Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Raining chats

Musician in the Rain, Maurice Baquet, Paris 1957, by Robert Doisneau

Plus ça change, plus c'est le même chat?

It's helpful for me doing these pastiches/copies - I find composition really difficult, and it's useful to copy what an artist has done that has worked beautifully, and hopefully take that knowledge into my own pictures more. Plus, obviously it's fun!

So much texting. 

Inspired by William Steig's C D B, such a funny book.


Monday, November 28, 2011

A squirrel singing and bats dancing this Monday.





Friday, November 25, 2011


Multitasking, get those dishes clean cat!

Thursday, November 24, 2011


Boop boop boop
boop boop



Wednesday, November 23, 2011



Am I nearly finished with this book... maybe, nearly!


STILL trying to think of cards... I don't know what this inertia is, I just can't seem to quite actually DO IT. Although just looked up some card making suppliers, which feels like an achievement. Now I know where to buy plastic bags to put them in, when they exist...

Friday, November 18, 2011

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Leonora Carrington


It's suddenly gone colder and wintery, dark early and the office feels more industrious... perhaps I feel extra shut into it somehow.

I'm going to see an exhibition this weekend of some Leonora Carrington drawings. She died this year in May aged 94.  I saw the Serpentine retrospective in 1991 and had never felt quite that passionate before about paintings. I bought the poster, which has now lived with me in 7 different homes, getting steadily tattier but much loved:

Portrait of the Late Mrs Partridge 1947
I remember my mum thought Surrealism was a bit of a teenage phase, and it's true I grew out of liking the others, but not Leonora. Although it is also true that I no longer paint homages to her which include self-portraits. I remember a giant oil painting I began in my bedroom which featured me as a Leonora-esque wraith wafting around my grandparent's lawn (can't remember what the symbolism was supposed to be)... it was utterly meaningless and I was SO keen on it. I remember feeling certain that when people saw it, it would blow their minds. "This was painted by Tor?" "But she's only a a teenager! She's a genius! etc" I never finished it, and the wet oil paint got covered in grime and dust. Which also reminds me of a painting I did when I was obsessed with fairies and folklore - it was of wood nymphs wrapped around trees. My mum told me years later that it was literally the most phallic thing she'd ever seen, and I cringed for a while thinking how proudly I'd displayed it in the art room. Ho ho!

I really recommend Leonora Carrington's funny, strange books, The Hearing Trumpet and The Seventh Horse and Other Tales, if they are still in print.

Monday, November 14, 2011

No no no

So this one is meant to be Snowman as Michelle Pfieffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys. But if you have to ask... well maybe you didn't, but is this unfestive or what! I like bits of this, the colours and the cat, but as an idea it's not happening. I think my brain hears "Christmas card" and goes into total shutdown for some reason. I made my grandmother's Christmas cards for years and years from the age of 5ish, so perhaps I used up all the festive ideas ever allotted to one person... Oh man!

That time again...


The time when I try and think of a Christmas card! I came into work yesterday and spent the whole afternoon on a Christmas Comic, having been inspired by going to the Comica Comiket on Saturday. By the end of the afternoon I was convinced it was total genius... but by the evening, and even more today, I can see it's TOTALLY random, and not funny. Bum! So I'm back to thinking along regular card lines. Not this chap, but maybe something in a carolling theme

Friday, November 11, 2011

Hoover

I haven't much to post at the moment as I'm still working towards this deadline. I've been trying to think of a Christmas card but not getting too far yet...


Eyeballing the hoover. My hoover could do with exiting the cupboard and being used...