Pretty as a Picture
Or the Capital P on Picturesque Having always thought that picturesque was just another adjective favoured by my grandmother’s generation, it was with some surprise when the other day I stumbled on Picturesque. With a capital P. (Such was my Surprise it deserves a...
Tatterdemalion
Or A Few Words on Fantasy and the Fine Art of Unravelling I’ve often wondered how best to describe what by default must be qualified as an approach or method to fantasy illustration. But, the more I think about it, the more I attempt to apply reason to my work, the...
Stranger in a Stange Land
Or All About Adventitious Roots Recently did another interview for a web site, where it was question of roots. Which question, of course, immediately got me thinking about issues cultural and how one defines the things when they are what attaches you to home. So, of...
Slicing Time
Or a Certain Dislocation of Perception Very recently, a correspondant wrote “curious how we partition Time to try to control it…but it just flows on….” The more I think on it, the more I realize just how tenuous our grasp on something like time really is. (And how...
Best Wishes for 2010
Or A Thought or Two for the New Year After an eventful and really quite busy year, no newsletter for year’s end, just a thought or two. Rather than wishes of prosperity and the like, I would wish upon all the quickening of heart that accompanies those moments of...
The Wood of Lost Stories
ROB HOLDSTOCK, 1948 - 2009 Two weeks ago, Robert Holdstock died from an E. coli infection, in just over ten days. We were following his progress daily, when on the 27th, his condition, which had been improving or optimistically stable, suddenly worsened. He died at 4...
A Few Lines on Making Lines
« Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere. » G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) Over the last few months, I have filled a coffee cup halfway to the brim with pencil stubs and it suddenly occured to me that while I happily take brand-new pencils and...
Horseshoes for Sleipner
Or Extra Legs and Many Meanings Have recently been doing quite a lot of reading on the solemn subject of death. Or rather not death itself, but the invention of it, so to speak, and especially the under/after/otherworlds of myth and legend. While this is also to a...
Drawing the Line Somewhere
Or Why a Drawing is Never Really Done “We’re going to do a book,” my editor said. “Got anything planned for next week?” Now, as you may have realized, my editor is someone who has a wealth of good ideas, and is ever eager to spring them on unsuspecting illustrators....
Losing Worlds and Writing Books
About Worlds, How They Become Lost and Occasionally Found Quite a while ago, I agreed to illustrate a history book. &srThe project sounded very promising: a book of worlds, and lost ones to boot. Twenty-four in all, a mix of potsherds and parables, with twelve...
Something New
Or Where I Try out a Neologism Had a long chat with my editor the other day, and we agreed to do something a little different. My editor is never at a loss for an idea, and since they are generally good ones, I’ve learned to play along (and then claim the credit...
Of Sirens and Sea Nymphs
Or of Passions Perilous and the Mythopoeic Nature of Water Every now and then, it is with gratitude and delight that I can announce a guest writer for this newsletter. (Not only does this spare me the temptation born of desperation of posting some dog’s breakfast...