It’s been another weird year, most of which saw me throw a small, sulky hissy-fit, giving up on all drawing, partially because hours and hours (weeks, actually) of designing, re-working and drawing two sets of cards for Upper Deck on behalf of Marvel saw all the designs shipped off to California, for both sets of cards being decided to not even be sold. Which means, because of a contract and legal reasons, I am unable to show ANY of the designs anywhere. This is the biggest frustration of them all really, all that excitement but nothing to prove the hard work. This wouldn’t have been enough to stop me drawing though, that came later, as less and less enthusiasm for my art became a bit of a problem for me to deal with. Mainly mentally, which is something I’ve always struggled with, but this time, after dealing with Ocean’s scoliosis, then heart problems, and Vikki’s breast cancer, which has been especially hard to deal with for the past 2 years (she’s still receiving aftercare treatment) add to that having my own disability issues etc etc I guess my brain just shut down and I couldn’t see the point in working hard for little or no rewards anymore, even getting new followers seems impossible, hey-ho.
But I’m drawing again! Woo-hoo!
Back in August, as the end of the school summer hols, I started feeling a bit better about things, so I fired up the laptop and my drawing screen (XP-Pen 16) and started drawing some old classics, starting with Spongebob Squarepants, for no particuar reason, but rather than the slog of recording me drawing it all, editing it into a video etc, I just enjoyed drawing each character individually, drawing a new background, then saving them all as transparent PNGs, I culd make a video at a later date, showing each character individually, so more ‘post-work’ than ‘me creating the work’, just to take some of the thinking out of it, so I could enjoy the process a bit more. I’ve drawn quite a few since then, posting them mainly on Facebook, but adding a few to Instagram and Tik-Tok when I’ve had the time or the energy.
I’ll be adding them all to my recents gallery soon, but this week has been taken up with the dentist, spending several days bed-bound, and trying to finish colouring books to hand out to all the trick-or-treaters for Halloween night.
They’ve been well received so far, so it’s all been worth it, Happy Halloween everyone!
Well, I said I’d be busy, so art might take a back seat for a while and I was kind of right. I have be very busy, but I’ve also managed to be productive too! As some of you may know, my daughter, Ocean, has been rightfully taking up the larger portion of our time, she has had her operation, (Posterior fusion and correction for Scoliosis), and it was a resounding success. It’s been tough. Incredibly, vomit-inducingly tough at times, but she is recovering well and her wound is healing nicely. A remarkable pece of major surgery by Mr.Lucas, her surgeon and the rest of the team, we are SO grateful. We’re also so proud of how Ocean’s coped and how much work she’s putting in to build herself to as normal as possible, (within allowed limits, it’s 18 mths before the spine fuses completely), she’s been a star and funny with it too. (You can follow her blog and progress here )
Doodling for charity.
So time has been swallowed up by trying being good parents and nurses, but there has been a lot of time between waiting for her 9hr op, waiting for a cab, sitting with her while she rested, and staying in the RMHC Evelina on my own allowed me to doodle and sketch and post-op, we’ve taken it in turns to keep her company, so again, some drawing time to be had there too. During Ocean’s stay in hospital, I drew a few doodles for the lovely staff at the RMHC, for their art table, for kids to colour in. They went down well, so I was asked to draw a few halloween drawings, which I did. Once returning home, I utilised down-time, or late nights to draw some cleaner, digital halloween-based drawings, (check them out in the slideshow below)
Add funny faces to the ghosts!
Colour – in sheet 1
Colour – in sheet 2
‘How to draw a simple ghost’ sheet
‘Add some funny faces to the pumpkins’ sheet
‘Happy Halloween’ colour – in sheet
When you find yourself enjoying your own activity sheet…
The ‘Add some funny faces to the pumpkins’ sheet was calling out to me, so i gave a few a go, then got a bit carried away, drawing 4 (or 5 in one case) different expressions for each of the 6 pumpkins. I created an outline of each, a plain colour of each AND a shaded/highlighted of each too! (That’s 75 in total, but 25 finished shaded pumpkins).
I don’t know at this stage whether these, or the activity sheets warrant their own page, but we’ll see where it takes me. But here are the pumpkins, as a slideshow…
big eyes
slightly moody, but cheeky too.
cute
goofy but happy
feeling rough
huge eyes
grrrr
GRRR
meiow
winker
nervous pumpkin
cyclops pumpkin
wonky eyes
traditional carved
happy pumpkin
toothy
argh!
big teeth keith
toofy-goofy-big-tongue
button-eyed-joe
eye-popping
life with bite pt 1
Life with Bite 2
Life with Bite 3 – Cute
Life with bite pt4. Cool.
I don’t know if they will ever amount to anything, I thought perhaps stickers, but again, I don’t know.
Also.. Mandalorians. Well, Star Wars in general really.
Quick and Dirty. That’s not how I like to be described, nor my art, usually, but sometimes, it’s nice to knock something out that has a satisfying result, but with less faff and fumbling. Ive been using my daughter’s Disney to catch up on some of the Star Wars franchise that has evaded me. I’ve seen a huge majority of it, but I’m filling the gaps. Early october, I watched all of ‘The Mandalorian’. (I’ve moved on to other series, like Ahsoka, Fett, Kenobi, Clone wars etc, since then, but some of the visuals of The Mandalorian captivated me enough to draw them). I’d personally like a poster of ‘Paz Vizsla’, perhaps I might sort that in the future. But you might have another favourite, see which you like in the slideshow bellow…
Grogu / Din Djarin
Grogu
Paz Vizsla
The Armorer
As I said, quick and dirty. Well, as you can tell, I’d hit my stride and put a bit more effort with The Armorer and Paz Vizsla, so they are bit less q&d, but you get the gist. I’m not sure if I’ll do any more like this, but who knows?
A friend in need…
Is a friend indeed. As you know, I don’t make any money from most of my art, yet. But (see above) sometimes it’s nice to do something to help out a bit. I’ve been sharing the link to Ocean’s GoFundMe page and asking if others can share it too, (please feel free to share too, we’re still hoping to hit the target to donate any excess to both the Evelina Children’s Hospital and RMHC). Some have shared already and some generous and lovely people have donated, which is lovely and is going towards Ocean’s recovery and essentials. Anything she doesn’t need will be donated to the charities mentioned above.
Understandably, not everyone can donate, some people are struggling enough right now, sacrificing all sorts to keep afloat. But an old pal of over 20 years has had some REALLY shite luck recently, losing both of his very beloved cats, then a whole heap of bad luck after this, which I won’t go into, but bad-bad. I really wanted to help him, he really wanted to help us, so after a long chat, he shared Ocean’s charity page and in return, I drew a cartoon-style double portrait of his cats..
The Cat Cherubs
I drew them in the style of ‘The Two Cherubs’ by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Raphael), to depict them as angels, watching over their Dad. I also tried to capture certain details and colours unique to both kitties. I was pleased with the result, Jim was pleased with the result, happy days!
So what’s next?
That’s a good question, but one I partly can’t answer, because I have things lined up that I can’t talk about until they are approved/go on sale or can’t show because they are personal and require permission from the commissioner before I can show them here or on social media.
However, I should imagine there might be a few doodles in between the serious stuff, but lots of other stuff to blog about too, so I won’t be going quiet any time soon.
Have a great halloween, or light festival, whatever your preference is, either way, have fun and don’t get too scared!
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Well hasn’t 2023 been a really testing year? Our family has seen some really tough times, as many are currently. But apart from some recent dire financial problems, and some serious self-adjustment-exploration/discovery, it’s also topped off by some harder times still to come. Hospital visits and a serious operation for my daughter, amongst several other things are making mundane worries hard to cope with. I don’t like airing all my personal life on the Internet, but I prefer to disclose a little, so you get a picture of why things are the way things are!
It’s also been a low and longer-than-usual dark patch, so my usual passion towards art has been thin on the ground (plus trouble with my wrist/thumb/shoulder, (still awaiting results) but my brain hasn’t stopped coming up with ideas on how to take my artwork upwards.
Keeping the smiles!
Amongst the stuff I mentioned, there has been some better news. I’ve been doing a lot of practical practising, anatomy, proportion, perspective, new techniques etc. It is SO important to keep practising this stuff, however boring, it’s the foundation of everything, and you can never stop learning new things. I’ve also been taking a break from social media, freeing up time and lowering stress levels! This is a double-edged sword though, I’ve had more time to draw, but no-one is getting to see any of it! But if you’re in a low patch, you often think no-one cares anyway, which isn’t usually the case.
Also, I’ve had to be super strong for the sake of my children, especially my youngest daughter, who has the op I mentioned earlier coming very soon. She’s incredibly brave, I’m SO proud of her anyway, but I can’t express how proud. So if she can keep filling my life with smiles, then the least I can do, is to be the best Dad I can be. She’s really supportive of my art, so loves seeing and contributing to what I’m working on, so that helps drive me forward too.
New Ideas and New Commissions!
I do have a couple of commissions in the pipeline, but the sort that won’t have W-I-Ps, but I’ll post the finished work, (if the clients allow, of course, the customer is always right!)
Whilst these are in the planning stages, or during down time, I’ve spent some time working on some more design ideas, originally as sticker ideas, but the sky is the limit really, t-shirts, badges, cups, underpants even.
As you can see in the pic below, it started with me doodling a mad-looking rabbit, then a tortoise. I then had an idea that I could doodle many ideas exploding out from a central scroll or centrepiece, featuring both outline drawings, plain coloured versions and fully shaded versions, as a sort of ‘flash’ sheet. If you didn’t already know, a flash sheet is most commonly seen in the waiting rooms of nearly every tattooist in the world, full of countless beautiful designs, of all sizes, but ready to go, a bit like clip-art before clip-art was a thing.
Once my Flash Sheet is full, I can pick ideas, and work on them, up the size, resolution and quality, then save them and post them, the best of the best can then be turned into badges, stickers, t-shirts, even beach towels, perhaps. It’s still in the idea stages but I’m happy so far. I even have ideas for themed flash sheets as time goes on!
I’m working digitally, using software called Sketchbook on a graphics tablet on a laptop, it’s a very time-saving medium, and corrections and adjustments are simpler. It’s great for the environment too, I’ve been getting through a lot of sketchbooks and pencils, this is costly, causes storage issues and isn’t very kind to trees, (I don’t always buy recycled paper!) I’ve not given up the sketchbook, but when you can rough sketch on your phone, paint on your laptop and post to socials almost anywhere, it does mean you can travel a bit lighter. Back to the point. As I said, I’m happy with the project so far, here’s a few pics outlining where I am to date:
This is the very first layout, with the first four ideas. Each design showing 3 stages ‘exploding’ from the centre. At ths stage, I thought of adding little ideas to fill in gaps, which could feature as smaller designs or collections, perhaps insects, symbols etc. No space wasted and tons of designs for the future!
Several days later, I’d filled the workspace nicely, but as I filled in the last few gaps, I began to wonder if the outline and plain designs were just a little wasted. They weren’t ‘exploding out from the centre, so I figured, if I removed them, I could fit more designs into the work area.
Flash Sheet 001. This is the finished ideas sheet, crammed full of designs. I have no idea exactly how many, but I’m counting as I re-draw each one! (if you look closely, you’ll see loose scribblings here and there, these didn’t quite make it, but may in the future)
Here’s an example of the next stage of this project. Originally just ‘fill-in designs’, these fruit designs, once re-drawn, make nice designs in their own right. The eagle-eyed of you may have noticed that the original grapes had faces, but the fruit didn’t. To rectify this discrepancy, I drew two versions….
So now, there’s fruit, with and without cartoon faces!
And outline versions.
Some designs won’t warrant 3 pages of different versions, for example…
Here’s ‘Cactus Prickly’ 2 sheets, one with outline and plain, the other with plain and shaded. All bases covered on two sheets for the future.
I’ll be adding a whole new section to this website for this project, so keep an eye out for that and I’ll post all the designs on my social media pages, plus timelapse videos of some of the designs on YouTube and TikTok! Here’s one of the designs I’ve added to YouTube:
Timelapse video of The Cactus design (no sound)
So here’s to the future. Whatever rollercoaster it may be, I can only do my best.
I don’t know what is round the corner, but I know it won’t be easy and probably won’t get easier. But there’s people out there far worse off than me, and my thoughts are always with them. So I’ll keep making people smile with my daft doodles, I know some do, and if I make others happy, I’m happy too.
Keep on keeping on x
(Also, please pop over to my social media and do what you need to do to follow me and keep up to date with what’s new, plus this project’s progress, links below x)
It was bound to happen, wasn’t it? Give someone a tiny bit of attention or exposure and it goes to their head. They start getting wild ideas and before you know it, they’ve lost their marbles, throwing their art around all over the place and up your nose.
No apologies, but thanks to the suggestions of many, I decided to leave another list laying about. My youngest is enjoying all the fun that ‘The Shopping List’ has brought, and enthusiastically left Shopping List No.2 (or S.L.2) in a Trolley on Fri 30th March. We waited. And waited. Nothing. Zilch. ‘Ho-Hum’, we thought as the week drew on and forgot about it. But, (unlike the first list), we remembered to take a photo before we went shopping. There’s a pic further down of S.L.2 (I missed a trick there, I should have drawn a reference to ‘On a Ragga Tip‘* or something. *(opens in new tab)
So, did we give up? No! Sunday (2nd Apr) saw the Pickle family off to Tesco again, same Tesco as the previous 2 shopping lists. We do shop there a lot and have done for well over 25 years. It’s a good Tesco.
This time, I wrote the list whilst sitting in the car, as Vikki did the fuel, so tried a different ‘style’ of shopping list. This time, I tried to incorporate all of the items in the list into one coherent picture, nearly managed it too, but later, noticed I’d forgotten the baked beans in the drawing!)
This particular Sunday didn’t require a trolley, so I had a basket on my lap and was in charge of the list. When we got to the till, the plan was to leave it in the basket for a lucky Tesco employee to find and brighten their hard working day.
Oops. When we got to the tills, I remembered that I hadn’t taken a photo of the list. Panicking and hoping I wasn’t noticed, I carefully used my phone (which was luckily ready to use for the clubcard – phew!) I was sweating and nervous at this point. As my finger clicked on the button, the phone made a noise and the photo was taken. I hastily flipped over the list and took another.
No-one saw. I felt the adrenaline as I dropped the list into an empty basket in a pile of similar baskets. Mission accomplished. I breathed a sigh of relief and helped pack the shopping.
We went home, even consumed some of the things on the shopping list for tea/supper. Then, almost immediately forgot about the list again.
Until today! My son’s mate’s mum, Claire, works at the same Tesco, and she knows about the first S.L. and has been following it’s fun progress. This morning, she WhatsApp’ed the Mum’s n Dad’s group “Thanks.” (see below)
Woo and Yay, Houpla and Huzzah! *Drumroll*………. The S.L.3. has been found!
It was found by ‘Danni’. I’m not fully aware of all the details as to it’s discovery, or subsequent adventures, but I have been assured Danni was ‘Well chuffed‘ and the list is ‘living on our work desk now‘. That has made my week! Thanks to Danni and Claire for letting me know!
Here’s S.L.3. Before ‘the drop’. (Note the tesco floor as I secretly took the pic)
SL3 – Front: The Third Shopping List; With a pig, punting a chicken along the river on a bread and butter raft as a carrot runs free on the bank of the river..
No baked beans were hurt in the making of this list. Because I forgot to draw them.
SL3 -Back: Featuring a Chook from the future.
And, because I like to spoil you…. Here’s SL2: ‘The Second List – Missing presumed binned’.
Title – S.L.2. – On a Shopping Trip.
Grapes on the beach on a hot day in California.
Happy cherries.
Pizza – Being eyed up by Leonardo TMNT. – All 3 kids did something awesome recently, so nicer pizza than usual as a little reward (amongst others during the Easter break), they’re good kids and deserve it!
Milk – obvs.
Sugar – Sing-along-if-you-know-it – Made famous by the inventors of said substance, ‘The Archies’, a band from yesteryear (1969 -The summer of sugar), not only discovered sugar whilst mountaineering in Holland, but also sang a song about it and how, after comparing it to honey, realised the similarities and really liked the results.
Ready Salted Crisps – or ‘plain’ crisps. It’s worth remembering that the crisps we consume were once beautiful, free-range potatoes, foraging for food and roaming the landscape of countries like Ireland, England, Jersey and the Serengeti. Sometimes hunted for their skins, sometimes hunted for their flesh. Makes you think, doesn’t it? I don’t know what about.
Kiwi Fruits – I couldn’t bring myself to draw Kiwi-Knackers. So I censored it and cleverly got away with it. It doesn’t look much like a Kiwi, but you’re too pre-occupied thinking of testicles to notice.
Recycled – Of course. I won’t be cutting any trees down to write a shopping list. Apart from the impossiblility of carrying around a tree whilst shopping, I’d be overflowing with old envelopes, they’d stack up and up, then I wouldn’t be able to go shopping, or leave the next list somewhere, because my house will be full of envelopes that could have been recycled. I would be trapped.
Fbook address to pickledpizza.art – I decided to put a way of finding me/ contacting me to save the ‘ i found this, does anyone know who did it’ part – I loved it first time, but I think some people might just bin it or be negative if I keep being anonymous.
SL2 – The Back
P.T.O. – You’d be forgiven for presuming or assuming that P.T.O. stands for Please Turn Over, but it’s a common misconception. It actually stands for Page Transformation Organisation. Founded some time ago, The Page Transformation Organisation or ‘Patranorgan’ for short, discovered, during routine experiments in page-transformation that test subjects were observed losing concentration very rapidly, often turning over the whole page before getting to the end of the Header, which simply read: “P.T.O. – Organised but Transformative Page Research and development.” Further tests revealed that just the initials of the organisation was enough to make even the tallest test subjects turn the page involuntarily.
To this day, P.T.O can be seen on shopping lists and tattoos across the world. Apart from the countries that don’t use the letters P, T or indeed, O. They have other symbols and letters for that.
Chook – A lovely chook from the future.
Disclaimer – As someone on the KentOnline article said that it is littering to leave a shoppinglist in a trolley by accident may be delighted to know that I’ve decided not to do it accidentally, as this is littering. So I’ll do the opposite, because leaving them deliberately is art, for free, as a donation to the good people of Thanet.
Smiley – It’s a smile. we all need those as much as possible.
Where next?
Who knows where? Who knows when? Perhaps subscribe to find out the next thrilling instalment! Thanks for reading and keep smiling when you can, it’s infectious and fun.
Dean Perry aka pickledpizza 