Frog Variations

Here's one I did myself



Now here's something a bit different, one I did in collaboration with Bob. I drew it, he painted the broad strokes, I went back and refined the faces. Much like Rubens and one of his minions (not really). It's a bit hit and miss but I think we should do this more. He paints in a way that I don't paint. We both have doubts about the colours, but we can work on that

2005, 2006... paper, getting good at drawing, lovely wrestlers

2005... I did all these little square paintings for a gallery that only sold square paintings (now defunct). Utterly pointless as a business venture. But it encouraged me to develop my on-paper painting techniques, watercolour plus others. Things got quite itty bitty but sometimes the cloudyness worked.

When we were smaller, my sister once drew a 'fartist's impression' of me, what I might look like if made of gas... these remind me of that.

















Also, wrestling was in the air.. I mean I needed something to get excited about.









and then 2006... wrestling chickens come home to roost... also it was when I started thinking of caricature, focusing on drawing, and when I started this blog...














This new kind of weirdness was quite special for me. I remember the first time Marlo Meekins sent me an instant message, I couldn't beleive she liked my work. (This was the era of Myspace. I attempted to Network.)

















These are all still quite 'bitty'... I've always tended towards the bitty, and relied on untrained instincts to provide any kind of structure or hierarchy. I'm getting better now at seeing the big picture, trying to avoid getting swamped in unnecessary complexity of my own making.

It meant a LOT to me to have peer approval about my drawing. It still does. I still hover between worlds of solid masculinity and concrete old fashioned values, and some kind of intangible artsy fartsyness, my own kind. (neither thing being very commercial on the local level.) I sometimes hate my 'artist' nature, but it remains.

Smudged Pillocks

I'm not obsessed with wrestling at the mo, but I should have a show of my wrestling drawings coming up, so I've been wrestling with drawing through wrestling drawings. Ultimate Warrior!





I want to use pastels more and hone my techniques through honing.





The explorations felt valid, the muse came and went in a floozily fickle fashion.

















Peculiar bonus: the cover of my diary beginning 10th December 2001, ending 16th July 2002. Different times. I was at once more and less confident.

Hello There Mixed Martial Arts

My friends Scott and John are obsessed with Fedor Emelianenko. So I thought it time I tried to see what the fuss was about.





My concentrating on Fedor has also made my leopards relax, now they appear only in peripheral vision... it suits them quite well.









As for Fedor himself, not sure I've totally grasped him. Have no printer and have been working a lot from my own quick sketches from youtube, not always having access to the obvious details but more the clumsy forms and my own misconceptions.





Things have too many limbs and bits and bobs to make into nice pictures... lately half things have been easier to cope with. Who says things have to have all their limbs in a drawing. It's a free country.





Fedor is calm and has a soft pink mouth. He has slight eye wonkyness in his bright blue eyes that I need to come to terms with.

















My paper is wrinkly and has cat mud on it.

Dennis + Nelson: Nennis

What the heck, a post with ill-matched stuffstuff in it.

Let us all come to terms with the nineteen-sixties.

It will take me a little while to figure out firstly what I am doing with the Beach Boys, and secondly how to draw the Beach Boys better. But I am going to try and get my teeth into them as it were, because well, why not the Beach Boys, and I need to get my teeth into something instead of flitting from thing to thing... I need to get into stuff with depth and intent in order to get satisfying results.

The move back to Beach Boys is a return to something with soul-meaning for me, and I hope to be able to apply the body-meaning I learned from the wrestlers.

And to do it with some kind of dynamic humour, but also truth-depth, so I'm asking quite a lot of my self-taught little skills.

So obviously Dennis is a good place to start.





I had a dream about arm wrestling Dennis. And winning! I think my dreams were trying to give me picture ideas lately. I'm too ashamed of being an artist by day.









If you are not familiar with Beach Boys lore, I think it would be fair to say that Dennis was the Sex Beach Boy. I don't think any of the others would try to dispute that. Though in fairness, I am fairly sure that Brian would have been the Beach Boy I would have been crushing on. In fairness. Not just saying that because of hindsight. Dennis didn't sit down much. I couldn't have been doing with that. To be fair.

(Thought that paragraph could do with a couple more 'fairs'.)


















On a kind of related note, I also drew Nelson Bragg from Brian Wilson's current band. Because he has been very nice to me. Oh and he's a talented chap.





He looks slightly worried and slightly like a wuzzle-farmer in this drawing.

Here is a tiger of the old school.

Men and their Heads and my Line Frenzy

Here are some pictures that say unto you that I still draw wrestler heads.

This one's from ages ago. I did it whilst watching a whole episode of What's New Scooby Doo, which isn't a very good thing. But I wanted to know who did it.





And these were done in preparation for an illustration that ultimately went in a letter to Mick Foley, illustrating my concerns about how John Cena might respond to my depictions of him.





And this is a video of a caricaturist called John Kascht drawing Rudy Guiliani. I liked watching him draw and his descriptions are as eloquent as his drawings. It made me realise I draw in quite a frenzied way... professionals are smooth. There's a link to his other videos drawing the other candidates on the right.

Lack of Eyeless Nudes in the Home

I was beginning to think it might be a little while before I can put up some nice finished new drawings that's like a culmination of the things I'm thinking about. So I'm just going to say a bit about the things I'm thinking about and the drawings will be poor and loose not in the good way.

I'm thinking about beardy Zeus gods from the thirty first century.

I'm thinking about Ulysses 31. Perhaps this will be hard to explain in a mere white blog.






I'm thinking about beardy classical blokes with no eyeballs.









I'm trying for now not to fall back on the wrestlers but to really think this thing through. My drawings have become increasingly in the service of bodies and wriggling forms. It's beginning to feel like I could do with full time life models/ naked people living in my house. Otherwise the wrestlers are the best source I have for writhing naked alive bodies. But for now I'm looking at what the statue men have and what I can do with it sans live flesh displays.

Picasso may provide some clues.





Picasso was a good cartoonist (in fact that's quite a sensible way of assessing him) but in his paintings of people he often didn't pay that much attention to specifics and 'genericised' them, whether he was doing these generic beardy pleasure blokes or monkeying with mushes as only he could.

Perhaps in my paintings and drawings of bodies, I don't have to stake so much of the 'fun' on getting a specific likeness or LEARNING a face in some way... as much fun as that is... perhaps I could be more careless like Picasso.

Anyway I explained this concept to Bob as Ulysses getting off his spaceship with his willy out. It's just one concept on my table.





Ulysses of the thirty first century has a distinctive frontal hair do.





Some of my beardy blokes are a bit fat and shy.









We find our minds wandering to chinnal concerns.





Here is a page dense with thinkings





It hurts





The cyclops people are stumped.





This was not a Proper Blog.