Hit and miss

The expert
shot.

I drew this -
yesterday!

Indoor plant

To escape from the last post, here’s a jump-cut to some flower power drawn not too long after I left college, when I’d rediscovered the joys of compacted charcoal and coloured pencils. I was ‘slightly’ influenced by Magritte in those days (see here) and this one may have been ‘slightly’ influenced by ‘The Unexpected Answer’ - either that or Tom and Jerry.

Unearthed

Having got the bug for posting ancient artefacts I’ve been digging into deeper archaeological layers of mud in my cupboards. It’s amazing what you can find down there. Here’s a page of cartoon-like accretions, which I didn’t realise had survived the ravages of time and limited storage space. Who knows how old I was when I drew these - my teenage years were fairly gruesome so I’m assuming it was before then - maybe 11 or 12. The first one, Long time no sea, is a copy of a joke I'd discovered in a comic called Whizzer and Chips and was very impressed with at the time. The others are typical boy’s humour, ie. not remotely funny.

Wall

This was an idea for a screenprint which never happened so I tried out my new coloured pencils.
I was thinking alot about paradox at the time and wanted to be a Paradoctor. It seemed to me that if you took anything to it's logical conclusions you'd end up with nonsense.
In the end I wasn't intelligent enough to be a Paradoc, so I settled for a career as an Oxymoron instead.

Country music

A straightforward student pun with no bass notes, and a quavering attempt to draw some ‘countryside’ in the background. This is a scan of a photocopy as, believe it or not, I sold the original - even though it was very small due to the size of the music stave I traced it off. I can't remember how much I got for it - probably just enough for a cup of tea and a bun.

Off the shelf: Ronald Searle

It was Ronald Searle’s 89th birthday on Tuesday. This is ‘Gemini’ from his 1977 series called ‘Zoodiac’ – fantastic idea, beautifully drawn. It’s from a French anthology ’45 Ans de Dessins’ published in 1984. There’s a tribute blog by Matt Jones that’s worth a look.
Apart from the creative idea, Searle’s three requirements for success are working discipline, absolute command of the medium and constant productivity. Crikey – I thought you just had to ‘Believe!’

Bridgework

Another weird object from
back the way I came.

What’s it all about?
Who knows, but I obviously
thought it was interesting
enough to draw up – and
now I’m finding it interesting
enough to put on my blog.

Or have I just run out of
old stuff to post?

No - more old stuff
to come!

Typocritical

No comment.

Cheese

Another extraction from studentistry, this time drawn to a brief.
In the early ‘80s some sparky marketing men had the idea of bringing out a new British cheese, the first for 200 years, with the made-up name of Lymeswold, and we had to say something about it in an ‘illustration.’
This idea came disturbingly quickly and I assumed it was too obvious. It seemed to fit the brief a little too well, and I was never any good at following briefs, preferring to use them as starting points to wander off on some tangent of my own.
The cheese was taken off the market after less than ten years - because it was shit.

Off the wall: Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan, ‘a hero with coward’s legs’, was something of a hero to me growing up. Comedy writer and performer, poet, jazz musician, playwright and campaigner, he suffered from manic-depression (bipolar disorder), thought to have resulted from shellshock in the WW2, which made him a part-time genius. Known as the Comedian’s Comedian, he wrote and performed in over 250 episodes of The Goon Show for BBC radio in the ‘50s, then did the ‘Q’ series on television from 1969-82. Both shows had a huge influence on British comedy, including Monty Python. His comedic style mixed surreal situations with a kind of dogged literal-mindedness, subverting both logic and language itself.
"My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic."
"Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs?"
"A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree."
This drawing ‘I am afraid of the dark’ is another one on the wall close to my workspace. It comes from a book of poetry called ‘Small Dreams of a Scorpion’ published in 1972.

Waterlogged pitch

Another
youthful
idea from
yesteryear.

I'll get
round
to doing
some
youthless
ones soon.

Not yet.

Shipping disaster

This shipwreck in a bottle was done on my Art Foundation course when I was about 18 or 19. It’s a disaster in almost every way. The catalogue of design flaws include a ship that’s too big to fit in the bottle, a bottle that is green(!) and the wrong shape, ‘water’ made of Das modelling clay that cracked straight away on a base made out of a thin polystyrene tile. I was going to paint the water and the base but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Even the photograph is terrible (note the direct sunlight, bad angle, and the sticking plaster holding the chair together in the background).
My 3D modelling career was over.

Off the wall: R Crumb

For a change here’s a drawing by Robert Crumb that I cut out of a magazine called 'City Limits' while at college and have had on the wall, close to where I work, ever since. It’s the final panel from a strip, the rest of which I’ve never found. It still makes me laugh whenever I catch sight of it.
Crumb is a mixture of brilliance and bad taste. His best work, for me, is the mid to late '60s stuff, like 'Fritz the Cat', done in a looser, more linear style, and 'Mr Natural'.
You can find out most about him (not necessarily the facts) by watching the 1987 Arena documentary ‘The Confessions of Robert Crumb’ which he wrote himself, and is more satisfying than Zwigoff's ‘Crumb’ in my opinion. It’s only an hour – go and watch it.

Thought for the day

This moral message is another item of student madness, conscientiously hand-traced on a machine called a Grant projector, before the days of computer graphics.
I probably thought it was hilarious at the time - no-one else did.

Troppo fortissimo

Yet another
opus studenticus.

I must have
thought the
TWANG!!
was a good
idea.

Delinquent type

Another college
collage from the
archives.

Note the hand-
rendered wood
effect and actual
use of paint.

A very studenty
idea though.

Card luck

This rather
grubby effort
is from the
same era.

It speaks
for itself.

The race

Fast-forward four or five years and graphic design training has turned me into a rapidograph-wielding minimalist. This drawing was in my portfolio when I applied for a post-graduate degree course – I’d just discovered a new way of looking at things and didn’t know how to develop it. Another three years later and I was none the wiser and ended up as a cartoonist. After seven years of Art college I then had to start learning to draw...

Young and Freudian

Another weird artifact from the dark caves of youth. I feel I ought to say something about it but can’t think of anything. I don’t even know if it’s the right way up.

Abstract Urt

Out of sheer laziness I thought I’d post something else from when I was ‘about 17’. This glorified doodle made it into a school exhibition, believe it or not. It will probably tell you what my teenage years were like. The artroom was my sanctuary.

Igentoofication

This was going to be a week on the theme of busts, but the dreaded apathitis has struck again.
Here's a photo I took when I was about 17, at London Zoo. I thought at the time that it showed a lot of penguinuity on my part, but have since seen a thousand variations, usually used for caption competitions.

Cold comfort

(Just a
bit of
armless
fun).

OTS: Scouting for Boys 7

Chapter VII: CHIVALRY OF THE KNIGHTS

Fortitude.
“…Some of you may have heard the story of the two frogs. If you have not, here it is:
Two frogs were out for a walk one day, and they came to a big bowl of cream. In looking into it they both fell in.
One said: “This is a new kind of water to me. How can a fellow swim in stuff like this? It is no use trying.” So he sank to the bottom and drowned through having no pluck.
But the other was a more manly frog, and he struggled to swim, using his arms and legs as hard as he could to keep himself afloat; and whenever he felt he was sinking he struggled harder than ever, and never gave up hope.
At last, just as he was getting so tired that he thought he must give it up, a curious thing happened. By his hard work with his arms and legs he had churned up the cream so much that he suddenly found himself standing all safe on a pat of butter!
So when things look bad, just smile and sing to yourself, as the thrush sings: “Stick to it, stick to it, stick to it,” and you will come through all right…”

This is the last of these - I hope you’ve enjoyed them and learnt their lessons. I know I have.
Something else tomorrow.

OTS: Scouting for Boys 6

Chapter III: CAMP LIFE

Comfort in camp.
“…An old scout is full of resource, that is, he can find a way out of any difficulty or discomfort. He is full of “dodges,” like the boy in this picture who had to rap on the door with the knocker which he could not reach. He showed resourcefulness…”

OTS: Scouting for Boys 5

Practices: Drill.
“…Growing lads are very apt to slouch, and should therefore do all they can to get out of the habit by plenty of physical exercises and drill.
Stand upright when you are standing, and when you are sitting down sit upright, with your back well into the back part of the chair. Alertness of the body, whether you are moving, standing, or sitting, means alertness of mind, and it is a paying thing to have, because many an employer will select an alert-looking boy for work and pass over a sloucher…”

OTS: Scouting for Boys 4

Chapter VI: ENDURANCE FOR SCOUTS
or How to be Strong

Smoking.
“A scout does not smoke. Any boy can smoke; it is not such a very wonderful thing to do. But a scout will not do it because he is not such a fool. He knows that when a lad smokes before he is fully grown up it is almost sure to make his heart feeble, and the heart is the most important organ in a lad’s body. It pumps the blood all over him to form flesh, bone, and muscle. If the heart does not do its work the body cannot grow to be healthy. Any scout knows that smoking spoils his eyesight, and also his sense of smell, which is of greatest importance to him for scouting on active service.”

Apologies to smokers for this one.

OTS: Scouting for Boys 3

Details of People cont.
“…I was once accused of mistrusting men with waxed moustaches. Well, so, to a certain extent, I do. It often means vanity and sometimes drink.
Certainly the “quiff,” or lock of hair which some lads wear on their forehead, is a sure sign of silliness. The shape of the face gives a guide to the man’s character.
Perhaps you can tell the characters of these gentlemen?”

OTS: Scouting for Boys 2

Chapter IV: TRACKING

Details of People.
“…It is said that you can tell a man’s character from the way he wears his hat. If it is slightly on one side, the wearer is good-natured; if it is worn very much on one side he is a swaggerer; if on the back of his head, he is bad at paying his debts; if worn straight on the top, he is probably honest but very dull.”