Rodin, Rodin, Rodin, Keep Those Dawgies Rodin.

Today we went and saw the Rodin exhibition at The Royal Academy.
The piece below was outside so we were able to photograph it without the gift shop police getting cranky.


Also - someone seems to have done something uncomplimentary to Mike Shlingman.

Ask The Leylans - REVISED

A huge thanks to the hard working, talented and overly apologetic Smook, who was kind enough to send me the original version of this post before Blogger did unfriendly things to it.
Here it is in all its glory.

Well it's been an exciting day!
We travelled all over the show.
The day began the evening before as I pondered the impressive dribble of water piddling into our flat from the one above.
Despite him claiming to have done something about it, our landlord seems to have achieved nothing more than adding a few centimetres of brackish water to the collection bucket and enhacing the smell of paper mache' in the tv room.
We left the problem in his unhelpful hands, hired a car and went to vist the city of Bath.
How jolly it was.
I took quite a few pictures, but it was hard to get anything decent that didn't have swarms of repellent tourists stuffing themselves with McDonalds and treats from Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe interfering my compositions.
The pictures below are of some kind of cathedral there.
I have made them black and white and bumped up the contrast to make it look like I'm really clever (when in fact I'm not at all).


We had intended to go and see Stonehenge on the way home but by the time we got there it was shut.
It may sound hard to shut a pile of rocks, 3 million years old, but in fact all it meant that we had to peer through the cyclone fencing instead of standing nearby.
Apparently Stonehenge gets a little niggly after hours and can bite, so it was the best way to enjoy a pile of rocks unsupervised.
I mean no disrespect to the ancient history of any nation, but I've discovered in my travels that when you are confronted with something that you've seen in so many pictures, that the majesty of a monument is utterly diminished, so it feels a bit like a theme park.

And this is a bit of the English countryside pretending to be Tasmania.
It's doing a good job, but the sheep are the wrong colour.

Bloody Mickey

The Tube Of You

God bless You Tube.
For those interested in Tasmania, the best place in the world, take a gander at these clips:
I issue an awful music warning...
A tour of the city of Launceston (with awful music)

A short clip of Honeymoon Bay on the east coast

Famous clip of the last known Thylociene (incorrectly called a Tasmanian Wolf here)

A Koala - not native to Tassie but there in wildlife parks

A Bunch of Tassie devils squabbling, Warner Brothers style
This one is brilliant. The devils sound like someone trying to dislodge a horizontally shaped poo from a vertical shaped hole.

Mildly interesting photo montage (with good pictures) and awful music

A wallaby! These creatures are yummy!

Huge bloody great waves with suicidal maniacs surfing on them

Lake St. Clair in the Wintertime - nice time lapse stuff

Wombats!

Wineglass Bay - Paradise on my doorstop

More Mickey

Killer Pelican

Today as I had my breakfast in the caff downstairs, I thumbed through The Sun.
In it was a hilarious story about a idiotic pigeon who had somehow stumbled into the pouch of a pelican's bill.
According to the story the pigeon struggled for 20 minutes before the pelican thought "Fuck this for a game of skittles" and swallowed the pigeon whole.
I am sure it regretted it - swallowing a live bird is surely not a nice thing (for the eater or the eatee).

Things In The Trees

This would have given me nightmares as a child...

B n R

This pair are my delightfully entertaining, yet wholly unappreciated creations, Boxhead and Roundhead.
They have had cameo appearances on the blog, but I've never posted any of the original artwork.
And I still haven't.
This was an excersise to see if this would work, and I think it may have.

Bang

Hmmmm

Well I'm still not convinced that this isn't just pissing about.
Nonetheless...

More Colour

It's hard to tell whether this is satisfying or just Photoshop fiddling.
Can anyone do this in Photoshop?
Is this merely using software to create a popular look?
This is the big thing...

Poor Mickey

A Picture Sent From Home

And a great big hey, howdy hey to inidentified visitor #40,000.

PictureFULL

A big thank you to Patricia Grillo for sending me these photographs of a terrific day.
The only things missing were a collection of Australians who would have had a very good time indeed.
You missed an extraordinary volume of beer, good company, drawing demonstrations, the harassment of innocent animation managers, pretty girls, men in their knickers, switching pants, a fine ploughmans lunch, and a brand new Italian called Max.
I do not hesitate for one single second to thank my very good friends who spent the day sharing drink and food with me.
I very much hope to see you all again very soon.
E
xxx

Kong

The 1976 version of Kong is on the telly at the moment.
It's really, really awful and hugely entertaining because of it.
The special effects were directed by Ed Wood it would seem.
Here are Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange in that very film.

Edit - an hour and a bit later.
This film MUST be seen by all!
It's shitty in every possible way.
Kong's main role in the film is to smash things in slow motion.

Dolphin

Coloured Chooks

Here's somehting in colour on suggestion from a jolly nice fellow.
Inadvertantly I ended up stealing from Eric Carle.

Nighty Night

Dear Budding Young Illustrator

You know that old saying "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys"?
Do we want monkey children?

The Idea

Tonight I saw a newly released animated film which has inspired this post.

In the beginning someone comes up with a tiny, primitive idea.
Out of the gloom the idea begins to grow, shedding light on everything around it.
Everyone that receives the light from the idea begins to add to it, and it grows bigger and bigger.
Soon, an excited group of enthusiasts are gathered around the idea.
They are in a special club that knows what the idea is all about.
What will happen.
Where it's going.
It's like a little baby that needs carefull attention, good food and lots of sunlight.
Eventually comes the day when the idea is too big for this small group of followers, and everyone else gets to see it, and, like everyone else before them, they begin to add to the idea.
As more and more people join the special secret club, the idea begins to get a little bit lost.
Too many people and not enough idea.
Everyone has heard of the idea, but no one is sure exactly what it is.
It's become fuzzy and indistinct.
Then finally, when everyone's finished with the idea, it doesn't seem to be what everyone thought it was in the first place.
And that's that.

A Glimpse Of Tasmania

Mouse

The Terrifying Headless Invisible Man!

Inspired, rather remarkably, by the inimitable Alina Chau

Early Years

From the ages of 8 to about 14 or so - this is the kind of thing I drew almost exclusively.

Years Later

This is the same girl as below, only 4 years later.

Smut Smut Smut

Nigella Does in Fact Bite

There is a very good show on the tv here in the UK called "Who Do You Think You Are?".
It involves various celebrities tracing their families histories.
There have been some surprising and interesting tales - in particular there was a fellow - a black athlete, who was shocked to discover that there was not that much "black" in his genetic makeup.
Fascinating stuff.
Last night television chef, sexpot and cook bookist, Nigella Lawson traced her family tree.
She didn't trace is so much as try and bully it into what she wanted it to be.
Nigella is from a very fancy, wealthy family, and I think she was hoping to find that her descendents were part of the same fancy, wealthiness.
It did not prove to the be the case and she was not very happy about it.
She spent a lot of time posing fanciful solutions to minor mysteries, and trying to reinvent sinister things in a more jolly light.
Such as: Great grandpa so and so was convicted of stealing, but didn't turn up to his court case.
Reason: He legged it out of the country so he wouldn't get in trouble.
Nigellas reason: Great grandpa so and so was so clever, that he he knew that he'd been wrongly accused and felt it was easiest to go to a whole new country and change his name.
She also spent a lot of the show wandering around holding a purse at a very specific angle to try and hide her massive arse.
She needed a bigger purse.

My Film

Because everyone seems to be involved in a film about dining rodents, except me, I've decided to go into production myself.
This film has the full compliment of blood, gore, violence, zombies and lots and lots of naked girls touching each other.
Contact me if you'd like to participate in the production of this film, especially if you are a naked girl who likes touching other naked girls.

Plergh

Memories

Patty Cake Patty Cake

These two girls both work for two different bakeries on Junction Road.
They are both abut the same age (18 - 20 or so).
They are from different cultural backgrounds.
They have quite different styles of customer service.
Guess which one I prefer to buy bread from.

Better Looking

It has occured to me that I have been in the United Kingdom for only 3 months as of today.
It feels like about 10 years...
I'd like to take the opportunity to thank some folks in particular.
Special thanks to Oscar and Patricia who have welcomed me like some kind of distant but familar cousin.
A thank you to to Uli Meyer, whose treats me like someone he has known his entire life.
I thank Neil Ross for refusing to lower the tone of the evening despite my contributions. An inspiration and a fine fellow.
And Boris Hiestand, who has been a delight, a pleasure, and on every single occasion, a friend.
More than anyone though, I thank little cousin Rachel, who has fed me and housed me since the day I arrived.
Someone cleverer than me will write an anthem in your honor and will include the name, Iain, on occasion, who may not be as pretty as you, but is better at X-Box.

Hans Christian Anderson

Passion

Bad Brother

The One They Call Ross

Strange At First

Give Up

Soothing Tone

Bzzzzt

Thank You

A big thank you to everyone who has enjoyed the latest series.
I'm packaging them up in the format you see above for distribution.

Better