what the reaction from the Earth Mother is. And if she's mortally offended by it, I'm not too concerned about any physical retribution. She's in Uganda. Heh, heh.

it took four attempts to get graham right...

sketchbook

Another double page spread from the A4 sketchbook I'm currently working in.

I sat in the Casson's back garden one afternoon and drew an enormous tree they have there (a sycamore, if memory serves me correctly). It took me about four hours to get most of the drawing done and then I returned to it periodically over the weekend to fill in the rest of the leaves.

Initially, there was a lot of heavy hatching on the shed as I tried to capture the cast shadow of the tree but I put so much in that you couldn't see the wood (en shed) for the tree and I had to remove quite a lot of detail with a tippex pen. It's better for it.

sketchbook

An A4 sketch from a couple of weeks ago. This is the first chance I've had to scan it in though, as I needed to utilise the A3 scanner at work.

J and I went up to North Yorkshire for the weekend to spend some time with the Earth Mother and the rest of the Casson brood. We met Graham (the Casson paterfamilias) outside a London train station and he kindly drove us all the way to sun-baked Northallerton for a thoroughly splendid couple of days. The food was incredible, the weather amazing (they'd turned the heating back on since I was last up North) and the company as friendly a bunch of people as you could hope to meet. Thanks to all concerned for their many kindnesses, especially Marion and Graham.

With regards to the drawing above, I'd intended to fill the whole double spread with inky scratches (good name for a blog that) but I got a little car sick after completing the right hand page and had to stop.

As always, click on the above to see a larger version. More Yorkshire-inspired sketches to follow over the coming days...

big cp to the ijc

alex cox

frank sidebottom r.i.p.

So sad to hear the news that Chris Sievey aka Frank Sidebottom passed away at the weekend. Sadder still to hear that his family were now struggling to pay for the funeral costs. Still, it was heartening to read that a fund has been set up asking fans for donations and this now stands at £18,000. Any surplus cash will go to cancer charities.

On a lighter note, you can remind yourself how fantastic Frank Sidebottom was by listening to the various podcasts at:

http://www.radiotimperley.com/

and you can download these for free through iTunes. You know you must. You really must. Thank you.