My Illustrative Life

I was reading Sassy scans again today. And trying to hang out the washing, only to be thwarted by minute yet ominous amounts of rain. Then this iris flower fell off. Boom.

I have two posts I planned to put up today - Clueless’ Makeover Movie Madness and some thoughts on posture in character design, fashion and “celebrity culture” - but they are both currently long and unfinished. Bummer!

So instead, here are some pictures that I took but don’t need for the posture post, an illustration of two, and a picture of a Victorian corkscrew. The latter is my Dad’s birthday present - the brush is to rid yourself of cork crumbs. Smart, huh? Those Victorians. If it existed, they could make it fancier.

Page one, page two, more to come;

Corkscrew!

Silly Eric, there is nothing wrong with arboretums! In fact, they’re pretty darned excellent. Learn with me:

Want moar? Try HERE!

Coming this week: the resumption of Makeover Movie Madness! PLUS: the illustratorclaire MANIFESTO. Look forward.

I’m a little bit of a bigger girl but no taller - I’m a brand new twenny-three year old young lady! Woo-woo!

I celebrated by visiting Coventry Cathedral’s showing of the John and Yoko give peace a chance exhibition - a number of previously unseen photos of the bed-in. It was pretty excellent. There was no photography allowed and I don;t think they’re online, so I’m gonna have to draw a number of the pictures to my best recollection so as to give y’all an idea of it. It was really nice though, and if you get a chance you should definitely go.

Then we came home, and my beloved and I cooked an excellent (no really) roast duck dinner. A GOOD FINE DAY.

Please enjoy my present to myself; Last year (or 2008?)’s Jane Marple dans le salon Metallic Lace. I do so like a pink skirt.

HEY KIDS! Wanna be like me? Only richer? And more overtly influenced by Jem? El Delgado Buil x Kipling have made it possible!

So I GOT THESE NEW SHOOS.

They go with any tight(s),

And they make me feel POWERFUL,

Like I could fight!

They make me throw over my Fitflop slippers (and you know, I think they do work like they say they do)..

They make EVERYONE excited!

Even gents with shirts that excel.

I h’ain’t bought nor worn summer shoes for about ten years. It’s so hard to find ones that fit my exacting criteria: no open toes. No heels. No need to crunch my feet up to keep them on. This describes NO SHOES I HAVE EVER SEEN. Until these!

Ms Westwood, you see my dreams and you make them real.

And they smell like the Troll doll shop my dad used to take me to as a treat. A small shop in the indier section of the shopping center, with walls just lined with trolls. All sizes! All colours! All gimmicks! I adored Trolls, despite the fact that they were REALLY uncomfortable to cuddle. I got one near-on a foot high for.. my sixth birthday? Her name was Kylie. She had green hair. She smelt delicious!

I mentioned, on twitter, that I had recently put on oven gloves and picked up a pair of closely joined froggers.

PROOF.

Yesterday, for work at work, I wore this:

Today, for work (and chillin’, watchin’ Buffy, makin’ chili) at home, I wore this:

Because it’s good to be able to tell what is appropriate for where and when!

If you ever need to make a bonfire (allotment? garden? campfire? very very lost in the huge enormous woods?) and you have a pile of wood and scrub and such, don’t light it until you’ve moved the entire pile from where you found it. Or else you might end up burning hedgehogs to death.

(this isn’t a good fire, because I realised most of the stuff to burn was still damp from yesterday’s rain and stopped stacking.)

If you do have an allotment or a garden , it probably won’t be that long before you gain your very own friend robin. My grandpa’s perches on his spade handle, but I don’t know this one all that well just yet..

If you have brooches or pin badges that you like, or have a penchant for safety pins (me too!), then the turn from cold spring to warm spring can be prettied up like so. If you need underskirts but don’t need ALL the warmth they give you, pin the over-layer and feel somewhere between Belle and a Vermeer subject. Or use two pins, one on either side or your rear, and make the overskirt a gathered bustle! SO SIMPLE.

Final bonus: a properly photographed version of my lino cut from yesterday’s post. Want lino cutting done? I can (probably) do it! I just can’t do the printing for you, as yet.

A little while ago, I asked for concrit on my narration of the first two pages of a ghost story by A.C. Benson. None of you gave me any, which is a grudge I shall naturally hold forever, but nevertheless I am giving you a SECOND CHANCE. Look pleased!

Here’s a re-post of the first section. It’s audio only, but I know how to upload to youtube and so I will use that knowledge! Just keep it open in a tab at the back while you do something else, if you feel you may be bored by a lack of visuals.

And here is the newly uploaded, recorded today SECOND PART. Three whole pages this time, o yes I SPOIL you! Our Hero Paullinus has reached the point of no escape, though the really monstrous happening are yet to surface.

I really would like constructive criticism on my reading. I will even help you; upon listening in order to edit I have noticed that I need to:

1. speak less portentously
2. make more differentiation between voices, or voices and narration
3. need to slow the heck down sometimes

for example! What else? Please tell me! I will say, “thank you”.

Hallo.

It may be spring, officially (or it may not? I’m not actually sure), but that does not mean it’s warm and balmy. No, I still need a double-layered underskirt and wool shorts to keep me comfortably warm. And a fine-knit woolen sweater.

I was going to hang around in the garden and draw flowers and bits of wood and such, because illustrating backgrounds (or; anything that isn’t people) is something that I don’t much do. Because I don’t like to, and subsequently when I need to it doesn’t come out very well, which again - makes me like it less. NO NO SHAMEFUL LAZINESS. Draw from life, draw from life!

But! Like I said. Too cold for only one skirt means too cold for bare fingers, so alas I must stay indoors.

I use my house arrest to watch the latest Linkara review and do other kinds of study. Today, I swallow my mad pride and study Tove Jansson’s Moomin* expressions. They are so painfully good. I say “mad pride” because, in my arrogance, I hate to admit that people have skills and knowledge I do not! It is ridiculous!

And so, la! Theme work!

‘Ow do you like my new scarf-pin? “New”; I found it in one of my local-ish antiques centers. How truly antique is it? Who can say! I don’t much mind; it does the job I need it for, and looks like an anemone. It doesn’t have the middle-nub, but I figure everyone’s entitled to modesty. Anemones are my favourite. Plus, it makes me feel a little safer and more practical. You never know when you may need to pin something to something!

Wore it to make my fire, too.

*I know, I know - I had the Little My nightmares too. But that was the cartoon, not the gorgeous gorgeous books or comic strips, and in the books? Her character is wonderful. My very favourite. Referring to her as an “action girl”, which TVTropes does, is a massive injustice. And she doesn’t have THAT VOICE.

Coming later today or tomorrow: Makeover Movie Madness SPOILERS edition 2: Desperately Seeking Susan

Unrelated: How good would a Vanessa Paradis / Kana duet/battle album be??

Remember when I planted a bunch of bulbs including some garlic?

They grew, of course!

>

That’s the garlic. Isn’t it fine? It’s not done yet, as you can see, but when it is.. there will be a lot. And I shall use it ALL!

Irises and crosuses (crocii still sounds better) too, though they’re in or nearing their prime already:

I think this type of iris is so weird looking. Like alien mouths.

I don’t know the names of the individual types of crocus. But I know that they are ridiculously easy to grow; put them in the ground, forget about them, be pleasantly surprised by small flower-cups!

This was an interesting texture - a rose hip that’s shriveled on the plant.

I hope I never stop being amazed at the colours that can be found in wood. This is burburis, which is apparently a very defensive plant. It’s danger-yellow when grazed, I’m told it’s poisonous-bitter, and it’s extremely thorny. Extremely. Ouch.

I spent twelve til four building and tending a bonfire of all the scrubby old dead crud left over at the end of a garden’s winter. It was a job of heaving and smoked eyes, trampling and poking and blowing and propping and coaxing and HEAVING HARDER. Ivy and other scrub tangles as easily as hair if left to its own devices! But I had a big shiny fork to help me, which was nice.

I’ve got no flippin’ clue why or when this went so crap. It was fine and sharp when I finished editing it.. fantastic.

It was a little bit like I had slain a forest spirit-beast; the branches on top of the bonfire were antlers and the weeds were its flankshag. Not the kind of death that makes you a villain, though. The kind that forges respect between the two involved, and makes you responsible for that area of woodland for example.

…Odd angle..

The crocii (crocuses?) are pretty today:

This is so cute!

Bonus: An Impression - The Miracle of Birth!

Been cleaning the house all day.. finally relaxing with Wayne’s World 2. One of the best films, this is. Y-M-C-A!

P.S. JOIN THE GREETINGS REVOLUTION

Oh I forgot! The best thing about these massive medieval pockets! They make it so easy to reach snax!

My mum and sister had half-term last week, so we took an overnighter in Buxton. To walk in nature, and.. look at stuff. We stopped at Chatsworth House (because my sister is a big squealer for Pride and Prejudice), which as you can see above is quite delightful. This is the view from one side of the bridge:

One of several reasons I am proud to volunteer for BW: Waterways are wonderful. So pretty! I drew as much as my freezin’ fingers would let me.

There are links to more pictures (reference/stock) of these gorgeous landscapes in the righthand sidebar.

Also fascinating was the toilet paper, where we stayed. No really, take a gander!

Lots of charming pokey shops, too; antiques and bookshops aplenty. A surprising amount of clothing, in the antiques emporiums in and around Buxton actually - maybe it’s a local thing, but ‘vintage’ seems to be creeping in all over where it was once disdained. I may be being overly romantic.

There was the most excellent bookshop. Second-hand, antique to current, FIVE FLOORS. It had free tea and coffee! That you could make for yourself! It was glorious, and I kick myself for not being in the right sort of mood to really appreciate it. Then again, I really can’t afford to be stocking up on old, old thick books with the sorts of covers that make you want to weep from the perfection of illustration.

Where was my mind? Photographic evidence:

The horrors (and adventures) of my youth.

Truth be told I came out with exactly what I did want - Teacher’s Pet by Caroline B. Cooney, a Point Horror (remember those?) that chilled me so royally that I refused to use the downstairs bathroom for years. I’ve been looking for it for months; I wanted to see if it still had the power.

In the story the heroine finds a rough workmans glove in the woods, which turns out to still have a hand in it. My dad keeps his work gloves in the downstairs loo. I was a nervous and imaginative child!

So, watch out for THAT review, coming soon..

It snowed! The end!

Yesterday my mum and my sister and I visited my Great Aunt, who lives a fair way away in (my ancestral) Coventry, and took her to Coombe Abbey. Coombe Abbey, if you haven’t been, is awesome.

I haven’t taken any pictures of one reason it was so awesome, because that is probably illegal - there were tons and tons of kids there. Loads. I know it’s half term and all, but it was a joy to see youngins running about yelling at ducks, enjoying forest pathways, climbing banks, shouting “I AM THE TALKING BUSH” and shaking branches from inside evergreens which branch from ground-level, walking dogs, and QUITE CLEARLY being on dates. Too cute. If you are ever thinking, “oh alas children do not like nature any more, only wii, how sad!”, you should go to Coombe Abbey (at half term).

It has buildings, and grounds (lots), and just about every type of country landscape you could ask for. There’s a pond at the front of (what I think is) the hotel that has a sort of aqueduct non-bridge pathway across it; on one side it’s nature free and wobbly and undergrowth, on the other it’s nurture - angular and groomed, statues in the water, box-shaped box hedges.

There are paths to follow in various directions, which managed to turn me completely around and take me by surprise. I thought I’d reached a new building, but it was the one we started at. Cunning! The whole place has a sense of mystery though, the way it’s lain out - there’s always something just visible through or past or behind what you’re looking at.

The grounds were really, really pretty. These don’t do them justice because I am not a good photographer (and the camera I was borrowing is kind of weird and colour-bleaching/non-focusable).

Coombe Abbey also contains the spookiest tree-bourne sculpture I have ever seen. The black dog in this picture was being called forcefully by its owners, but I was willing it to stay in the frame long enough for the darn picture to take..

Seriously, is that supposed to be.. what is that supposed to be??

What’s a day out without a fitting outfit? NOTHING, THAT is what!! In a moment of great serendipity, my super-fantastic dreamskirt from Modelle - via the NASTY GAL sale - arrived that morning..

I was sure I would be able to see my own foot through the trunk’s various holes if only I stretched far enough..

I couldn’t.

BONUS: Me totally failing to replicate the awesome height achieved by my first run-up, which my fool sister MISSED CURSE HER.

And with that, I’ll go back where I came from.

I don’t always illustrate my face subject to the thoughts I had when I dressed for the day. Sometimes I do, but sometimes I just add what I think would look fitting based on the taken photograph, or to add a balancing agent to the mix (for example, if I look bodaciously Disney-buxom, I’ll probably add a manface). Sometimes I add a completely new element, to see how it changes the story of the clothing and my body language.

Today my creative process went like this:

“Haha, this outfit looks way sixties! A thinking socialite, like the ones from the movies, who took the Sound of Music straight to heart. Such things were nowhere near my mind when I put this stuff on! How interesting! I think I shall add a snooty model head, to complete the ensemble.”

“Hmmm. A lot of my thighs are visible here. How can I make a thigh look interesting? Well, much as I dislike him, Batman has made forearms look interesting.. how can I improve on that.. fins.. fins.. mermaids?.. fishpeople.. Gillman!”

“I can’t be doing with drawing ANOTHER set of thigh scales. The Creature’s only my second favourite type of classic movie-monster, anyway; I’ll show that Kate Beckinsdale what for. What a twit.”