Arch-nemesis animals
We always round off Good Ship Art Club with ‘ten second animals’ and this week the animal was (horror of horrors) Guinea Pig. Arg! I CANNOT draw guinea pigs. So I scrambled together this potato with a tiny hand in each corner. That ten second timer is magic, I think I drew the best guinea pig I have ever drawn — and ever will!
Do you have anything you CANNOT and WILL NOT ever draw? I swear, all artists have a drawing nemesis.
If you missed Art Club and LOVE drawing guinea pigs (what?) you can catch up here.
Me and Katie Chappell spent the summer writing some stories together and the result is: Salty Dog and Pals!
Salty Dog is available for pre-order now.
Pre-sales are important for new books. When booksellers see the pre-sales rolling in, they know this is a book they can pile high on the front table and it will catch everyone’s eyes like a stripy deck chair!
As a thank you for pre-ordering, we’ve made you a special film. Place your pre-order, fill in the form and get instant access! 🥳
What will I learn in the Masterclass?
How we wrote the stories together at my kitchen table - on two iPads, one Google doc, a load of layout paper and sticky tape
How we brainstormed 10 stories over 10 days. Yes, we did!
Where the ideas came from (*spoiler* Salty lives in an upturned boat, and so did my Grandparents—sort of. They squatted in a WWII Nissen hut)
How we knew if an idea was a keeper
How we pitched Salty Dog to the publisher
Why did we base Kitty on Good Ship pal, Tania
How I illustrated the stories: paper, paints, palettes, all that stuff
How we designed Salty’s world: his island, their upturned boat house, the bunk beds of dreams and Bernard’s nik-naks
Salty says ‘Anchors Aweigh!’
Indulge me for a minute while I show off about my girl, Pie
She had an interview at art school this week and was offered a place there and then, on the spot. Well done Pie!
Applying for art school turned out to be trickier than we expected because passing your art exams at school requires making work that isn’t necessarily the type of work that art schools are looking for. What examiners want, and what art schools are looking for are two different things in our experience.
How crazy is that!?
Luckily Pie is head strong and made a portfolio that she likes, leaving out a lot of the A grade work she made at school. It takes a lot of courage to go against your school’s advice when you are a teenager. I am so proud of her.
I was heading over the bridge with Peggy today when a man said,
‘The tourist board said the American snow will be here by next weekend.’
You know how much I love the snow, so fingers crossed! ❄️⛄️
Stuff I enjoyed this week:
Telly: There are some new episodes of 24 Hours in Police Custody (known as Police Custard in our house) on Channel 4.
Podcast: This Jungian Life, especially the bit where they unpick a listener’s dream at the end of each Episode.
Book: Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of your Dreams by Lisa Marchiano, Deborah Stewart and Joseph Lee, the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast. I am LOVING this book.
The days are short and dark here (in Northumberland) at the moment, it’s non-stop gloom. But we’ll head out for a nice long walk along the river before Gerry makes us a roast dinner.
What are you up to today?
Love Helenx
There are always somethings that defy our drawing skill, as some point of our life. I had a litho print, I did at Bristol Poly (1983) that I did not like but I know there was something there and it bugged me for years.When I went to a Paul Nash exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2010 had a painting (which I had not seen before) and it show me how I could have solve my print. I tucked the solutions away, just in case for future use on another picture.
BIG congratulations to Pie. It is brave to go to Art College in this day and age. Will she be an illustrator like her mother? Or go into another part of the Arts? My friend wanted to be the next Rodin and he made wax figurines at Bristol. By chance, he went into animation, which was only a nascent industry in Bristol at that time and ended up working for Aardman's.
Keep an eye out for scholarships. I met the President of the RAA. She was a Bristol Poly Alumni, like myself. It was interesting, that she was saying how she got a Lord Leverhulme scholarship and did post grad study in Kyoto. I knew nothing about any scholarships at the time. There is always a solution, it is a question of finding the right key. (sorry for mixing metaphors).
Well done Pie! 👍