Sketches

I haven't done much drawing recently, I've been spending big chunks of my days taking my Christmas cards round more shops in Brighton. It only takes about a few hours to go round all of them, but it's tiring and I have to spend the rest of the day under a blanket watching Judge Judy.
I got a few big orders, which meant I had to really up my production methods.
I've even left a load with the council (albeit on a sell-or-return basis) which they're going to put in their various shops around town. Because they're the council I got an "official order" form which refers to me as Jack Noel Card Co., which is nice.

My friend Beatrice came back from Uni though and we walked round town until we were hungry and then went back to her mum's house for tea and tuna-melts and then wining and dining all in front of the telly with the whole family. Whilst there I drew.

Home continued

Here's the street where the girl lives. She's coming home, you see. I'm not sure where from. Prison perhaps? Ooh, now it's edgy.
I'm not sure how to colour it but I think this simple white/red version is best.


Another option is blue, like this:

Home

This girl is intended to be part of a bigger piece, but I haven't drawn the rest of it yet.

Tapedog

This Tape Dog is sure to be a hit. Ticks on the trend checklist come for an old wall background, an allusion to the cassette tape (as well as a modal nod to genetic engineering) and rediculous meaningless Banksy-esque paint drips. Check, check, check.

I'm a Billy Two-Blogs, no more.

I do really have two blogs. Before I set-up this sketch blog I had my Comic Strip Show, which was all well and good but I only let myself put comic strips up on it, so it was a bit boring to maintain. It really all fell apart when I drew two new strips- equally intricate and hilarious- and then lost them somewhere. I couldn't bring myself to do any more for a while.
Instead now if I do a new strip, I'm going to put it up on here. It's a kind of one-stop-shop. A one-attack-shack-of-Jack. A no-slog-hog-o'-blog. A... oh, Jesus. Sorry.

Here are the four strips I managed to get onto the Strip Show:

Grandma Chagrin


Giving Back



Victims



I'm a blogger

Book Face

Here's a pencil sketch, quickly coloured in photoshop. The girl pictured isn't a friend of mine per se, she's more a friend of a friend. Or perhaps a friend of a friend of a friend even. Nice girl though.

I've never met her of course, I just saw her on facebook.

Un-PC WC.

Another of Felix's.

Eskimo piss and other stories.

I've got a friend called Felix who is funnier than I am. The thing is, I'm a better draftsman than he is. When we combine, we become a cartoonist. Like a kind of loser power rangers. Every now and then, I'll get a text at four in the morning detailing some visual pun, and duly get out of bed and draw it.
Here's the first one I've done.

An introduction to Introduction to Illustration

I've just come back from Introduction to Illustration. It's an eight week evening course at Camberwell arts school that started tonight. It wasn't exactly hard to get into (unless you count signing a cheque for £240 hard, that is), so I expected it to be attended largely by bored housewives. In fact the crew was a blend of trendy teenagers and foreign girls, much like lots of London.
We went through a few exercises and didn't really push back any boundaries, but it was fun. I'm looking forward to next week.

West Pier Christmas cash-in.

Okay, here's a Christmas version. It's really pretty shit. Oh well.

West Pier coloured

And here it is coloured in. At the last minute I threw in a lens-cam flare, frowned upon by photoshop cognoscente, but I couldn't resist.
I was joking before about making it into a christmas card, but now I'm going to do that too. It's not like I've got other work to do.

West pier sketch

Here's a new picture I did last night, for no particular reason. My plan though, once it's coloured and if I like it, is to put in something festive like a snowman swimming in the sea or a flock of robins circling above and thus make it suitable for the lucrative Christmas card market. Entrepreneurial, moi?
I'm not sure how I'm going to do the sea yet, but it could be interesting.

Obviously I didn't want to post this last night, because then it would look like I spent my Saturday night drawing to a Radio 4 soundtrack, and that would be tragic. Much cooler to hold onto it for a Sunday morning posting.

A Brighton Christmas card

Today, overwhelmed by the idea of another day of checking if any new channels had been added to the freeview package, I decided I had to leavet the house. I had some Christmas cards to pimp, which I designed I while ago. It felt too early for festivities. Indeed it is too early, but I hadn't done any Halloween cards or Ramadan cards, so what can you do.
I didn't really have anywhere specific in mind, but it turns out there are more greeting card shops here in Brighton than there can possibly be any need for. No doubt big sellers are the "congratulations on setting up a new cards and trinket store in this saturated market" followed closely by the "sorry your business has failed" card.
It turns out I wasn't so early anyway, a lot of carderies order all of theirs in February. Only one guy was actually prepared to ask for some- though a few did seem generally interested. A shop called Custard (totally kooky) said they could make space for half a dozen, and I was so excited at not being laughed out the shop I quickly promised all these things I hadn't organised- envelopes, cellophane packets, a professional invoice- and now I'm basically going to have to set up a whole business just to sell six cards, probably for less than they cost to make. But still, it is selling them.

Here's the design:






One guy wanted to see some more designs, and so I came home and quickly knocked out some more colour schemes, though obviously when I say quickly it took me about six hours. I wonder if he'll believe they're completely different designs. I may try and draw some more soon.




I spent several hours intricately replacing the colour halftone pattern, the dots in the background, with little snowflakes. Now that's festive. It took so long because I had to make each one entirely unique, otherwise it just wouldn't ring true.

"Hello World!" and other such nerdisms.

I've got my own sketch blog. I've always wanted one, kind of.

Really I'm just pretty bored and it's raining outside. But hey, I feel sorry for you. You must be really bored if you're actually reading this.
I'm just going to put up sketches I do and maybe some random blog rants all in secret and purely for my own benefit officially. Unofficially I have secret ambitions of being quoted in the Guardian and given hundreds of pounds to make my insights into a hard back book, doesn't everyone?

Since this is my first post, I'll start with some shit recent sketches, so as not to set the bar too high.

This is my living room in my mum's house, and how I spend my dry Saturday evenings as a penniless graduate.


And this is from a train journey I took to Bristol a few days ago. The ticket I stuck on is from a different journey, because I needed the ticket for that journey for that journey, you see? I always see people drawing from life, usually in American coffee shops in films, but can't really handle it. When I was drawing this every time I looked up I was being watched, and my neighbour was shamelessly studying my every line. That coupled with the shaky rails and the obligatory beers-on-the-train (one of the few public places left where you can socially acceptably crack open a Stella any time after midday) make for an altogether sketchy affair.