Pregnant lady scratching her bum

Not really, just a rather poor rendition by me, of the hand on Damien Hirst’s stunning new sculpture outside the Royal Academy. A great evening seeing the Summer Exhibition with my friend Jenny.

A Rant

This evening as I came back from my walk I saw a nine year old wearing a t-shirt with the following slogan emblazoned across her chest ‘If you’re cute, then I’m single’.

Parents, for crying out loud take some responsibility for the kinds of symbols and logos that your children wear, and just because the damn t-shirt is made in a size that fits your little girl doesn’t mean that you are absolved from thinking. When a big, profitable company makes garments covered with deliberately offensive text like FCUK, it doesn’t cease to be rude and offensive simply because the company is successful and because the garments are available in every high street store. And as for garments covered in the Playboy bunny symbol, what on earth are parents thinking of – allowing their daughters to wear such stuff. Playboy promotes pornography and the idea of women being toys for the amusement of men. I don’t know about you, but I have far higher aspirations for my daughter and quite frankly I’m appalled that any of you lucky enough to have children are so bloody stupid, if you don’t think about these things.

Dear lurkers please comment if you agree with me, if nothing else but to underline the point that I am not mad and that parents should be taking responsibility in this area.

Vicarious pleasures

I took Flo into town to buy a tiny bikini for her summer holidays and accessories for her ‘prom’ outfit. We both agreed that although we were in favour of fun American imports such as trick or treating or end of school proms, we should nonetheless anglicise them. She decided that if she has anything to do with organising the Sixth Form ‘Prom’ in two years’ time she’s going to try to get it called something like ‘The Sixth Form Summer Ball’.

Illustration Friday – DANCE

I haven’t participated in a while but my sister in Hong Kong sent me an anecdote this week that put a picture in my mind that fitted this week’s topic.

This is what she wrote

I was on the way to the MTR and spotted a small old fashioned Chinese grocery shop. No airconditioning, just a sleepy ceiling fan. The shelves were stacked to the ceiling with polished jars of fermented beancurd with chillies, bottles of soy sauce and jars of dried fungus. These kinds of shops are a dying breed in HK. They also sold spices and I am out of cumin so I went in to poke around and see if they had it. I needed to poke around as the shop was run by an elderly couple who spoke no English – needless to say my Cantonese does not run to ‘cumin’. Anyway, I found some cumin seeds and asked them to measure some out for me. By this time they were confused and not sure that this ‘Gweipor’ wanted it. An elderly woman customer came in to buy her fermented beancurd. She helpfully translated for me and was extolling the virtues of fermented bean curd in chillie sauce. I declined to buy as that stuff makes rotten stilton smell like lily of the valley. Anyway, as I left she told me she had to rush off to her can-can class for the elderly at Causeway bay Community centre! I told her that in Paris at the turn of the last century what made the dance so scandalous was that the ladies had splits in their bloomers. She assured me that her underwear was intact. Off she trooped to her can-can class and off I wentto work.

There are bonuses to ageing.

Fifth self portrait

My son Hugo says that I look about five years younger in this one. So please add a good few wrinkles to imagine the real me. I think some of the more abstract tenuous proportions are getting closer - the cheeks, chin and forehead. For more self portraits in this month-long marathon, visit Sparky.

Pottering around St Albans

I’m not a ‘lady who lunches’, but I can see the attraction. Yesterday Xavier and I decided to stay in town after filling the car boot with the week’s fruit and vegetables – and very enjoyable it was too.

Fourth self portrait

Naah! the last one is better.

Third portrait challenge

Despite the lurid colours, I think this looks a bit more like me. This is such fun! For more self-portraits visit Sparky

Rejected Robin

Poor Robin, I made him put on his smart shirt and tie at the weekend to pose for a series of cover illustrations that were virtually a done deal. However the client has decided they now don’t want a person on the cover. So, as a man who has never been shy of the limelight, he has requested that his modelling efforts should at least be published here! I have to say I think it might have been the shoes that clinched it.

Portrait two

I know it’s the same portrait but it was only after posting the first one that I noticed how different this looks cropped. Reminds me of my Auntie Margaret.

Sparky’s self portrait marathon challenge

My head is at an angle here because the one tiny mirror that I could move to the computer was hooked at an angle onto the only place I could manage to use the computer and see myself at the same time. I can see that using a laptop with ‘Painter’ must be liberating. For more self portrait marathoners, go to Sparky’s site.

Trip on the Sea Cadets’ boat

On Sunday, we were lucky enough to be invited out on the Sea Cadets’ support motor boat. We saw Hugo on his sailing boat and had a tour of the surrounding sailing spots. Thank you Nick for a lovely day.

On the beach at Walton-on-the-Naze

On Saturday, after the seal trip, an hour or so on the beach. You didn’t catch me in that freezing water.

Swallows and Amazons

On Saturday, a boat trip around the ‘Backwaters’, a network of creeks and islands, protected from the sea by the spit of the Naze. Arthur Ransome based ‘Secret Water’ (of the Swallows and Amazons series) on this exact spot where he sailed as a child (‘Swallows and Amazons’ is a book which bye-the-bye I really wanted to enjoy reading to my children, but which in fact bored us all to tears, maybe after this enjoyable trip, time to reappraise the series).

Weekend away

Some drawings of trees whilst in the car on the way to Walton-on-the-Naze. I don’t know how the bloggers who scan once a week and then upload do it. I have been so bored scanning all the drawings from the weekend. I’d much rather scan one picture a day. More to be uploaded soon!

Blogstory illustration

Once Vitriolica has put it up you can visit Chapter 15 of The Great Blogstory to see all of this illustration – you just get a sneak preview of a bit of it here. Amazingly the Blogstory project is still chuggging along and we’re well over half way through, though I’ll be interested to see how Wally Torta pulls together all the disparate strands, characters, plots and sub-plots in the final chapter.