Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Weeping Willow
I've always enjoyed writing, I used to be rubbish at English in school, until I had this amazing teacher and suddenly, everything just clicked. I just understood language in a way that I could never get my head around before. I loved descriptive writing and remember the first time we were set a task for homework to write a descriptive piece of our choosing. My teacher said she read mine to her family, and then also read it aloud to our class. From then on I found that this style of writing just came to me, I could just write, and something I didn't know i'd wanted to say, would be said.
I hadn't written at all like this since I was in school, just putting pen to paper and seeing what was created, so this summer I spent a sunny afternoon off from my drawing jobs and decided to do just that. I'd forgotten all about it until I stumbled across a tatty piece of paper just yesterday.
So I thought i'd just do something with it instead of it merely sitting in the recycling bin. So i've stuck it on here. I supppose the only thing I had in mind when I started writing was that it would be for younger readers, perhaps the 9-12 or early teen bracket, and that it would hopefully turn out to be sort of eerie in the end.
Weeping Willow
Grey. The window was a perfect square of it. No trees, no buildings, people, birds. Nothing. Just a perfect, flat, grey. An odd sort of mid-light seeped into the otherwise pond-coloured darkness of the large room, flecks of air-born dust sleepily dancing in the small space illuminated before the glass, slow, like tiny creatures suspended deep under water. Isn't it funny, how we only seem to notice them in beams of light? We must be breathing them in all the time.
Somewhere in the house, a piano is playing, slowly also, and with many pauses and mistakes. The dust dances, but can't keep time. The sound is punctuated by just one other, a huge grandfather clock ticking away in the corner shadows. It seemed to Willow as if the darkness concealed a terrible creature, it's heartbeat thumping mechanically as it sits and waits.
She sat on the floor (which accounts for her pure and undisturbed sky view from the window). The whole darn house was spattered with dreary oil paintings of dull english countryside. Sludge. So this was the last thing Willow wanted to see through the windows too. It was one of those days where, at first glance, you could be tricked into believing there is a clean and cloudless sky. Infact, the entire sky, is one giant cloud. Willow stares at windows like children many years from now will stare at screens. Her legs are crossed and one hand props up her head lathargically so that chalky white skin collects before her palm, creating a one-sided podgey appearance to her otherwise delicate, lightly freckled face. Her usually dull-looking copper-coloured mop of hair looks quite pleasant, actually, thought her Aunt while she paused in the doorway with an exhausted sigh. There she was, again, sat on the dust-covered boards (the housework had gotten on top of her, she admitted, since having to let the help go) as silent and still as the green leather armchair, or the empty fireplace. Why couldn't she find amusement in her dolls, or music, or the grounds? Like other girls, like her own girls. She tutted in that way she so often did, raised her eyes to the heavens, and shuffled onwards down the narrow hallway.
I had written more, about her finding the Willow tree in the garden, but this is all I found amougst the rubbish in my room.
My writing is probably still at GCSE level seeing as thats the last time I did any, but I enjoyed it so it doesnt really matter :)
I hadn't written at all like this since I was in school, just putting pen to paper and seeing what was created, so this summer I spent a sunny afternoon off from my drawing jobs and decided to do just that. I'd forgotten all about it until I stumbled across a tatty piece of paper just yesterday.
So I thought i'd just do something with it instead of it merely sitting in the recycling bin. So i've stuck it on here. I supppose the only thing I had in mind when I started writing was that it would be for younger readers, perhaps the 9-12 or early teen bracket, and that it would hopefully turn out to be sort of eerie in the end.
Weeping Willow
Grey. The window was a perfect square of it. No trees, no buildings, people, birds. Nothing. Just a perfect, flat, grey. An odd sort of mid-light seeped into the otherwise pond-coloured darkness of the large room, flecks of air-born dust sleepily dancing in the small space illuminated before the glass, slow, like tiny creatures suspended deep under water. Isn't it funny, how we only seem to notice them in beams of light? We must be breathing them in all the time.
Somewhere in the house, a piano is playing, slowly also, and with many pauses and mistakes. The dust dances, but can't keep time. The sound is punctuated by just one other, a huge grandfather clock ticking away in the corner shadows. It seemed to Willow as if the darkness concealed a terrible creature, it's heartbeat thumping mechanically as it sits and waits.
She sat on the floor (which accounts for her pure and undisturbed sky view from the window). The whole darn house was spattered with dreary oil paintings of dull english countryside. Sludge. So this was the last thing Willow wanted to see through the windows too. It was one of those days where, at first glance, you could be tricked into believing there is a clean and cloudless sky. Infact, the entire sky, is one giant cloud. Willow stares at windows like children many years from now will stare at screens. Her legs are crossed and one hand props up her head lathargically so that chalky white skin collects before her palm, creating a one-sided podgey appearance to her otherwise delicate, lightly freckled face. Her usually dull-looking copper-coloured mop of hair looks quite pleasant, actually, thought her Aunt while she paused in the doorway with an exhausted sigh. There she was, again, sat on the dust-covered boards (the housework had gotten on top of her, she admitted, since having to let the help go) as silent and still as the green leather armchair, or the empty fireplace. Why couldn't she find amusement in her dolls, or music, or the grounds? Like other girls, like her own girls. She tutted in that way she so often did, raised her eyes to the heavens, and shuffled onwards down the narrow hallway.
I had written more, about her finding the Willow tree in the garden, but this is all I found amougst the rubbish in my room.
My writing is probably still at GCSE level seeing as thats the last time I did any, but I enjoyed it so it doesnt really matter :)
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
It's behind you!
Just a quick sketch I did earlier inspired by the monster-themed children's literature festival this saturday. Going to draw it up properly this evening I think.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Miss Flexy McStretch
Coming to the end of my first wave of illustrations for Active Chiropractic.
Met up with lovely Lynsey and Mark the other day to take reference photos for the next set.
Heres a couple of examples from the first lot. I think theres about 25 all together.
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