Couple more pics. Showed another class the massively lovely Harmony page and it was a lot of fun to see a new group pick it up and play. To explain how it worked I pretty much did this pic and just finished it off over lunch. Hurrah

Wish, wish, WISH it did vectors so it could upscale but hey ho, you can’t have everything and that’s like saying it’s a shame David Beckham can’t play the saxophone. What Harmony does well it does brilliantly

Man I should be on commission

That said it’s a free piece of art playfulness so commission wouldn’t buy me the luxury Sushi I crave.

Also: team Pixelmator – if you ever read this please get this into a future iteration of Pixelmator Would love to have things like undo, shading, higher detail etc…

(incidentally – finished in Pixelmator as always )

One of the things I’ve been working on, well, two of them actually, comes to leave my hands and go to the hands of others soon enough.

The first, Dr Sylver and the Tapestry of Time, hits shelves in April after the most protracted birth of any of my projects, ever. Oh boy.

The second hits shelves before hand, despite only having been worked on since Christmas in any real sense. It’s been a theraputic piece of work in some ways, exciting in others. Ladies and Gentlemen meet Wombat and Wambot. It’s the tale of a small, furry amnesiac and his large robotic counterpart. Fairly obviously the name came first and the story… Well, there’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that in there. Sometime soon it becomes my own and then, shortly after, it’s going to be given over to others: much like the Big Book Draw the fun of Project Wombat is that others will fill in the middle up until the last page or so. That part will be the most fun of all. I had intended to show the project off sometime in the Summer but with the release of Brushes on the iPad in a months time it makes more sense to try and hit before then which has compressed my stretching out and relaxing time to a small, stressed ball of lack of time off. Still, I do love working on a project so hey ho, all part of the game.

Anyhow if you’re so inclined you could join the twitter feed at @wombatwambot or add the facebook page here… The more the merrier (and of course the more would help me out in showing the project off to others in the future so any adds would be gratefully appreciated).

Getting there. Strange to think this has been a 5 month plus project that fits into a small sandwich box. Then, when they are all set out, it seems like a much larger project.

Some things yet to do and it looks like the sending off party which’ll split all forty to different parts of the planet never to be reunited will have to be delayed until January which I’m a little disappointed about. But hey ho. Patience and all that.

After that, loads of stuff to do, but just finished a long teaching day to have a brief break before doing youth group in an hours time. Onwards (wearily).

(May or may not be the final epilogue). (In fact you should see the amount of artwork-x-FINAL-2c.jpg type files I hav on my machine).

(But: onwards).

Big Book Draw was lovely in so many places, not least of which going through the kids artwork to pull it together into a story. It was a doozy of a day – although as soon as it’s finished I’m always so tired I fail to see the lovely parts because of all of the problem fixing on the day… But it was ace and a little distance softens the smudges.

This is one fortieth of the result. Sadly WAY too many people to do a book each – they’re a little fiddly to do and take about an hour and a half each to pull together. But they look LOVELY so I want to do some sort of showing of them later. In the meantime one will go to each of the sponsors, helpers and fish doodlers and that’s probably – time wise – going to be as many as I can manage. I can’t wait to take a photo of all of them lined up before posting though I think that’ll look fantata.

Already got the story for the next Book Draw bouncing around my head as well as an interim project aimed more at teens. We’ll see how each progress (and I’ve passed the ideas onto someone else to see what they think… We’ll see would be lovely to get some sort of distribution in a way but all bridges to be vaulted).

So: here’s the Big Book in some of its finery. The story is a few posts down if you want to see the journey of it from start to finish. If time allows I’ll do a website of the whole thing but that won’t be for a while I think.

((the last one is a size comparision. I do have a smaller copy – about 3/4s of the size but this ones fiddly enough to make I think…))

(((Also: obvious joke ahoy. At 40 copies this now becomes one of my highest print run books! Badoom TISH))).

Depending on a variety of issues life over the next two weeks will be a bit chaotic. I may be posting stuff, may not but the Big Book Draw looms large (as do a couple of other deadlines) so I’ll be focusing on them as much as I’m able.

Nearly all Book Draw doodles are in from the kind participants. That’s been very gratifying and encouraging. To pick favourites would be silly – everyone who’s sent me doodles are ace and some will appeal to different participants in different ways. A couple strike me as wonderfully bizarre and creative and that’s great. Can’t wait to see people’s reactions to them.

The above image is the workflow of the picture that comes up near the beginning of the story that is given to people to elaborate on. I must admit to having mixed feelings about it nowadays, having doodled the original pic a couple of weeks ago, as images of floods have weighed heavy over the past few weeks. But it’s a hard image to swap and hopefully not something which people will take a less happy message from. I don’t think it has the sort of feel that you can take a more ominous message from it but, that said, I often teach my students that if you can see a hint of a second message in an image take it out if you can. Time’s just not with me to change that much of the picture.

Righto, back to work for me. Hopefully in a few weeks time I’ll look back on all this and laugh. As it is Big Book Draw and Sylver 3 are… well, there’s a lot to do lets just say.

OK so October is shaping up to be a doozey. For a start I’m fairly sure we’ll see Dr Sylver and the Tapestry of Time hit the streets (third and final book in the Everything series although, not necessarily, the last we’ll see of Sylver).

Then I’ll be doing the Big Book Draw with my youth group kids, a couple of friendly teacher helpers, some students and all sorts. Should be ace. The venue is BRILLIANT for drawing and creating in and they’re keen to be involved which is always good in a partnering venue. As well as all that the story is strong (although I always say that, egotist that I am) and the beginning and end doodles look pretty cool (massive ego ahoy). (Well, I like them anyhow )

Better than that this years book draw is different because I’m approaching well known people and asking them if they could fill in a template of doodles for inclusion into the whole piece. So the kids (of all ages) can go away with a book written by them and Tom Merritt (Buzz Out Loud host and writer of Boiling Point), Jan Pienkowski (Meg and Mog), Paul Cornell (writer of Marvel comics and Dr Who novels), Emma Dodd (loads of books for Templar publishing). Nick Page (The Longest Week, Whatever happened to… and many more books) and more. Which is great… So far spent a good portion of the evening sending out more begging letters so shall see what I get back. But whichever way round it’s going to be an interesting day.

I think we’ll be doing a second book draw day but that’s very much tbc so we’ll see what happens on that score. More info later, maybe.

And then, lastly, someone offered their venue as a host to an exhibition in Oct for the Brushes artwork for the BBD and more besides so it looks like that one may be a goer too. We’ll see. All exciting stuff.

Less excitingly wifey was DIYing (I was doing kid duty and setting up youth work stuff for tomorrow) and… hmm… let’s just say that one tin of paint should have had a top on. And not be trodden on. And catapulted over two carpets, a wall, two library books, four books of photographs etc. Oh well, we’ll look back on it and laugh I’m sure.

Righto, onwards. Loads to do, just fancied a rest from it for a min.

The first two are from the finalised image for the Guildford Book Festival brochure and I’m quite happy with the way it turned out, all things considered. Bearing in mind the majority of my brushes work is done on a bus going to and from work I think they came out remarkably unjoggly

The final two… Hmmm…. for a long, long time I’ve wanted to exhibit some artwork. I often get the bug when I’m organising (or attending) gigs by the youth group bands. I love them all to pieces but a part of me wishes that I could step on stage and perform even a little bit as well as they do. I can’t, of course. They’re the musicians and I’m merely the organiser. But I can draw and that’s been a nagging voice in my head for a couple of years now. With Brushes I have a body of about 20 or so paintings that will look very nice printed out large, on canvas, small and framed etc and it’s in my mind to pursue, to see if it’s feasible (sorry, Dith. I convinced myself but it’s by no means a definite.) So, anyhow, drew this… Y’know… Just in case…

If it does happen I’ll try and organise one test showing around the book festival date (probably a week after) but we’ll see… Very much up in air/back of brainwaves sort of mulling…

Another screenshot from the new project I’m working on. Dr Sylver 3 is dated for the week commencing October 10th this year so it’s exciting to have a release date to hang on it and now, teacher training portfolio aside (which I REALLY must get onto although the irony of that statement is subject to a confidential document I can’t share with anyone) I’m now full time on this project and one other. Roll on July 3rd when I can start giving attention to them with less guilty feelings alongside.

This week has also been defined by uber athletes foot (which erupted in blood and other disgustingness on my big toe) and then a night of ‘both ends fighting the middle’ as one of my colleagues charmingly put it. Whether it was a bug caught from the doctor’s waiting room or an allergic reaction to the foot cream I don’t know but Tues – Thurs were not comfortable days. At all. Today is the first day I’ve been up to much so, like a twit, I walked son boy to the shop to buy a Slush Puppy (which came out with a completely different name on my phone when I tried to text wifey) and came back feeling like a poached slug. Still, it’s been a very positive day too so that’s a good ‘un.

Also: did this y-day using Brushes on the iPod touch. It’s surprising in a way – I’m so used to tools and layers and modes and styles and warps and filters – but Brushes is a joy to play with and watch the results. When I see the movie file play away I see areas that I would have changed had I not seen them from the outside in so it’s a fascinating process. I noticed @skottieyoung did a similar thing using (I think) Artrage Pro and Ustream in an interactive fashion. Not that I’m anywhere near having an audience such as his but that seems the nest step in the Brushes play – to have people chatting as I go but hey, step by step and all that.

Just doodled this which is an extrapolation of the likely interior image. Not the cover but made me smile regardless.

I am still working on it, honest. Hopefully this is the last round of changes prior to publication.

So change is coming, which I’ll write about soon but some aspects of my life are very much up in the air all over again. Not that I’ve not been in that position before and it was a time of uncertainty and blessing in that order so I’m sure faith and hope’ll get me through again. Still, as I reach the ripe old age of very nearly forty it gets less and less fun to juggle on a tightrope.

Diff subject:

one of the things I miss most was a personal and group project combined. The Guildford Big Book Draw was always a load of fun and, for the first three years, we (by which I mean wifey and I as well as some lovely helpful teens from the youth group) would get out loads of art materials and just have fun with whoever wanted to join us. Then, on the third year of doing that I did my back in carrying it, because we had so many people joining in. So last year we went small and did mini-books which was lovely as well. This year is up in the air and I truly hope we do it but we’ll see. Here are some of the paintings from two years ago and they’re all sorts of ace. One day I hope circumstances put me in a book draw place again…