Day 13: My Family

Day 12: Favourite Fairytale

My favourite fairytale is The Cat Who Was King. I believe that was what it was called. I do not know where my mother's copy has got to and neither does said mother. It was yellow and the pictures looked nothing like these. 

Searching for it on the internet I found this tale by the famed fairytale writer Andrew Lang. He wrote all the coloured fairy books - The Blue Fairy Book etc. Also, I may have heard of him because he gave his name to a lecture series at St Andrews. This would be the kind of thing I would go to. These lecture series with  prestigious names always have canapes. Lang's tale is called The Colony of Cats and has some dissimilarities from the storybook I read as a child. The tale I remember did not have the girls working as servants for the cat king - who was definitely a king - they were just there on errands.

I have made my heroine Jewish, because of the star on her forehead reminding me of the Star of David. I suppose she could have just as well have been pagan. Next time.

The nasty stepsister kicks a kitten!

Despite the donkey's tail, the prince engaged to the heroine is tricked into getting into the wedding carriage with nasty girl wearing a huge, thick veil. He gets suspicious when she won't let him see under her veil, sounds entirely different - claiming she has a cold - and is just a grumpy-pants. So he tears off the veil, sees it's not his fiancee and pushes her out of the carriage. This latter part, seems somewhat unnecessary, seeing as how he could've just called the driver to stop. However, we must make allowances for the poor boy, since he's probably just had a nasty fright. 

Day 11: Turning Point in Your Life

These questions are getting a bit personal. I copped out and did my favourite literal turning point - imagine there's a signpost in front of this oblong blob. The oblong blog is the milkstand which is at the turning point between Traboe and Rosuick on the Lizard Peninsula. I guess my ancestors may have placed milk churns on it long ago.

Day 10: Favourite Confectionary

Just been craving nougat lately. Perhaps because it's not as common as chocolate and caramel and therefore, it's hard to surfeit. Recent nougat experiences were provided by couchsurfer Frank Paul (artist of this zany apocalypse), who I hosted for his 2nd stop-off on a hike from Land's End to John o' Groats. I forget what type of nougat he brought, but it was very nice, soft and honey tasting, with pistachios. The other one was reduced Cote d'Or chocolate covered nougat bars, which I got from 10p from the Cornish Candy Shoppe, my local sweetshop, because they were out of date. They were gorgeous, but expensive at real price :s, so I haven't had any more.

Gosh. I actually can talk quite a lot about nought. I thought this was going to be a short post.

Day 9: Favourite Animated Character

Penny Crayon! She can draw anything she likes! Like cars and dogs and chloroform and cinnamon and bikes! And dan da dan da dandan da doo d-doo d-doo something something something and fourteen hundred trikes!

Yeah. I think you get the picture. From the same animators as The Family Ness. Whatever Penny draws comes to life. Actually, it sounds like a Midas curse. 

I watched Penny Crayon as a child, but the character I recently rewound the Skyplus to watch again and again was the Cat Bus. 

Day 8: Favourite TV Programme

Some sketches of characters from the IT Crowd. 

The IT Crowd has everything you could want in a sitcom: jokes, satire, surrealism, a theme tune by Neil Hannon.

Day 7: Favourite Film

For this I have picked Spirited Away. Since it's an animated film, I haven't really drawn the characters in my own style, just hastily copied. Now I come to mention it, this seems lazy. But No Face really cannot be improved upon, so there would be no point redrawing him. Actually, her face is still a bit longer than anime style. I can't help. I'm a long face drawing kinda girl.

No Face eating cake! Ha. Great moment. Great character.

Day 6: Favourite Book

As an English graduate, must insert obligatory line about how there are too many to choose from blah blah blah. What came into my head, however, was The Lives of Christopher Chant. It's easy to love children's literature. They're fun and aspirational. Ahhh. Yet, now I come to think of it, I could have drawn Oranges are not the Only Fruit, which is hilarious. And I'd only have had to draw a minimum of two pieces of fruit (one of the them an orange). It could have been so simple. 

The Lives of Christopher Chant is about a boy who can travel to parallel dimensions. Others can do this too, but he is particularly awesome at it. Originally a lonely child, he finds friendship and beauty in these other lands. However,others see the alternative worlds as a source of profit. Christopher's talent is perfect for being exploited to this end. Christopher must decide whose side he's really on. 

My pictures shows Christopher meeting the mermaids, who he nicknames "the silly ladies". Here they are being silly. His posh bed is at the top, with some stepping stones through the misty in-between world leading to the mermaids. The incarnation of the goddess is in the top left, reading an Enid Blyton book with one of her holy cats at her feet. To symbolise the fact she is the living goddess, she sits on a fancy pouffe. 

If I had spent more time on it, I would have done something about Christopher's HUGE ARSE. Whoops! I suppose I shouldn't have pointed it out to you. You'll keep looking at it now. Stop it! Give the boy some privacy!

Day 5: Favourite Place

Well, there is no point putting a place I do not know well, for that would be rather a shallow love. I have gone for a wide interpretation of "place" of course. I could have just done my favourite chair. Except I don't have a favourite chair. I do have a favourite bowl. Most of our bowls are inadequate.

I have drawn St Andrews, which has a plethora different types of scenery. Sea, forest, notable architecture, old ruins, and tea shops.

I have also drawn myself on the main street: in a gown, covered in foam, coming back from a swim in the sea-filled pool at Castle sands, in a trench coat when it is raining (From a great day when the rain came down like the town was one big outdoor shower and I went running in just my trench coat, underwear, and wellies. Next time it would be better to wear socks. It was lovely, since you immediately got soaked and didn't have that nasty damp feeling. Plus, I knew that I could easily run home whenever I liked, peel my coat off  - no nasty struggle out of damp clothes - and warm up with dry dressing gown and tea.)

Day 4: Best Friends

Day 3: Favourite Food

I love bread. I love those brown breads, I love those white breads, I love those carrying itty bitty seeds breads. 

Day 2: Favourite Animal

My favourite animal is a giant cat that hugs me. Actually, now I come to think of it, maybe it's about to eat me. Still, I'm getting an awesome hug first. What a way to go.

Day 1: Yourself

The picture me is sceptical of the accuracy of this picture. But what does she know; she could be wrong.

30 Days of Drawings

Decided to do this 30 day drawing challenge. An idea I shamelessly stole off facebook friend Capn Bex.


This is now day 5. I don't have everyday access to a scanner unfortunately, so the 30 days refers to me drawing them, not you seeing them :( Unless I post one up at a time and don't tell you about the time delay... except I already did, but well, you'll forget, surely.

Rev Giles Fraser

Inspired by Rev Giles. He seems a friendly guy.

Hermione

Inspired to do some Harry Potter cartoons after reading OMGRYFFINDOR. And inspired by Harry Potter of course. It has long been a dream of mine to live long enough to see Harry Potter: The Animated Series. Not that such a thing is coming out, but now that the films are over it is surely only a matter of time. I also think Harry Potter: the BBC serial would be great. A series would allow for more of the jokes and general surroundings of Hogwarts to be brought in. A more low key medium, for cosy home viewing, would reflect my experience of the books. Thinking of the Pratchett and Sarah Waters adaptations, the sets are always very rich. It's important to me that the series brings the stories to us as something to inhabit. Sets, cinematography will help that, but that the longer format would allow more of the novels' details to be included is the main thing. Tom Baker would make a good Dumbledore. Of course, most actors that come to mind have already starred in the films. 

Anyway. This is a young Hermione. Her hair looks more orange here than I remember from my original illustration. I definitely did not choose orange paint. I did want an auburn brown rather than a oakey brown or a yellow-glint brown for her hair though. That's my personal view. 

You may say: what's this? This is not the sex-pot Hermione we know. No. Not just because it's not Emma Watson, but because she's eleven. It's the young Hermione who needs braces and has trouble controlling her hair. 

The Cat and the Dog

Tactile test of today: petting the cat and the dog at the SAME TIME. This must be a trial for dual pet owner everywhere: the dog likes to be ruffled, while the cat likes to be stroked. It's like rubbing your stomach and patting your head, except your stomach and head keeping moving about. The dog and the cat kept turning around as I petted, meaning I kept turning around and got dizzy.

I'm a cat person myself and I prefer the cat's method of affection - "I will caress you legs" - to the dog's - "I will nose your bottom". Nevertheless, it is important to be fair. Especially since the dog has learnt to say 'hrrrumph!'

I will never run out of pictures of cats

It was a test of mental and physical agility. I am ready for the Krypton Factor.

Watercolour Sketches

Mesmerising

To illustrate this topic I picked the mesmerising experience of watching smoke rise. Incense is a particularly good example as the sweet smell should help the mesmerising effect. I've got a blurry smoke-haze effect going on with the incense holder.
I couldn't bring myself to use the American spelling of mesmerising.

Melting All the Tigers in the World to Butter

"How much do you love me?"

"Enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter."

 - Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood.


One of my favourite quotations; facebook profile worthy, no less. I thought it was indulgently surreal until today, when my mother and the second-hand bookshop owner started conversing about their childhood reads.

"Remember Little Black Sambo?"

"Yes - the tigers melted to butter."

Is this a source for the idea that tigers melt to butter? I've discovered the story online (http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/sambo.htm)* and it doesn't seem to be love that melts them, but centrifugal force. Perhaps Murakami means that the love his character feels is not only powerful but as giddying as the tiger-whirl-pool. Love as dizzying is a familiar concept, as can be heard from Kylie Minogue's hit Spinning Around. Unless that is about her visiting a roundabout. She is quite small in stature and could no doubt pass the height restrictions that say only children may ride. We envy Kylie, in theory, because we have seen Mary Poppins and want to ride on the big purple horse with the long eyelashes and win the Derby. However, in real life, those roundabouts you find in play-parks are scary and you can't get off when you want without grazing your hands and knees.

You need not have read Murakami's novel to know that he does use British cultural references. You do need to have read the title. This being so, it seems even less likely that butter tigers could be entirely coincidental.

*What kind of website is called 'sterlingtimes' and has a little union flag on its tab top (lack of technical language here, I'm afraid)? I checked: one with too much rainbow lettering. (It's always too much, because they always have to have it flashing, don't they? Like shouting out 'look! I'm someone who didn't grow up with the internet! Look what I can do! Wheee!' Chill.) A patriotic website, dedicated to maintaining such gems as colonial paintings of portly men drinking port in pubs and episodes of Sooty from 1955. If I wanted to watch Sooty, I would watch the episodes from the 1990s because like everyone, I believe programmes from my childhood were the best.

Mad News

This is mad.

Man dies after being tasered, 'cause of death unknown'.
I think I can guess. Was it: being hit by a taser?

Heard on BBC Radio that the last person who died in the UK after a taser attack did so because of a weak heart. So how many people have weak hearts in the UK? Pretty big risk, assuming the guy your tasering isn't one of them. And what if all deaths were explained in this way? "Man dies due to not keeping Bible in breast pocket" for example, instead of saying he was shot in the heart.


References: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-14553613
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/1651953.family_attacks_inquest_ruling_on_taser_death/ [this must be the man mentioned on the radio]




Evicting may lead to Homelessness
In the opening paragraph of a Times article this week, it explained that some people think evicting may lead to homelessness. Hmm, yes, at first I was hard pressed to see the correlation, but then I did, once I stopped being mad.


No reference provided for this one, since The Times don't let just anyone put their grubby eyes on their nice news site. I read it in the terrestrial world, from my Grandad's paper copy, earlier this week.

A Hare out of Place

Made this quick illustration for last week's Illustration Friday topic, 'Imperfect'. I am still putting it up because I think it was perfect (ha) for the topic. Unfortunately, tad too late. Excuses: ooh, blah,gah, didn't get to the scanner (sounds better when you know I don't have a scanner, have to go across the road), busy week (can't remember why; think I just felt sleepy all week), sketching for Cornish children's story, painting that banana and eating too many biscuits. Forget the biscuits. 'I was eating biscuits at the time' is never going to gain much sympathy as an excuse. Empathy, maybe. We've all been there, right. Yes, yes, right. Even JK Rowling says gluttony is the most acceptable deadly sin and she isn't even fat.

Of Painting, Decision making, and Nougat.

There has been some disagreement in the Goodfellow household as to whether Suky's painting is finished. A couple of 'yes' arguments say that a disputed area is 'heat haze' or looks unfinished because the painter in the picture has a blank canvas and so he hasn't painted that bit yet. The underlying concern in the 'yes' camp is that I will ruin it if I am allowed to go blundering near it again with wet paint. As I have a self-portrait propped against the bath that I plan to attack with some white spirit at some point (it used to look good, I remember) they may have a point. However, if I do not decide for myself when a painting is finished, then I start to see myself as a painting ape; blindly dabbing at a canvas until someone snatches it away and pronounces 'done!'
 

Best part of today was the reduced out of date nougat I bought at The Cornish Candy Shoppe. Only 10p each and only a month and a half out of date! Delish. Unfortunately there were only two and I think that I may be hooked. As they were Cote D'or, normally retailling at 75p for a 30g bar, I fear the future is bleak. 'Bleak' in this instance is being used as an adjective meaning 'without nougat'.

Obsession

How many spoons is too many spoons?

Perennial

For this week's Illustration Friday topic I am posting a picture of that perennial favourite Cinderella; a story constantly retold and illustrated.

Vegantastic Almonday Cake

Merry Almonday!

There's still time to make cake to celebrate - almond flavour of course.

Ingredients:

100g self raising flour
100g caster sugar
50ml vegetable oil (rapeseed)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cider vinegar
1tsp almond essence
100ml soya milk (I used unsweetened)
50g dried morello cherries (These were all the cherries I had; cherries were sparse, but present. If you only have glace cherries, you could use them if you wish. The good thing about the dried cherries was that they become moistened by the wet mixture. Plus, they taste quite like cherries. Fresh / tinned cherries would wet the mixture too much, I should think.)

flaked almonds to sprinkle on top.

Method:

Mix together everything but the flaked almonds. Put the batter in a greased and floured tin. Sprinkle the flaked almonds on top and bake in an oven heated to gas mk 4 / 180 C for half an hour or until golden brown and with almonds lightly toasted.

Gesture

Er, Miss... Miss? Miss!
Peter's gestures are ignored as Miss Scully attends to her favourites at the other end of the room: Millibelle and Trillibee, who always dress immaculately and imitate all Miss Scully's mannerisms, even her habit of brushing her hair away from her face with an uncapped felt tip pen.
Miss! Miss! Peter gestures for her attention. Miss!

Stay

Wh - w-woah, there!

Remedy

 

Last week's Illustration Friday entry, which didn't get put up due to scanning FAIL.

He Packed up the Moon and Dismantled the Sun

W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Midsummer Night

Word of the Day

Lucid

Luce - slipping over silk - sliding - sid - into closed door, feet first.

The Restaurant at the End of the Internet

Fed up without being well fed? Credit crunch stopping you munch? Having a rest from restaurants, or just spent six hours researching baby kangaroos online and forgot to eat?

Here it is, The Restaurant at the End of the Internet! The virtual experience of good food and pleasant surroundings. Own imaginative input required.

The decor is varied mix of the tacky, the twee and the downright bizarre. The ceiling is made of pornographic pictures: naked women, parts of men. The walls are filled with prints of Marilyn Monroe and videos of Katy Perry squirting whipped cream from her breasts. If you look to the bottom of your menu, you can see that same whipped cream is available with dessert.

First though, it's time for hors d'oeuvres. Colourful mush in puff pastry. It's impossible to tell what is in them, even after eating.

Try the asparagus and mushroom in a light butter sauce. Careful not to spill on the deep pile carpet; it's a bright white with primary colour sparsely patterned in.

Main course is this delightful pasta dish. Stephen Fry is writing about it on twitter as we munch. He isn't giving it a good review, because the waiter made a joke about it not being fryed.

What are the couple at the next table having? Looks like champ, with tofu there beside it and carrot sticks stuck in spinach lurking there behind. To each their own. Get all sorts out here at the Restaurant at the End of the Internet.

And for dessert? Brownie and ice cream. Whipped cream was all gone.

All that's left is the bill. Ah, but you don't pay for stuff from the internet. Just give money to the service providers. The waiters smile, after you've given them your tip, and show you to the door. Out back the chefs are none too happy, but it's a little late, 'cause you're already home safe and sound. In fact, you never left. Feel free to visit again the Restaurant at the End of the Internet. Turnover is high, so they'll never recognise your face. Eat what you like, but careful, you never know what they put in it or where it's been.

Things I saw Yesterday

#1

A woman talking on her mobile in a residential street, saying the words 'Sorry, I'm at the dentist right now...'

#2  Man in three piece suit in a theme park.












#3 A blue dolphin in a clouded sky.

Fever Poem

I wrote this at 5am this morning, feeling the flush of aspirin battling fever. In hindsight, I say it is inspired by the Slutwalk / IMF chief news stories.


The Old Bug Story

In my defence, said the beetlebug, it wasn't terribly hard,
Your honour, said the ladybug, he is twice my size.
To sum up, said the grasshopper,
Your figure is not great.
You have yet to find a mate.
While beetlebug is a high-flyer,
You are a flighty liar.
Beetlebug is on the stick exchange,
Womanbug where is your career?
Your skirts only go down to here,
You do not show appropriate fear,
To my grasshopper status and rank.
Case dismissed.

Ladybug saved up to purchase a knife,
Then one summer day took her own life.
Goodbye polka-dot lady in red.

The grasshopper mused, I'll invent a pie.
Make a mint.
As the leaping lord filled his coffers,
The beetlebug ran for public office.






No accompanying picture due to illness.
I do happen to have this bug one though >

My Magic Flask

My magic flask transforms any drink. Whatever you put in it, be it tea, coffee... okay, I have only ever put in it tea and coffee. It is a flask. Apart from hot drinks - or if you're a crazy radical, soup - what else are you going to put in it? Anyway, whatever I put in it, the thing I drink bears no resemblance to the original contents. Therefore - - - > Magic.

The colour is always black. The inside of the cup, i.e. flask top, is black. No magic there. The material state is liquid. That is like the original contents, admittedly. That's probably something to do with magic still having to be within the laws of science - whoever heard of matter changing state and liquid becoming solid or gas? Hahahaha.... wait, did I boil a kettle to make tea? Yeah... steam? You mean the magic cloud? Not magic? Okay, no magic clouds. Back to talking about my magic flask.

Magic 1:
Input: tea  - - - - > Output: creosote.

The smell of creosote is nostalgic to me, conjuring up memories of my dad coating the fences. I grew up in what could be called a remote hamlet. Though I am uneasy applying the word remote to a place that was the centre of my universe for so long. Did it have a bus service? Not after the woman who used it died. Was it near town? Welll, twenty minutes drive; without traffic. Train station? Pah, by the time you got there, time to go home again. I'd say remote-ish. The house in the hamlet had corrugated iron to be painted and fenced in garden to be creosoted; in case you'd forgotten why I mentioned it.

Magic 2:
Input: coffee - - - - > Output: liquid frankfurter.

A bit like liquid nitrogen in that it starts with the word "liquid". In no other ways is it like liquid nitrogen.
Frankfurters are also nostalgic to me. I wasn't always vegetarian. In fact when I was very young I really liked frankfurters. Especially chilled frankfurters. The appealing thing about frankfurters was you could pretend they were cold, dead worms.

My magic nostalgia flask is available for rent for a upfront fee of 200 magic dollars. Applicants without magic dollars need not apply; no time wasters thank you.

Body Language Explained #1

Walking down the street with hands on hips.



 I used to think that this was a catwalk model's sexy walk, when I was as a kid. Then I grew up and realised two things.

One, that catwalk models aren't sexy, as they are employed to resemble coathangers as much as possible.

Two, that the reason anyone would walk down the street with their hands on their hips is because they forgot to apply deoderant that morning and need to get the air up their pits. Any sashaying in their walk is to waft stinky sweat smell away.

It happened.