Art Post

Hello there

Couple of art bits for you today, as I've been getting a bit obsessive on that front.

I actually go into more detail about that in tomorrow's Cabin Fever podcast, but I wanted to show you some of the artwork I have been doing for Kim's book over the last couple of weeks.  There's actually only two pieces, and you'll see why they've taken so long.

First though, as promised, here are the tattoos I was commissioned to draw for some folk who definitely haven't thought this through...

That's me drawing it...

And that's what I drew.  They are matching tattoos for an anniversary present.  Yes, I know all the reasons that it's a bad idea but it's too late now because they had them done yesterday. I actually drew, I think, 12 different designs and they chose which they wanted, but I'm going to keep them secret in case anyone else commissions me to do one and I can just pretend that they have all been done special.  Gotta think ahead on these things.

Right, onto the book drawings.

So quick recap, Kim wrote a book a little while ago, and I recently volunteered my services as an illustrator because she is poorly.  If she'd been fine I'd have still been saying "I'll try and do something next week", so there's a lesson to be learnt there if you're ever trying to hurry me along.

I shan't give any details about the book itself, other than what's in the pics, but I've been working extra hard on them.  To the point of - as I said -  being a bit obsessed in all honesty.  I wanted to do some stylised stuff (broadly speaking) that had as much minutiae in it as possible, so I've been spending long hours drawing tiny bits.

I think that must be something I have in me anyway, given that most of my drawing for Etsy etc is literally made up of millions of dots.  Dunno what that's about.  Exercising/honing patience or something?

The first one is a key location in the story, and we spoke a while a lot about what this should look like.  Her description in the book is deliberately incongruous, as the character describing it says it is beautiful and scary.  When I was up in Cumbria the other week I took a ton of reference pics of houses, but ironically the house I ended up basing this on (I've changed it a lot) is a couple of miles from my own house.  

This has made me think that I could be pro-active and go knock on people's doors saying "DO YOU WANT TO PAY ME TO DRAW YOUR HOUSE?" 

If only to see how long it would be before the police are called.

As the name plate suggests, this is Holly Cottage, a focal base location in her story.

I think I told you on a Cabin Fever that when I visited her we spent several hours sat down talking through images.  One of the things I suggested was having a quaint map of the village where everything takes place.  She was basically telling me what needed to be in the drawings and I was drawing them.  In case you were wondering who was in charge on that day...

That there is what I drew when she was barking her orders.  And I have literally just spotted that in my finished version I have missed something out, so I need to definitely include that.  

Can somebody remind me?

Right let's go through it bit by bit, because I did draw it incrementally and it's worth having a look at the component parts close up as they are tiny in the finished piece.

That's the same house as the one above, but shrunk down in a re-draw.  Obviously not as detailed at that size.

I won't go through saying what these all are because they're labelled anyway.

I should say I particularly loved doing this row of shops.  Inventing them aesthetically and all that.

You'd be amazed how difficult it is to design different looking houses.  No wonder Barratts ended up just doing them all identical.

So the finished piece (except the bit I've just realised I missed) is like this...

If you cross reference from the original plan you'll see it's the "Central Sundial" I've omitted.  That needs to go where the label for Hollycroft School is and I'll reposition that.  Genuinely somebody remind me.

(The "old fairground" that appeared in the original map was an intentional omission - it was something I thought just might be a nice creepy thing to have in there, but I've now half-inched it for my own Castle Diablo stories).

There we go, that's a bit of the drawing I've been doing through the night of late. I've also been building stuff, but I'll show you that next week.

Hope your week is going brilliantly over there

Sending love 

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