Add a Little Colour to Your Life.

Yesterdays entry but with a little colour.

All Around My Hat.

Finally some drawings! I don't feel there's a great deal of direction with my work at the moment, in that I'm just drawing things as they come into my head so nothing really links together and flows. That's miles better than not doing any work at all though.

The picture below was based loosely on this Mountain Goats song which I keep listening to lately (although I do have a habit of doing that with most Mountain Goats songs. Ideally I wanted to maybe adapt this style into a comic of sorts based on the song but I've been getting other ideas that I'm keen to work on so I may come back to it at a later date. Also, it was rather difficult to get a decent photo of this in our studio as the light hasn't been great and it's about A1 size.

A landscape, based on a Mountain Goats tune.

For New Year we had a 'Hat Party', which has become somewhat of a tradition for our family parties back home in Wallasey. The idea arose when we realised some people are reluctant to go full out for fancy dress whereas there's less at stake if you just don a daft hat for the evening. Rules for the Hat Party are as follows, Rule 1. Should anyone get you a drink throughout the evening you must then trade hats with that person (makes for some interesting photos) Rule 2. There is no rule number 2. Anyway, here's a kind of Birch 'Coat of Arms' or a potential invite for our next party. Oh, and excuse my French.

We do like our hats.

It's not really a secret that I like star wars and I recently purchased a couple of stormtrooper figures partly for ornamental purposes and also partly to assist me with drawing human proportion which the below pictures will show I'm not great at.

Ghetto Stormtrooper

The final of this set of drawings is a homage to me losing my train pass last month. I must admit that I do not really lose things but humility is required at a time like this. Hoping I'll laugh at myself enough so as not to do it again. I do feel that this drawing hasn't really turned out as I'd imagined it would and so I may redo it with some colour and less fineline pen.

Loser.

Something I've been enjoying just browsing through of late is this collection of maps from David Rumsey, originally tweeted by artist Tom Gauld some time last week. Have a look if you like maps and hand-drawn stuff, there's heaps of them, I could spend hours looking at them.

So I'm off to get back to some drawings and hopefully a comic and some colour. Watch this space.

JAB

Göteborg

So, we've just got back from our short break in Gothenburg last week. Had a great time and would love to go back to Sweden at some point. I'm not really sure what was my favourite part (certainly not the flights) but I really enjoyed being somewhere different than Dundee even Just for a few days. The weather was better than expected too, it was sunny and warm every day and just started to get a little cooler towards the end of the week which was fine as we were well equipped with gloves and scarves.

A walk down Vasagatan on our first day.

In brief we spent a lot of time walking about enjoying the autumn sun, drinking coffee (well, Jen had tea) and eating Kanelbulle and other cake type things. We also spent a day shopping and wandering the streets of a nice little area called the Haga which I'd recommend to anyone who visits Gothenburg.

Sitting on a small dock kind of thing on Asperö Island.

One of the things I wanted to do was to take the Ferry over to Asperö Island - so with the weather being what it was we did that on the second day. A lovely picturesque island but it was incredibly quiet due to it being autumn - apparently during the summer it can get somewhat busier with many tourists using the ferries to visit the Southern Gothenburg Archipelago. Oh, and there was a lot of cats on the island - I think we saw about just as many cats as we did people.

I still make Cat friends, even in Sweden.

Friends.

On our last day we did a little more shopping and visited the Röhsska Museum (Design Musuem) and the Natural History Museum before heading back to the Haga for some awesome Vegetarian food at a small, but very popular café. Being in a foreign country without having any grasp of the language whatsoever has got me inspired to take up learning a language again - I think I would quite like to learn French although, having done German at school I should probably take that up as I image most of it will come back to me, it's just a shame I no longer have my old school text books.

Crazy Pilot Fish in the Natural History Museum.

All of the above and a few more pages of sketchbook based work on a couple of productive days off since being back brings us back up to date. I really loved the simplicity of the Swedish transport network - Something that we in Britain should probably strive to emulate - if only it were that easy, when are Edinburgh's trams finished again? The Strong Man drawing is hopefully going to fall into pace in one of my comics that I'm currently planning.

Tram.

Strong Man.

JAB

(Photography by Jen as per usual)

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

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).

A Place to Begin Again.

Please, feel free to listen to some new Mountain Goats whilst you read. - "Genesis 3:23"

So it's been a busy old few weeks in my world. After finally putting together my website last month my Mac decided that it'd had enough and just packed in, all programs and such that I was running slowed right down and then ceased to be...so another joyous trip to the Apple store in Glasgow was needed. That said, after waiting over a week for my Mac to be fixed I was given a larger hard drive by the Apple folk and luckily didn't lose too much of my data as most of my stuff is backed up to an external Hard Drive.

The Life of the World to Come, the latest Mountain Goats Album.

I've travelled back down to Merseyside twice since the last time I wrote, once to accompany my mum who was going to visit my sister and then just a few days ago whereby we (me and Jen) went to my Dad's via Manchester to see the Mountain Goats...well, it wasn't so much the Mountain Goats as just John Darnielle on his own which I actually think is miles better anyway. I majorly enjoyed the gig but I suppose that's to be expected, John Darnielle could show up and play a few chords and I'd go away happier than most. The one downside to the venue was how small it was, I know that this generally makes for a better gig but for some reason there were so many tall people at the Ruby Lounge which made it very difficult to see even a few feet infront of yourself, that said the setlist and the fact that he played a few piano numbers made it excellent.

My workspace (taken by Jen)

Illustrationwise I seemed to hit yet another brick wall after my computer died and then I set about reupholstering small pink cabinets, decorating rooms (see photo above for my new workspace), and spending alot of time playing new XBOX games generally anything that meant not drawing. It's odd though, writing that makes it sound like I'm effectively trying to avoid doing any drawing which I'm not. I think that I'm generally trying to force myself too hard to come up with an idea that will become some amazing piece of work, which I suppose is my greatest hinderance at present.

Old man and old car.

There's something that I love about the old style FIAT and it

seems to be somthing that I simply cannot capture in a drawing.

In an attempt to get myself moving again creatively I've taken to drawing signs and alike, anything really that maybe contains text or some form of visual identity, from street signs to cars and crap like that. I see it as nothing more than a starting point for now if I'm honest, some active research in order to get some sketchbook work together and get the cogs inside my head moving (albeit rather slow and clunkingly at this moment in time but moving nonetheless).

Racecar and a selection of other things.

Front of Moroccan train.

WMU insignia from my new mug, found by Jen at the Recycling centre.

"R" from Boris Bilinsky's Metropolis poster.

West 44th Street sign, New York

Street signs by day and by night in Marrakech, Morocco.

Some text.

I find the whole blogging about work that I have/haven't been doing to be rather theraputic, putting everything that I've been doing together in a spot like this makes it fairly obvious to myself that I have actually been doing something besides sitting on my arse in the living room drinking beers and playing FIFA 10, which makes me feel less guilty about doing that. Now I'm off to make some bread and the bed.

Keep listening for more.

JAB

Sail On...

A sketch of Jen's little Milliput house

So again I appeared to have been sidetracked by work and alike and I haven't blogged in a while. It's quite handy though as I practically got two weeks work at full time in the end which made up for taking two days off for Dave's visit to Scotland. I've been attempting to keep up with doing some drawing and I'm starting to build up some steam on that front. Oh, and yesterday I finally started to plan a little of how I want to change my website...Well, I've only been wanting to change it for like a year...

So first up, some drawings! I've not had any huge inspiration at the moment for self-initiated sorts of projects and I'm kind of enjoying the safety of the sketchbook, however I do realise that sooner or later I'm going to need to break out of the sketchbook and actually do something of some significance. I have half a mind to take up the Zine/Comic ideas I was having at the end of last year again although I kind of feel that they may have passed and it may well be time to just start something completely new. We'll see.

The Liver Buildings

A sketch of the Liver buildings, it's weird because whenever I seem to think of 'home' or 'Liverpool' in particular this building always comes to mind. In reality though this building holds next to no significance to me...I mean I've seen it, but that's honestly about it. I don't know what's so 'homely' about it though.

Root Beer and Grumpy Cat

I'm not too sure why but lately I've kind of started looking at old timey american signs, I guess sort of anything spanning the 50's/70's, I just find something inexplicably romantic yet tacky about the style. I suppose in reality I would rather have a can of Root Beer that looked like the can above in my sketchbook than anything Coca-Cola/Pepsi-esque. Each to their Own. I don't think the cat picture needs much explanation...I like cats.

Scruffy Portrait

Today has been spent doodling in my sketchbook again and also trying to come up with a more solid idea for my website before I actually start putting it together as soon as possible. However I've not really been able to find much to draw so I just drew a self portrait, which I do realise now that I've scanned has terrible proportion and probably only really looks like me because I have glasses on, and something from iPhoto (exciting, huh?) but yeah...something about artistic license.

Another iPhoto Sketch: New Brighton

It's nice to finally have all my books with me in Dundee again. I just started looking at 'Vernacular Drawings' by Seth whilst taking a break from drawing/computer with a cup of tea. I never really knew too much about Seth but I really love his style as you can probably tell (he was the reason I decided to get a date stamp for my sketchbook) also maybe an explanation for my love of drawing signage and alike.

Lumberjack by Seth

Mimico Fish & Chips by Seth

I'm off to make soup. Until next time.

JAB

The end of a Sketchbook.

It's been a couple of weeks since the last blog, just overly enjoying my time off I guess. There's been a little bit of sketchbook work, not a huge amount to be honest but Im getting started on the right track again which I suppose is all that matters for now. I went and visited 'home'* last week, it was the Magazine's (our local pub) 250th Birthday and there was a huge beer festival - as good a reason as any to visit home if you ask me. It was great to see friends and family again as last time I was home was over 5 months ago for the Christmas/New Year period which feels like an age ago. I did take a sketchbook home but only managed three pages, although over 3 days of heavy drinking and catching up with people I don't suppose that's too horrendous.

*I still manage to refer to the Wirral as 'home' even though I've technically lived in Scotland for almost 4 years now.

Sketch of Coffee table in the Living Room at Dad's house.

I really like how this picture turned out.

Today whilst waiting for the plumbers to come and fit a new shower I did a few more pages in my sketchbook, and managed to finish it. I started the sketchbook in November and really wanted to get into the swing of drawing daily (or on a regular basis at least), a practice that went rather well until I realised the reality of needing to look for a job and the sketchbook took to the back burner for a while which was a shame. However, I've finally finished it, a few months too late in my eyes but finished nonetheless, and now I can get started on my new sketchbook and hopefully approach it with the same ethos as i started the last. Here are the pages from today, not sure why I wanted to draw American 50's diner style signs, but I did so there. Apologies for the scans, the last few pages of the sketchbook are falling apart a little which made them difficult to scan effectively.

Hollywood diner.

I'm not sure what Donald's Serva-teria serves but I want to go there.

Hopefully have some more sketchbook work up soon.

JAB

Hello again one and all. It's been a fair bit of time since I've blogged about anything substantial. I'm not too sure why, I seem to be busy with a whole lot of nothingness really I suppose. Anyhow, over the past few week Jen and I have been doing a sketchbook project for the Art House Co-op entitled 'Everyone We Know', it's been a fun project if not a little rushed as it has to be sent off tomorrow. I feel I should really document the sketchbook as it's off on its way around America and I wont be getting it back.

Ideally, in my mind I had the idea to actually draw everyone that I know but the more I thought about that idea the more difficult it seemed, so in the end I decided to draw as many people as I could. So I formally apologise if I've upset anyone by not including them in my sketchbook, I'm pretty sure I considered drawing you at some point so don't feel too left out. Okay? 

The original idea of 'all of them' didn't really come through

Jen, I like Jen.

I like Jen's style and with some hope she likes mine.

Chris and his ink.

1. Me and dad with a Moroccan friend.

2. Jen and Adam at his leaving party last month.

1. Moi.

2. Martyn's 'Joker' costume.

1. Est Hotel, Paris 2005.

2. Hotel Akouas, Meknes 2008.

More hats please.

1.The Bear (of the Powell family).

2. A Ryan Adams lyric about friends.

The Tackle. Starring Mike 'the Spear' Poland.

1. Old Friends.

2. Jenni's Disguise.

Circles for Everyone

Never Grow Up.

Manly Embrace

1.Sanna as a Geek Zombie.

2. Young Connor.

Hello Operator! Can you give me number 9?

Random shapes.

1. Shinks.

2. Mark.

1. Jack and his homemade Christmas hat.

2. A terrible drawing of John Darnielle.

Perfection.

1. Fi's 'Creep' face.

2. Louise has a bigger sombrero than me.

1. Redd

2. Speedie's musical talents.

1. My shirt.

2. My Mum.

1. Ryan Adams (With beard)

2. A place where we can all live together.

1. Jeff is a Legend.

2. I enjoy Morocco.

Go to Pete's eats. Go on.

C'est Fini.

A formal apology.

I guess that's it for today, I'm not much in the mood for writing loads as I have other things to do. Hopefully you've all enjoyed my little sketchbook, oh and if you happen to be in america go see the show. hopefully I'll get back into the swing of blogging again sometime soon.

Peace out...