back on the buses... :-)

i've had a weird last-twelve-months.

nov/dec '09 was all about the triumph of the advent exhibition and the despair of a very significant mate's death.
so i began 2010 a bit shattered and floundering, and then a big project that i'd signed up to vanished in january and it looked like the recession had finally hit the markets that i tend to work in [educational publishing, mainly]

that gave me time for the bus print project, which has been great, but there are bills to be paid, and for a while it was all a bit tight.

thankfully, things picked up, particularly via my lovely agent who's been brilliant, and put a lot of stuff my way, including a couple of books for the usa which were a joy to work on [i'll post pics when they're published in jan.]...
but those six months of relatively little coming in has meant i've been left working seriously/stupidly hard since april playing catch-up, and trying to appease my sceptical bank manager.

so i've just emerged from a period of working seven days a week, fifteen or sixteen hours a day, with little or no breathing space between jobs.
it feels weirdly like the end of something - if not the year, then a significant season or something...

during that manically-busy-time the bus project has been pretty much shelved - ridiculous working hours mean that i've actually not been out much anyway, and so there have been way less journeys to document - but i've suddenly found myself with sixteen prints to make, dating back to june 28th [see below]

this week, i have a neat little window to start to work on the backlog, but what sort of order they'll get done in is anybody's guess [this one is number 49, the last one previous to this was, i think, no.44*, and number 58 is currently drying on a line in the office here]

anyhow, it's nice to be back making these prints, and re-learning the processes.
and of course they're all still available via my etsy store :-)





this one relates to my trip out to see the handsome family at the HPPH with simon hall - a quick trip from town out up the burley road when i very nearly forgot to draw. this old-ish guy with the pony tail and the novel was very friendly, letting me on ahead of him. this is the second attempt i made at this print. in the end i decided to just get it done and not worry too much about it; treat it as a bit of a 'loosener' to get me back in the swing of printing again :-)


*made on june 11th!