Which is the odd one out? Oh I love that game in “Have I got News For You”.
Answers on a postcard, in the meantime I will concoct a convoluted answer.
Images of London, for a project. Do not adjust your tv sets, this is black and white. No, I haven’t lost my coloured paints.
The old legend goes that if you vote in a republican president you will have global warming for forty years, or something. Drawn at lunchtime today in the Silo, with purple micron in the wh smith book. I will, I promise, go back to colourful ink and wash drawings soon.
For those of you watching in black and white, Jack the Ripper is the one in grey.
This is the Ten Bells pub in Spitalfields, where several of the Ripper’s victims drank (and the rest) before meeting unfortunate endings involving bits of them being mailed to the local bobbies. They never caught the Ripper, but I bet he was a bit of tearaway.
I love the French name for him, Jacques L’Eventreur. I love all the foreign names for him: Jack lo squartatore (Italian), Viiltäjä-Jack (Finnish), Jack Trbosjek (Croatian), Kuba Rozpruwacz (Polish), Seoc an Reubainnear (Gaelic), Джак Изкормвача (Bulgarian), ג’ק המרטש (Hebrew), Jack Bantha-poodoo (Huttese). Okay, maybe not the last one.
Originally he was known as Jack the Perforator, but the papers didn’t like it. These days, he would probably be called a Tearorist. Oh come on, it’s late, gimme a break here.
After – how long is it, a month and a half maybe? – it looks as though I am finished with the ‘how to save the world’ sketchbook project is finished. Well, there are a few finishing touches to be done to the inside cover, perhaps, but all of the pieces are now complete. Here we are then, at parts 23 to 27.
Part 23 is ‘feed the baby’, which is a pretty good idea if baby wants to keep growing like he does. And he does. Most of these drawings were done at night either while waiting for baby to wake up for his bottle (in this case he was sleeping pretty well), or just after he’s had his bottle and gone back to sleep.
Part 24 is ‘write postcards’ – as you may have seen from a previous colourful
drawing, i do like postcards, and have a great deal, in fact it is possible that by saving these little pieces of the world over the years i am in fact saving the world, you saw that one coming didn’t you. (ok no you didn’t but i bet you like to think you had).
Part 25 is fairly relevant to the current period as it is follow the football, or the footy, or as many of you on this side of the pond say, the saacurrr. This is 
a fair attempt at drawing a couple of footy magazine and a pile of football shirts while watching the semi-finals the Euro 2008.
Part 26 is easier said than done for an up-late-stayer comme moi. My foot appears to have edged into the picture. The crib obviously belongs to the baby. He was alseep in there while I drew, so I had to be quiet with those micron pigma pens. There is a cd player, playing pre-
recorded noises of the bathroom fan, which helps the baby sleep; he’ll probably grow up all into avant-garde experimental sampling music now, oh dear.
And then finally, at the top, Part 27 which is of course ‘save the world’.
And so the overall theme was to draw things around the home (which is where the world begins for everybody) because by drawing them you are saving them in some format. And the writing is completely and utterly made up as I went along with pretty much no aforethought whatsoever. Pretty much like the world in general I think. And there you have it. I’ll have to send this off to Atlanta at some point soon.
I love that part of Hampstead Heath by the big ponds, especially those big multi-windowed brown brick houses clustered along the edge. That’ll be them above. Not sure I’d like the famous night-time entertainment though; all those politicians out looking for votes, as it were.
Did this drawing over a couple of evenings (interrupted by baby-feeding). Below is the work-in-progress.
Actually it’s just down Fleet Street. First Irish pub in London (c. 1700), first pub outside Ireland to serve Guinness. Possibly the inspiration behind the song, at least I used to tell people that on the tour-bus. Well, it is a long way from Piccadilly and Leicester Square, if you really need a Guinness. Personally I don’t really like the stuff. Too much iron; turns your poo black, and leaves you open for an attack by mutant villain Magneto.
This is the magnificent Maughan Library on chancery Lane, part of King’s College London. Here I studied every day while doing my MA in medieval English, and I loved this building. It used to be the public records office.
Ah, you gotta love irony, man.
So, saving the world is only a few pages away now – the sketchbook is almost finished and ready to be sent to Atlanta. The last entries following the third intermission will be a return to black pen. Parts 21 and 22 are below (in micron pigma and copic respectively). The Pres’dent above is done in faber-castell pens. King George had to turn up at some point.
Marching ever on with the Sketchbook Project, with Saving the World, with a brown micron pigma and a purple micron pigma. Parts 17 and 18; more to follow.
Incidentally, the polaroid that’s poking out of that box is a signed photo of me and my lifelong hero Ossie Ardiles, way back in 1994. My knees were going all trembly. (I signed a copy for him too)
Parts twelve to sixteen of saving the world (the sketchbook project); the book is now more than half full (or half empty). I needed a second intermission after returning from the UK so some stamps seemed appropriate. Saving stamps as it were. The dialogue is very loosely inspired by something my mate Tel said to me at school (that was about santa claus). Then I decided to draw from hereon in various colours: twelve is in brown micron pigma, there’s my acoustic guitar there look; thirteen is in – allez les bleus – blue, or chould I say cobalt (copic 0.1) and shows the bookcase.
Fourteen is the trusty purple micron again, been using that one for a while now. It’s the bathroom sink. Wash your hands. In this story I wonder if superman ever washed his hands, and if it made a difference to those he saved. Part fifteen is a copic 0.05, in ‘wine’, while the last one is a copic 0.1 in ‘olive’. That’s the recycling bin. I wanted to draw it before taking it out.
If you click on these admittedly smaller than necessary images, they will magically transport you to the world of flickr, where you can see them much much bigger (don’t worry, you won’t have to shrink first). The book continues; the due date is august 1st. Plenty of time.
petescully 