Inktober 2023

 I enjoy this little challenge. To just draw things I haven't chosen. Or at least bend the word towards something I want to draw. I post the drawings as I go on instagram and then try to remember how flipbook works and post that here.

Finishing the colour blocks for Anna Bloom

 I managed to get the remaining blocks cut and printed this weekend. I used a sludgy grey-green that was mostly mixed up leftovers. But I actually quite like it. I might do a proper run of the whole lot so that they're as good as they can be, so I'm going to have to intentionally mix a green like this. Scary.

I love how the passion changes in the second half. And that posessive element takes over. Green, the colour of envy does seem appropriate - he becomes jealous of every aspect of her life...

I also did the "I love Anna Bloom red!" with just the red blanket so that it now fits with the overall vibe.

More colour for Anna Bloom

 Did another three today. I think I've finished the red and I've done the one and only blue. Though on the red front I need to try out the "I live Anna Bloom red" in black and red to see if it works, despite having cut it already. I think the red works nicely in these two. I think the blue is OK, thouh maybe could do with a bit more extending.

Adding colour to Anna Bloom

 As I wasn't feeling especially creative today, I made a start to colouring some of the Anna Bloom illustrations. As I wanted to achieve a reasonably close registration, I used the method of offsetting a print off the original block on to the new one. 

 

I'm pretty happy with these two. I think the "red dress sawn with white pleats" does give the effect I wanted.

Laughing Woman

 We were in York a couple of weeks ago visiting our son. We wlked into the city in the early evening and I heard a little way off the sound of a woman laughing. As we passed a pub she was sat cross-legged on a table outside the front of a pub. She roared uncontrollably with laughter, in the manner of the Laughing Sailor/Policeman you used to get in the old-fashioned amusement arcaes. As we passed, I could hear the man on the other end of her mobile phone roaring with laughter too.

It's one of the great mysteries. What was she laughing at, and why?

Northern approach

 As I drive into Rugby from the M6 I catch a glimpse of a cooling tower and some kind of low industrial building lurking among the trees. It's only visible for a few seconds and it's easy to miss, cuz you're driving and paying attention to other things. Then it disappears and it's nowhere obvious when you get to town. I know where it is now, but you do have to search for it. You can find it in other vistas, among terraced Victorian streets.

I suppose I could have parked up somewhere and found a good vantage point and done a proper drawing. But I prefer this brief snapshot, this Augenblick I get when driving along. It's more my fantasy of the place, really. Both the brutalist buildings and the seeming woodland are not what you get when you reach the town. I love that it's both true and a kind of lie at the same time.