Not yawning, screaming. Tom the cat.
A new film about the book design process for Lauren Child and Oxford University Press…
Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking Goes Aboard, illustrated by Lauren Child, came out this week published by Oxford University Press.
I’ve made a series of short films about Lauren’s working process and why she is fascinated by Pippi and Lindgren’s books. The third film features yours truly and we discuss the approach to designing the book, particularly the planning and working with the typography. Lauren’s ideas for making her illustrations integrate with the type and decisions on what and what not to include in a long-form book are discussed.
And you get to see inside the studio where she does all this stuff.
Available at all good bookstores.
A long way…
I have a jar of white gouache (I guess it’s like gouache) which I bought in the 1990s. It’s still going and it never seems to lessen. And it’s as opaque as ever. You don’t need two coats. What great value.
Oil pencil on newsprint. With bleed proof white.
“It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.” Albert Camus
Life drawings, but not as we know it…
Some life drawings from assorted books. Ink, graphite, oil pencil, pastel, charcoal etc. NB: Contains some poorly drawn nudity. And some drawn-out noodling. Audio recorded in Australia at 446m above sea level.
“I have got this obsessive compulsive disorder where I have to have everything in a straight line, or everything has to be in pairs.” David Beckham
Same but different…
Different model, same pose, two years apart.
Small paintings of large buildings…
“Never talk to a client about architecture. Talk to him about his children. That is simply good politics… he will not understand what you have to say about architecture most of the time.” (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe).
Ditto these drawings. (David Mackintosh).
Ink and gouache on Imitlin.
Happy Birthday Jacqueline…
At the bird sanctuary, May 1973.
Fifteen minutes worth of drawing…
If you have fifteen minutes, take a look at this video of twelve sketchbooks I used for life drawing between 2006 and 2007. Don’t worry, it’s been sped up about doublespeed, so you won’t need to dwell on a drawing you don’t like the look of for very long.
I was going to throw the books away to save space, and decided to video them so I had a record of the drawings. Each book took about 5 minutes of video and after about five were done, I’d changed my mind and wanted to keep the books. Now, I have all the books and a humungous digital file on my computer, taking up even more space.
The drawings are made in ink, charcoal, oil pencil, watercolour and graphite. The audio is a recording taken at the southern end of Killcare Beach on the Bouddi Peninsula on the central coast of New South Wales.
Please note: The life models are male and female and are nude.
The twelve drawing books.
Local colour…
This cat lives next door but eats chez moi. He prefers tuna but occasionally asks for prosciutto or even milk.
Tom.
Horizontal hold…
When I was nine I watched a movie from the forties and the bad guy wore a striped long sleeved shirt and a sailor’s hat. I decided I’d buy a shirt like that when I grew up and in January 1987, I did.
Similar to the actual striped shirt.