Drawings

This is an art* page. It will be a collection of arts that I have done. While some are better than others, they all are a bit shit.

Occasionally - very occasionally - I'll scribble something that almost looks like the thing that it was supposed to look like. Occasionally I'll rate the scribbling as "not quite as unpleasant as a skidmark on the page". Extremely occasionally, once I've recovered from the surprise that producing such a high quality piece of work gives me, I'll be motivated to find, plug in and trouble-shoot the worthless piece of crap that we call our "printer-scanner combo thing", the amazing "HP Shitbox 2000" model. Presumably marketed with the tagline "utterly unusable, unreliable and expensive to feed - it'll change your life in negative ways you've never even thought of!", the Shitbox 2000 is a horrible, horrible thing. Sometimes, however, I'm able to coerce it into actually scanning something, though often more through luck than design. 

When all the rare and unlikely things above have happened, in the right order, and if I've managed it all without being consumed by either boredom or incalculable scanner rage, l might get around to posting more stuff here. The page is somewhat short on content at the moment, partly because it's a very small proportion of the sketches I do that I can actually bear to look at for long enough to scan, and partly because I hate scanning things. The only new picture here at the moment - the one that kind of looks like a shrike, nearly - was in fact digiconverted using a heady mix of the high-quality visual capture device on the back of my phone and some carefully applied mobulate phoneterweb technology. Wow.

I've just picked up drawing again. I used to draw a lot, loads, in fact, but stopped a few years back. I went through a brief bird-art phase when I started this blog (the oldest images here are from then) and having recently seen a few stunning art blogs have decided to try once more. I've not done anything in the field for a long while as I usually find the results to be demoralisingly shite. Currently I'm concentrating on sheer quantity: usually working from photos, I'll give myself a short time to work on each sketch, and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, move on and start ten more. I figure that with enough practice, the time it takes me to reasonably accurately lay out the basic shapes will reduce dramatically enough for me to get decent results outdoors. Or something.

*Please be warned the word "art" is, in this context, being used in a very loose sense. More molested than used. Molested like the word "journalist" is when used to describe Melanie Phillips. Or the way "funny" and "comedian" are metaphorically given an unexpected and not entirely welcome cheeky finger when they're used to describe rubber-faced ambulatory penis Lee Evans. No, the other Lee Evans. Birding Lee Evans doesn't have a rubber face.

Drawings. Last updated 19.10.11.

Above are some of the "new" drawings. They are all deeply flawed, but considering that I'm out of practice (as in, not done this in years) they're not quite as flawed as I'd expected.

This is one of those new computer-artwork things. It is clearly my best work to date, capturing accurately the time that a cattle egret at the Ingrebourne pissed off a bunch of little egrets. I've also accurately captured the little known fact that cattle egrets have no feet. Those photos you've seen where they've got feet? Yeah, photoshop. Those cattle egret feet you've seen in real life? Hallucinations.

This is ancient, and only here because it's pre-scanned. I think they're marsh harriers, though possibly, just possibly, this is a page of random marks made by an idiot with a pencil that I've claimed as my own. It is only here to make up numbers and will be removed from view as soon as I've got more.

Again, this is ancient. I drew it in ancient times. The more I look at it the less I like it. I've only put it here because it's pre-scanned, thus avoiding the need to dirty myself by looking at or touching the HP Shitbox 2000.

 Art reviews: Totally not made up.

"Is it a bird? I can almost see... er... no, lost it."

"Well, I've seen worse, but they were drawn by blind people. Blind people with no arms and special needs."

"I'd rather publicly lay claim to the inevitable hot stinking fart that fills the carriage on the morning commute than this drawing. You know, the one that always comes from between the rotting, sweaty buttocks of that hungover fat man who stands with his cheeks pressed almost to your face because he has no concept of personal space or decency? The one who, last night, after drinking pissweak lager from the 'spoons across the road from his miserable office, had yet another cheap curry from that Indian place with dangerously low hygiene standards causing more damage to his already irreparably broken colon? Yeah, that fart. I'd be more proud of that, than any of this."