In need of a jump start

My pleurisy came back with a vengeance after the last post, in spite of vast amounts of antibiotics. After more vast amounts of antibiotics, it seems to have receded again, apart from the odd twinge. Now I just have to find some energy from somewhere and go out and catch some flies.
Advice on pleurisy: don't get it - it will only make you ill.

Rare find on eBay no.4

Ancient Greek
Olympic hurdle
(signs of wear)
$7001.

(nos 1, 2, & 3)

Lack of activity here has lately been caused by an attack of pleurisy, which has been less than pleasant. However a double dose of antibiotics seems to have repelled boarders and no ransom was paid.
Consequently this ship may be back on the high seas fairly soon, though still without much of a sense of direction. I feel I ought to say Happy New Year, though it's a bit late.

King of the leaves

I showed this to
two people who
couldn't see
anything in it
beyond a bug
on a leaf.

Is it me, or is it
them?

It's all in the mind...

... but it's
the thought
that counts.

Perhaps
Santa will
bring me
some new
thoughts
so I can
get this
blog going
again.

Happy
Christmas!

Penny Gwyn

Sister of
Nell Gwyn.

Bonesplitter

Yellow dog

Could be a
Fyffes terrier.

Bow peep?

Poet quoet

The absence of drawings on this blog recently is probably more distressing for me than it is for anyone else, but it looks as if it may continue for a while. As a substitute, and for a change, here's a quote from my favourite dead poet, Ted Hughes. It's about writing but it applies equally well to drawing, and neatly ploughs over acres of theoretical claptrap about how to write - or how to draw:

… imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic. If you do this you do not have to bother about commas and full stops or that sort of thing. You do not look at the words either. You keep your eyes, your ears, your nose, your taste, your touch, your whole being on the thing you are turning into words. The minute you flinch, and take your mind off this thing, and begin to look at the words and worry about them… then your worry goes into them and they set about killing each other. So you keep going as long as you can, then look back and see what you have written. After a bit of practice, and after telling yourself a few times that you do not care how other people have written about this thing, this is the way you find it; and after telling yourself you are going to use any old word that comes into your head so long as it seems right at the moment of writing it down, you will surprise yourself. You will read back through what you have written and you will get a shock. You will have captured a spirit, a creature.
Ted Hughes

He played an étude...

...and lost.

Notice: Due to
Health and
Safety Chopin
will no longer
be played at
concerts.

The James Gang

This is a 3D drawing. If you click on it you'll find that it magically comes towards you so you can see it more clearly. I hope I haven't let this technical effect get in the way of the story.

To bacco and beyond!

This pipe dream is another old drawing from around the time of the previous two old drawings.
Using a charcoal pencil with coloured pencils caused me some misery. My Derwent pencils are a joy to use but they tend to obliterate the drawing, so it needs 'topping up' to give it some weight. If there was any subtlety in my line it was gone by the time I'd finished with it, and I'd end up with something remarkably unsubtle like this, which also seems to have suffered from not enough fixative.
Lesson: don't do it.

The birds on the baize

To 'celebrate' Hallowe'en here's something that has nothing to do with it. This is from about the same period as the last drawing, but has nothing to do with that either.

A laugh in blue and yellow

This drawing is probably from around the turn of the century (this century). It represents an absence of colour-sense, or maybe just an absence of sense.
Sorry about the lack of work here at the moment. Things will change soon (or so I've been told by a cricket).

Bounder

Almost part of the furniture

Pencilence

Nonstick is coming unstuck (but not like Billy Pilgrim).
Discerning viewers, if there are any left, may have noticed a gradual decline in the quality of posts on this blog; an absence of snappy ideas and well-honed puns - to wit: no wit. There are many reasons for this (I can think of three already) which I won't go into. It seems sensible, therefore, to take a break before things get any worse (pages from my sketchbook may have been next), and think about a new plan. For a while I'll just post the occasional drawing and see where it goes from there.
Thank you for visiting Toys'r'ubbish.

Star wars

This is the third in my series of drawings from my 'Nonstick Possibles' folder that have stayed there, unblogged, for a year or two in the hope of being rethought and redrawn. I liked the idea of this one but felt the drawing wasn't right for it.
Sometimes an idea is not quite enough on its own and needs something added to it to give it a more interesting dynamic. You can usually do that with a title, but often it has to do with the drawing itself.
This one implies the star has been shot out of the sky (hence 'star wars'), but the 'extra' would have been about the context, ie. a beach, where starfish hang out. I may still redraw it and see if I can get something more engaging out of it.

Chick lit.

Another old Nonstick
drawing that didn't
get posted.
I seem to remember
I thought this one was
a bit too 'editorial'.

Wader

An old drawing
drawn when
I was drawing
one drawing
a day.
I can't recall
exactly why I
didn't post it,
but you may
be able to tell
by looking
at it.

Furniture fable

Androcles
and the
Table.

Waste disposal

John.

Max: missive 5

The end.
I could go on posting these Max sequences until I get through the entire book, but I think I'd better put him back in his cage for a while and post something else. Blogs, after all, need variety - so I'd better go and find some.

Max: missive 4

(last one (two) tomorrow)

Max: missive 3

Max: missive 2

Max: missive 1

Max again. This time he's trying to write a letter, which would seem fairly straightforward. Notice I'm posting these two at a time otherwise this sequence would last ten days, which is stretching it a bit too far. The final drawing, however, is well worth the wait.

Off the shelf: Bob Gill

I have a link to Bob Gill in that I was taught by an ex-student of his, and also by his ex-wife, Bobby. He's probably therefore my strongest influence.
These slipper-carrying dogs come from a job he did for Pirelli in 1965 when he was based in London and a third of Fletcher, Forbes, Gill. They're scanned from the book, 'Forget All The Rules You Ever Learned About Graphic Design. Including The Ones In This Book,' published by Watson-Guptill in 1981. Its dedication reads:
'If this book helps only one
designer get only one original
idea, then all the months
I spent putting it together
will not have been worth it.'
The book was my bible for a while (at a time when graphic design was treated as part of the cosmetics industry). It was full of the kind of unexpectedness that snaps you (temporarily at least) out of automatic thinking patterns. Gill's idea was that if you ignore what you already know and focus exclusively on the problem you're working on, redefining it according to its unique attributes, you can't help but come up with a unique solution. He illustrates this with his own work.
These dogs have the caption:
Original problem:
Counter display for slippers.
Redefined:
What can hold a slipper and be fun to look at?
So you could call them a bad illustration of his 'method'. However, the idea is terrific and one of my favourites and, no matter how familiar to anyone who's ever flicked through a book on the history of graphic design, it's still worth seeing again.
There are a couple of interviews with Bob Gill here (Eye) and here (Graphis), and a biography here (Art Directors Club).