Someone's at the door...

I'm almost at the end of two flippin' enormous deadlines! I'm working flat out to get TWO books finished so they can go for a bit of sunshine and some bellini's in Bologna. (Wish I was going too!)

However, that didn't stop the image and piece of text drifting into my head...

I wonder what happens next?

Who is the little girl?

Why does she live in such a grand looking house?

Who IS the little kitten in the box and where has he come from?

So many questions....

Some thinking music here

Inspirational...

click to enlarge

Another little experiment in using my original sketches and turning that into a final piece. In this instant I doodled the little girl whilst waiting for a file to save in Photoshop. I drew her quickly and with biro which is something I very rarely use.

I then scanned her in and coloured her digitally in Photoshop. I'm actually quite pleased with the result as it still has the energy of the original sketch which can so often be lost when creating final, 'tidy' pieces.

What inspired me to create this picture is this piece of music from the film The Chorus. I'm quite often inspired by music. I can remember going to see a classical music concert when I was little. I didn't really want to go, but when I was there I just sat listening and enjoying the stories and images the music created in my head. They are often random little pictures, with bits I don't quite understand - why is the little girl above carrying a steaming teapot in her basket for example? But that's the fun of it - getting the drawing down and wondering about the story later!

I do love a good mystery!

Mysteries ( of all descriptions!)

Another image from my sketchbook.

A mystery story seems to be developing within the pages of my sketchbook. Firstly there was the siblings following footprints across a frosty moor, then the rabbit and mouse investigating a doorway in a dark alley and now this - stern faced Victorians and a little boy and his uncle following a thief  in a jungle temple who is making off with some treasure. I think a story might be brewing  and that's exciting.

Talking of mysteries and treasure look what I found at the weekend:

Jem's parent's were up to visit us this week and after having afternoon tea in Betty's tearoom we went for a rummage in an antique fayre. I got the above - it's a child's film star scrap book from the 1930s and it's incredible. The effort put into cutting out these images and gluing them in is fantastic and this will be a brilliant resource for my artwork... but I'm just wondering who created it??

And here is something else I've been meaning to show you:

A while ago we bought a chest of drawers from a vintage furniture shop and all the drawers were stuffed full of brown paper and card - I'm assuming to protect the drawers whilst it was being transported. Once we'd got the chest of drawers into position I cleared the drawers and found this tucked into a crack at the back. It was actually a negative, but a bit of photoshop magic revealed the picture - a family portrait from I think, the 1930s. Isn't it brilliant?! But what I want to know is who are they? Where did they live? What did they do? 

I'd love to know... but maybe the magic comes from the mystery of not knowing.