bless my cotton socks...

...i'm in the news






and proving exactly why i should never be allowed to talk about my work :-)

stations of the resurrection...

so for over a year now i've been working, on and off, on a series of nineteen images illustrating the stations of the resurrection - events and happenings from the biblical narrative beginning at easter sunday and ending with paul's conversion on the road to damascus [i've blogged about it previously here and here, but that was a while back...]

i've been collaborating with rory keegan and ian adams on the pics, and that's been good - ian's written some reflective material to accompany each illustration and those are great, and overall i'm really pleased with the way the project's worked out...

the first twelve in the sequence were released by cpas [to subscribers to their 'church leadership' publications] and have been picked up by a couple of churches locally - in farsley and tadcaster - where they're going to be used this easter. i'll post more info about that when it's available, but it's kind of cool :-)

there'll also be a podcast [also mentioned previously] out next month with me rambling incoherently in it which i'll direct you towards when it's up online.

anyway.

with this project, i've relocated the story to present-day leeds, for reasons which seem obvious to me, but have proved very difficult to articulate in any sensible way [as you'll discover if and when you hear the podcast...!]

this one is the final one - saul's conversion under the flyover by the WYP [down by the bus station there]

this image

hmm.

i'm hoping that i managed your expectations down with that previous post.
here's a print for 11th march, documenting a trip into town then out to see an exhibition at left bank, before dashing back via chapel allerton to be home in time for joe getting back from school.

i've never been on the 91A before, so that was good. apart from the suspension on the bus, which made for a bumpy ride [difficult for drawing...]

and i quite like the text up top - since watching 'beautiful losers' [twice] on dvd i've been wanting to do some better typography on these prints. i decided to try to keep it simple and chose just one character sketched during each journey to include.

riding on buses, hitting the wall...

...not literally.

but at the end of last week i travelled on eight different buses over the course of two days... :-(

that's left me with a relatively daunting amount of lino cutting to get done [and i've got 'proper' work on the go as well...]

so i'm in a funny place with this bus-lino project right now.

sue told me the other day that if she were doing it and she didn't fancy recording one of the trips she'd just give it a miss and pretend it hadn't happened.
obviously, that idea is horrific to me - i'm waaay too obsessive and anal to be able to even contemplate that...

but equally, i'm not really looking forward to bussing it at the mo. and when i'm on the bus, i'm so concerned with what i'm going to draw and what sort of a print i can get out of it that i'm not really relaxing and just enjoying it. i'm drawing more and looking less, which is the wrong way round.

:-(

i'll get over myself of course, and find my way back into enjoying it - i've really loved the whole process up until now; the drawing and the cutting and even the printing... but for the mo it feels very much like i'm making the prints just to get them out the way, rather than seeing anything much of worth in the process or the product.



[last week's linos cut and ready for printing...]

also worth a read...

...5 reasons for saving 6music.

save 6music

for all it's recent faults, 6music is still the best music station we've got, and is well worth saving.

if you've never listened before, please go to the iplayer and give it a go [i'd recommend marc riley, the majestic gideon coe, or guy garvey's finest hour for starters]
and read this very eloquent explanation of why we need a station like 6music.

and please also go sign the online petitions, join the facebook group [stage a sit-in, write to your mp. whatever it takes!]

finished monk artwork...

rabbit, fox, tramp, salvation army...