He walkin' on me face.

...I should REAAAAALLLY be in bed...

It's true you are an Idiot.

Tell me something I don't Know...

Most Awesomnest.

Had such a swell night last night with Jen, we had a takeaway and then our Christmas Presents. Jen's ace at presents at the best of times but I didn't see this one coming. Subsequently what do you get for the Jeffrey Brown fan who has all of (or at least most of) his literature? I suppose the images speak for themselves somewhat!

I do like kitties, guitars, checkered shirts and my old bedroom.

Even a small message and a doodle on the back. Apparently Jeffrey likes checkered shirts too.

Thank you to Jen and family for a super-awesome christmas gift. I feel so chuffed everytime see it, I just need to find a good spot to put it now...

Spending December Days Drawing

It's been an absolute age since I blogged last. Not too sure why - think I've been distracted by new gadgets that I have obtained, trips to Edinburgh and Glasgow and also a heck of a lot of work. These are my daily drawings from Jen's 'Every Day A Drawing In December' challenge. I figured that I wanted to put them all up but not totally overload the Sea Legs page with work that I'm not overly proud of. 18 pages in total. Maybe it'll give you an insight into how my brain functions...or maybe not. Here goes - 

1st of December was a Monday

2nd -'There's a room for us in a red brick building...in Denmark' Listening to The Mountain Goats, surprised?

3rd - Some more Mountain Goats 'Do you have the heater on?'

4th - a terrible drawing of Bruce Springsteen prancing about.

5th - Born to love Volcanos (and patterns)

6th - Shame about the weather

7th - Still not convinced

8th - Atop a Moroccan Mountain

9th - Concerning Lead Mining

10th - I Hate Apple Today

11th - Merry Christmas

12th - The Burrow Owl

13th - Owl and Text

14th - Guitar Dance

14th - I'm Okay

15th - Cat

16th - Bring Back The Beard Please...

17th - John Alan Hamish MacBirch

So there you have it. I'm enjoying the challenge, however I go home next Tuesday for Christmas and as a result I will be without a scanner until I return in January sometime. I'll upload as much as possible before I head home for those who are genuinely interested. Also I imagine I will be spending a lot more time blogging while I'm off work for some time...

Everyday Matters.

I read Everyday Matters:A Memoir by Danny Gregory. I realised I needed to draw more things from real life. I got a new Moleskine and I felt incredibly creative all of a sudden. I just want to draw all the time at the moment.

...and then, as per usual I went and listened to the Mountain Goats. You can never give enough money to the Ace of Base...

I swear this man is a goddamn genius.

Please Put Your Scarves On.

I've had an idea for a while now to start work on a couple of books. One is the Mr.Eraser comic mentioned in previous entries (which I have actually started, it's just top secret is all) and the other a zine - just a collection of works that I've been doing over the Post-University time. Today I finally managed to get a few finished pages together along with a cover for the zine which will be titled 'Please Put Your Scarf On' named so after a quote taken from a J.D. Salinger Book I read earlier this year. Hopefully I will do something productive with both of the books such as sell them or mail them to people who may be interested. We'll see - I've got plenty of time to think about it while I'm putting them together. Here's the front cover - 

'Please Put Your Scarf On' - the book will be printed solely in

 black and white, and the front cover on blue paper - 

this is merely a mock up of what it may look like.

One image that I've done is a picture of Ted Danson - an idea that I'd thought of a while ago but hadn't been able to come up with something I really liked. I feel that I had a good concentrated period of drawing/painting time today that I really got a lot done over a short time. I think I just need to maybe be more meticulous and specific when dividing up my time and making my plans.

Indeed it is true.

The next image is where the name of the book comes from, speaks for itself I suppose.

'Stop being an awkard bugger now John.'

The final image I produced today was a new version of the Transcona picture I did which is posted over at Sea Legs. I really enjoyed doing this, I simply decided to do it bigger than the original in order to get in some more detailed pattern. I liked the colours I used, although I couldn't decide whether it actually needed the ink wash in the background - this may take over the picture a little too much when it's converted to grayscale.

Thank you Transcona for bringing me home.

It's nice to be feeling productive and to be coming up with ideas, just hope that this state of mind sticks around for a while. Oh yeah, I was totally going to have a crack at that drawing yourself as a teenager and drawing yourself now thing that Jen had mentioned to me but I got carried away with the above - I'll probably have a go soon. That is all. 

JAB

Glory, Glory Hallelujah.

Hey there y'all. Got the new Ryan Adams and The Cardinals album this week but yeah, to be honest that's not much to write home about...so don't know why I'm bothering to mention it at all. Besides uneventful musical findings I did manage to get ahold of the new Mountain Goats Ep 'Satanic Messiah' from here, now if you've not listened to them before much I'd give it a look in as it's free (well voluntary donation), it's only four tracks long and the last two tracks are sublime (albeit in my opinion which, okay...may be a little biased).

This week has involved already pretty bad weather getting colder, wetter and windier. Oh how I love Scotland's climate. Although reassuringly my dad informed me that the weather on Merseyside is pretty much the same at the moment. This week I will be working as per usual but for the first time in a while I have a Saturday off meaning I can spend a friday night out without having to get up in the morning and instead will just have a whole day to nurse a beautiful, well constructed hangover.

On Sunday I really felt like something from the 24hour bakery so I went and picked up a nice tuna and sweetcorn baguette and a couple of fudge donuts for me and jen. When I got back to Jen's flat I remembered that I had a few pickles left in the cupboard from the week before and to be honest nothing goes better with a tuna sweetcorn baguette than a nice bit of pickled dill, so I joyfully added it to my baguette, much to Jen's disgust of course (sorry Jen) and now there's only one pickle left in the cupboard...all alone. How saddening a story it is. Regina has a song about a Pickle so they must be awesome.

Jim, the loneliest pickle.

Last night I sat and watched 'The Big Lebowski', I'm a fan of all of the Coen Brothers work that I've had the pleasure of seeing and I suppose in saying that, it was pretty much sacrilege that I hadn't seen this one before. Anyway, it is a fantastic film and I just couldn't stop laughing at the character John Turturro plays (however small a part it actually is). He plays a rather flamboyant, cocky, die-hard bowler named 'Jesus' - 'nobody fucks with the Jesus...', so yeah this clip may be a little out of context for those who haven't seen the film but you see what I mean - pure genius.

'It don't matter to Jesus! You don't fool Jesus'

Tonight, I sat and watched the football to wind down after work. The Manchester United fans always sing 'Glory, Glory, Man United' and for some reason I couldn't stop thinking that the Weakerthans have a version of 'Glory, Glory, Hallelujah', now I may just be going crazy and I know it's a long shot but if anyone happens to be reading this and knows that they did infact do a version please let me know that I'm not insane. Cheers.

Right now I'm enjoying a fantastic cup of smoky Lapsang Souchong tea before I head off to bed. brilliant.

JAB