Goodbye Tony!

A friend of mine died yesterday. I've know Tony Clews since I was at college. In those days he was a bit of a hell raiser. Then many years later we met again at the Sussex Arts Club life drawing class where we were both regulars. I discovered that in the intervening years he'd mellowed a lot and turned into a lovely, funny and charming guy with an engaging, throaty laugh and a ready wit. He was one of life's true characters and a a very good artist. Particularly his tree studies drawn from life in the countryside around Brighton. A few years back me and a bunch of friends were making a small film to enter a competition on The Culture Show (we didn't win, alas!). The film is a satire on the Richard Burton version of 1984 and I wanted to get Tony's extraodinary face in it. He had a none speaking part as a guard and looked amazing.
If you want to see it you can find it on Youtube under the title-"At Last the 1984 Show!"

Wherever you are Tony, you're going to be greatly missed, mate.

Life Drawings

On Tuesday night at the Sussex Arts Club just off Bond Street we were lucky enough to be drawing the elegant Frankie. She has the longest hair in the known universe which was all pinned up to avoid frightening the artists (we're a sensitive lot and easily startled). The class was graced with the presence
of the excellent fellow cartoonist Geo Parkin who has recently got back into pure drawing after years in the deadline/commissioned art wilderness.

Anyway, here are my best efforts from the session.

Touch of Evil

The other day I went along to our local art cinema the wonderful Duke of Yorks to see the classic film noir Touch of Evil. Directed by and starring Orson Welles as a monstrous barrage balloon of a corrupt cop on the USA/Mexican border. The film begins with one of the most celebrated continuous tracking shots in all cinema and what follows is a total gem of a movie, beautifully shot and starring a host of superb character actors as well as the stars- Charlton Heston in his best role, Janet Leigh in a roll that strangely prefigures her part in Psycho and the great Orson Welles in (I think) his best character role.
Spotted in a very minor role by the eagle eyed cinephiles I was with was Mercedes McCambridge as a punk gang leader. She is most famous for supplying the voice of the possessed girl Regan in The Exorcist. I drew this from memory when I got home and it's my small tribute to a fantastic film.
That's two wonderful black and white films I've seen inside a week. The other was The Artist which moved me to such heights of blubbery big-girl's-blousiness that I'm filling up now just thinking about it.

Enough!

Even more life drawings

These are from Tuesday night's session at The Sussex Arts Club off Bond Street.

More life drawings

The other night I had my lovely French friend Marie round for some modeling and this is what came out of it. I have to admit to some enhancement with Photoshop but only on the backgrounds. Marie needs no enhancing from me.

My working process

This weekend I was working on one of my regular magazine spots. It's a "find these items hidden in the picture" picture for a kids mag called All about Animals. This one was needed in a rush and I thought it would be interesting to show the way I go about it (for any perspiring cartoonists out there).

The brief was brief. Draw some jolly penguins having fun. So i did. I've just sent it off so I hope they like it.

More life drawings

I attended the lunchtime session at Jake Spicer's class today. The model was the ethereally lovely Laura.

Here are my best efforts.

cemmick's comics

Life drawing

Last night I went to the life drawing class at The Bee's Mouth local hostilery and beer emporium where one of my favourite models- Fabulous Feryal was posing. Here are the best of my daubings.

Work avoidance exercise

Here's today's work avoidance exercise. Make of it what thou wilt!

Match of the Day

Well after doing a lot of work avoidance exercises since Christmas I had a reluctant peek at my bank balance. Once the panic had subsided I thought I'd better do some paid work. So here are my first two comic strips of the year for, regular client, Match of the Day magazine. The chaps on the mag supply the script and put on the word balloons so as it stands it won't make a lot of sense. But it's basically about football players. They rest you can imagine for yourself. Now all I have to do is wait 6 months to be paid. Ah! the lucrative life of the freelance illustrator! Pour my another cocktail Helga!

Horrible Histories

One of those strange things happened to me this afternoon when you come upon a piece of your own work unexpectedly and it takes you a split second to recognise it. I'd turned the TV on waiting for the early evening news and Horrible Histories was on. I'd done some work in one of the shows and I know that it's a very funny show so I thought I'd watch the rest of it. Then-blow me!- some of my drawings came on illustrating a Georgian version of the Three Little Pigs. It was the same episode that I'd worked on. How's that for a coincidence?

Naturally I watched through to end to see if I got a name check in the credits and I did! Cheered me up a treat that did. Here are my designs for the Pigs and the Wolf as well as my initial roughs for the Wolf character.

First postings of the new year

Well, it's the second day of the shiny new year, the weather outside is frightful, I have no pressing deadlines so I though it was about time I got going on a Blog site. Here are some scribblings created over the last few days to avoid starting work.