J&J, Phil and I.

It's been an exciting few weeks. At the end of February Mum and I headed down to London on the Sleeper train for me to receive my Duke of Edinburgh award. Having never been on the Sleeper before I must admit it was quite an odd experience, constantly feeling I was going to fall out of bed I never really got the best sleep and then spent the whole of the next day in London with that vertigo-like sensation of feeling like I'd spent a few hours on a boat. The trouble sleeping was rectified on the return journey by consuming a few pints before boarding the train, meaning I more or less slept straight through to Dundee. Most people seem surprised when I tell them I'm only just getting my Duke of Edinburgh award now, it's mainly been down to laziness if I'm honest but it's nice to know that it wasn't just me who was lazy as two others from my school were receiving theirs at the same ceremony. I must admit, I'm not the biggest fan of the royals but it was pretty exciting to get a glimpse inside of St. James' Palace and to see Prince Phillip.

Beans

So here's my latest comic, based on a true story. I'm coming up with ideas for comics at a pretty fast rate but still want to get ahold of family photos and some interviews with the concerned to deepen the story-lines and this seems to have hit a bit a snag because of the fact that I've not seen enough of them lately to sit down and chat about these things. So hopefully it'll come to fruition when I get my week break from work in a couple of weeks and will probably head down to the Wirral for a week or so.

Last week was Jen's birthday and we spent the evening at Kokomo's. Jen was part of organizing Jumpers & Jamboree there along with Lauren and Nikki. It was a mighty enjoyable evening with much Art, Craft, Drinks, Music and Raffle prizes. Thanks guys, it surely was a great night and looking forward to your next event whenever and wherever that may be.

J&J poster

It was an extremely busy evening which made me feel a little daft for not having anything to sell, still I had a great time and I'll know to get some stuff together to sell for the next event. The photos here are taken from the Jumpers & Jamboree Flickr group which I have linked to in the previous paragraph, have a gander if you will for some more.

Busy, busy, busy

Andrew Bird (with Tree)

So it's sunday and I don't have much planned for today besides recovering from my week, this blog and maybe sorting a few bits and pieces out that need to be done. Most of all I shall be making the most of my day off and watching the football later on today. Here's hoping you all have equally exciting Sundays.

JAB

Down-Up-Down-Up-Down-Up-Down-Up.

I like suits, why can't I wear suits more often?

After what I must admit has been a crazy few weeks for numerous reasons that I won't go into here it's nice to be able to see an inspirational side to things at the end of all the madness. I've come up with a few ideas and have spent two days just sat at my desk drawing things which feels like some kind of major breakthrough. I suppose it's not really, but it's nice to feel that way.

Another drawing from Mum's Wedding photos

Resolution: Some kind of epiphany? Speaks for itself really.

I do like drawing days. Ultimate relaxation doing something you enjoy.

The comics are hopefully the start of a project that I suppose has been sort of floating around my head for a while but I've been too afraid to do comics again that I just kind of ignored it. That and the fact I've not been productive, but you know that already. There's more of them on the way over the coming weeks and months and I'll probably post some of them to my website too. Keep you all posted.

JAB

Fare thee well, January

Good day all,

Well its been all quiet on the Western Front for the past couple of weeks via blog. I've been keeping busy by sketchbooking a little, going on trips through to Edinburgh, visiting the Cinema followed by a few things that needed doing around the flat, oh and a few days in work too. The few sketchbook pages are hardly exciting so I'm not going to bother scanning them in until there's a few more to make for a substantial blog.

Finally managed to frame and put up the posters from Christmas.

Andrew Bird.

Until next time, when I'll hopefully feel the urge to write something more.

JAB

Soup and Such.

I very rarely write down the recipes for my soups. I did last week for the first time (Generally, I'll make a soup a week) but then I just ended up throwing out the recipe yesterday as I think I prefer the unknown and adventurous when it comes to soup creation. This week I decided to draw the ingredients as it seemed far more exciting than writing down a recipe, that and I really enjoyed drawing the pears last week so I fancied some more fruit and veg related observational drawing.

8 of your 5: This weeks ingredients minus the Oil, Stock and Spinach.

Yesterday was a fairly productive day food wise: shopping at our local grocer's in the morning for fresh fruit and veg, in the afternoon I made soup and pasta to see us through the next few days for lunch.

'I Never Liked You'

Today has been a little more quiet though if I'm totally honest - my first proper lie in an age saw me staying in bed until just after 11:00am (which is very unlike me), listening to more This American Life, drinking different kinds of tea, drawing and then reading 'I Never Liked You' by Chester Brown, a short but rather enjoyable read that I'd recommend to anyone into comics and such.

It'll kill me when I get a real job.

Yours Soupingly,

JAB

Sunday is God's day.

Having not felt particularly well yesterday, an awesome night's sleep last night has me feeling altogether more human today and keeping the creative ball rolling I've spent the majority of the day updating my website. Not much else to write about besides I drew two pears because damn...I love pears. Have a look at my website, there's a few new pieces in the 'Gallery' and also the 'Sketches' section is now up to fifty pieces of work.

www.johnalanbirch.com

Cheers.

JAB

There are Certain Gardening Skills You'll Never Learn.

Another Christmas has passed and another year's underway. So, I've been rather sloppy with blogging and such over the past four weeks (no change there really) with no reason besides my own superb december-related laziness, procrastination and lack of productivity. Here's to hoping that 2010 will be a year of art, blogs and website related things.

Christmas 2009 was an altogether enjoyable one, I spent Christmas day with Dad doing very little besides going to the pub and spending the rest of the day watching DVD's and drinking wine. I also made my first Christmas dinner ever for me and Jen the day before I headed southward for the holidays and I was pleasantly surprised. The Christmas photos below are courtesy of Jen.

Our lovely old, plastic tree.

Sitting down to dinner at our new table, with my eyes closed for some reason.

Christmas dinner before the Gravy.

I'm generally not one for making New Year's resolutions as I can never really be bothered with the hassle and I've never really felt the need to have any sort of resolution but this year I'm vowing to keep my blog and website up to date with work that I'm doing - oh, and a by product of the whole resolution will mean me doing more work, more often. Basically utilising the fact that I work a part time job by having something to actually show for the time I'm away from the office.

So here's some work from this week - I'm trying to get myself out of the frame of mind of 'forcing myself' to produce drawings which is something I seem to have gotten into the habit of doing quite often i.e. trying to make myself draw daily and that sort of thing. It seems to make me feel less creative as I can't seem to think of anything at all to draw. So for the next few weeks I'm just going to draw what I feel like, when I feel like it without any real deliberation over the subject matter or the frequency. So it's basically what's on my desk, stuff around the flat and stuff I just think of - much more enjoyable and much less stressful.

The second of January was I suppose when the 'resolution' truly began and I started just by drawing some stuff on my desk. A piece of wood that Jen picked up on a walk to Balgay Park that she then used to fashion some buttons out of and my trusty date stamp - which will hopefully be getting a bit more use this year than the latter half of last. I also did a couple of pieces for Cut Click's Mail Art Exhibition which takes place next week - the two pieces were just for fun really, drawn on envelopes fitting the 'Mail' theme of the exhibition. And today I decided to go back to producing some larger A2 pieces (like the 'General Store' picture and portraits I produced previously), I find it rather liberating to get out of the sketchbook and create some larger work - I do find myself sometimes retreating to the sketchbook all too frequently and I suppose it can have quite a negative effect on the outcome of work. So today's subjects were again things from around the flat - Mannequin hands from an exhibition at DCA that we've come to reuse for useful things around the flat and my new shoes. It should be noted that I normally dislike drawing hands and struggle like hell to get them right and today that was not the case.

Got Wood?

The Trodat Printy-Dater 4810

On Her Majesty's Service

Post

Three Hands

Adidas Green Star

So tomorrow I have one more day off before I'm back in work again, hopefully I can be as productive as today - if not more so. I had intended to update my website but blogging and drawing has taken longer than previously thought and now I'm getting hungry so it doesn't look like it will happen this evening. So I'm off for some dinner.

Wishful Thinking.

JAB

Heart of the Continent...

It's been a relatively slow few weeks on the drawing and blogging front with the likes of work and a little spot of decorating taking up my time. I'd wanted to draw something American General Store-ish for some time and I finally got round to it. I'm pleased with the outcome but not so pleased with how long it took me.

Listen to this song: John K. Samson 'Heart of the Continent' - I can't switch on my iTunes lately without listening to it.

Christmas time means Blogging time (I think).