Where no spaniel has gone before . . .
Happy birthday Henry.
Spaniels in Space
Category: cartoon
Pizza Dough
Our friends Jill and John presented us with a pizza stone for Christmas. Admittedly our first attempt at using it was a bit of a disaster, so we’re still working on our technique for using the stone but at least it was crispy and it tasted good.
Most recipes suggest making enough dough for several pizzas, so I scaled it down here to make a pizza that comfortably fits on our new pizza stone.
I’m dipping into the Adobe Color online program to cook up and save colour schemes in a variety of ways. Here I’ve used the ‘Extract Theme’ option on one of my photographs from this morning and opted for a ‘Muted’ set of swatches.
Seven Crayfish Swimming . . .
As I write this it’s just one blue tit, one great tit and one nuthatch visiting the feeders. No sign of Bruce (who isn’t really a Persian but some equally fluffy variety).
Happy Christmas!
And talking of melting snowmen, it’s at this time of year that we remember Lucky. Actually he wasn’t so lucky as shortly after this photograph was taken he melted overnight leaving only a scarf, a hat, a carrot and a pile of loose change.
Photocredit: Meghan. Lucky’s stylists: Meghan, Millie and Evie. It has been estimated that Lucky’s perfect smile cost 12 pence in orthodontic work.
Ivy Grows
Happy birthday to Linda, and thanks to Ivy for the artwork (drawn years ago on a children’s activity sheet in an Italian restaurant).
The House of Flying Teacakes
Today’s card is rated PG: contains mild shocks, some truly scary characters (uncredited appearances of Abby, Ivy and Leo) and irresponsible use of high calorie foodstuffs.
Parental guidance recommended.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Teacake
Open inside flap and stand well clear!
Happy birthday to Ralph.
In a Galaxy far, far away
Happy birthday to James and, as Mars is in opposition next week, hope his big present is an image stabilised starscope.
Slow Veg
As so often, there’s spontaneity about the roughs that I struggle to carry over into the finished artwork.
The final version included cheering crowds lining the streets and bunting, but I forgot to scan it but hopefully Abby- happy birthday Abby – has it standing in pride of place on the mantlepiece and can send me a photo.
And she has. It’s not on the mantlepiece though but it is looking good on the kitchen windowsill.
Abby was hoping that she’d entered a prize-winning butternut squash in the Vegan Marathon but it got stuck behind a group of country pumpkins from the slow food movement.”
The Damned Utd, the Musical
Happy birthday to Peter.
Voles
Voles with impeccable taste for [milk tanker driver] Wayne’s birthday card.
Other dairy products from international farmers’ cooperatives are available but we’re with the voles, we like Arla.
The Ultimate Chicken Superheroes
I’ve finally had time this weekend to settle down and hatch out the final version of my Chicken Superheroes commission.
To get a crisp black and white drawing, I drew on Bristol Board, on Daler Rowney, A3 250 gsm. I was going to use a dip pen but the first time that I loaded up the nib with Nan-King Indian Ink, it dropped ink blots on the paper, which luckily was my roughs notebook, not the final artwork.
I brought my various roughs together in Photoshop, added lettering in InDesign and printed out a full size version on two sheets of A4, then traced over this onto the Bristol Board, which despite the name is more like a thick cartridge paper. I made a few changes to poses and accessories along the way.
It’s a tradition for superheroes traditionally wear primary colours, partly because of the limitations of colour printing on the poor quality paper that was used for American comics in the 1940s and 50s. I needed yellow for the lettering and red for the wattles and the mask that I’d decided to give each chicken, so I searched for ‘red and yellow colour scheme’ on Google and came up with these swatches that add two purples/violets to the mix.