Gods of Ancient Rome and The Childhood Museum

Goteborg Polis Station

Not so much screen printing in the past few weeks due to lack of decent ideas, kind of wanting to do some larger pieces than the A5 ones I have been, but feel my priorities at the moment should be a website update, opening up an online shop and possibly some small simple prints for giveaways and such. Procrastination is king. I did manage the above print a couple of weeks back, based on a small Swedish Police Station we saw in a Gothenburg park last October. Simple, but I like it.

Jen and I went to the museum of childhood in Edinburgh last week which was rather fun, personal favourites had to be the first room of the tour and the stick doll from the dolls room. Some favourites are shown below. The cars in particular made me wish I was about 6 again (and from an earlier time period than the 80's). Hopefully some more museum visits to come over the next few months.

Junior smoking kit. Go on kids...smoke...

...seriously, even Mickey says it's cool

Rather awesome toy car

Doll made from branch and rag

Due to visits to museums in recent months I've been wanting to do some stuff to do with Roman/Viking/Pictish Gods, haven't had a great chance to do a huge amount of sketching around the subject but here's a starting point. Anyone with any ideas of good places to see collections of Roman/Viking/Pictish artefacts and such, aside from the National Museum in Edinburgh, any help is massively appreciated.

Janus

Gods of Ancient Rome comic (Click to enlarge)

The weather in Dundee has been pretty wild today I think perhaps I made the Gods angry (rapture anyone?). Also, today I purchased L.A. Noire and some red wine, I know what I'll be doing this evening.

JAB

Too Long

Okay, I'm back again. It's been far too long since I last blogged. I've been mega busy, I started a new job last month and I've been training full time for 6 weeks altogether and still have (at least) 2 weeks of training left to go. All this work has had a serious effect on the amount I've been drawing as I think I've only produced 3 drawings over the past 6 weeks, two of which where cards (one mother's day card and one birthday card) so they don't really count in my eyes. It's not the end of the world though as the training has been a nice experience, something a little out of the ordinary for me I guess. 

Once I've been 'passed out' from my training I will be working 17.5 Hours per week which is going to give me much more time to do some illustrating/blogging and the likes. Work is fine, nice people to work with and a nice change from my old job, I'm just not used to working full time really, and it's taken some adjustment to get used to and then in two weeks I'm back to part time again, so I'll be fully adjusted just in time to adjust back. Typical. 

But I really shouldn't complain because I'll finally have some time to be creative at last. 

3 weeks ago I moved in with Jen and Sanna in Dundee. I must admit, it's ace to be back in Dundee again, it feels like home already. Also Jen and I purchased an IKEA bed as we can now afford to as we are both working, and I've not had a bad nights sleep in it yet. Awesome. 

my side of the bed.

Other news? My Mum is getting married in October of this year, I'm really happy for her and looking forward to the wedding, it's not going to be a big ceremony but I will be giving my mum away and apparently I have to make a speech which I'm not too sure about. I'm sure it'll be fine anyway. 

my new Superdry shirt.

In January this year I discovered Superdry shirts, such a good make of shirt. I remember walking into a shop called 'Cult' while I was visiting Liverpool One and it was covered wall to wall with checkered shirts, I thought I was in heaven. I must admit they cost a little more than I would care to spend on a shirt really but they're awesome quality. I just purchased my second one recently after my first paycheck. 

Most of my free time at the moment has been spent playing Star Wars Battlefront (I & II) on my Playstation 2 and come the bank holiday weekend I plan to begin watching the Star Wars saga from the beginning including the Clone Wars movie and all four Clone Wars spin off series (i'm currently reading the online Clone Wars webcomic as we speak too). I am aware of how much of a geek this single paragraph makes me look but I'm really looking forward to it, it's been too long since I last watched anything Star Wars. Oh, and to put a cherry on top of that already immensely geeky paragraph I purchased a 501st Legion Clone Trooper figurine for my bedroom. Sweet.

Music-wise I've been enjoying my 5 Star playlist in iTunes. I've been rating my library right from the beginning and I'm currently up to 'F' in the rate-athon. Again 'geek = yes' but it's such an amazing playlist that I don't care what you think. Really enjoying Mumford & Sons at the moment courtesy of one of Jen's work colleagues. 

More to come.

JAB.