Blackpool

This is just a little video made from the few odds & ends I shot while I was away in Blackpool. Nothing particularly amazing but I felt if I didn't edit these clips together, they'd just sit on my computer and never get looked at.

I filmed these on the new still camera that Alex got me for my birthday (a Nikon Coolpix s8000 - I almost bought Alex one for her birthday last month but got her a bike instead). The quality isn't quite up to my other camcorder videos, but a wee compact still camera shooting HD is pretty awesome. Click it up to 720p to make it a little easier on the eyes. Youtube should really have the option to let the uploader chose the default resolution.

Blackpool was, of course, tacky, funny, nostalgic, scary and weird but that's why you go. The photos I put on Flickr probably show it off a little better but, as I say, I had to do something with the video clips. A good holiday.

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The Donaldson Boy

That's me back my holidays. Had a very nice time indeed. A surprise birthday in Glasgow and a few days in Blackpool going on the rollercoasters and playing the penny-falls on the pier. A few photos are up on my Flickr here. I'll try to put together a video clip too.

Anyway, the real point of this post is to mention that I've illustrated (former Arab Strapper) Aidan Moffat's first short story 'The Donaldson Boy' for the current issue of The List. I was super-happy to be asked and I had a lot of fun drawing 'Donny', the titular, overweight boy-racer. You've still got the best part of a week to pick up the magazine and you really should because, alongside Aidan's, there are a couple of other short stories worth a read, illustrated by Lizzy Stewart and Joe Baglow, no less.

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Away for a wee bit

A very quick note to say that I'm away for a few days this week on a short summer holiday. Today is my birthday! Look at the cake Alex & my Mum made me. That's how you treat a man. Took the photo on my new camera too.

Any orders from my shop will ship at the end of the week. Just incase. Bye bye.

Turn Up The Colour at Analogue

Analogue Books are having a group show in August and I'm very happy to be involved. Look at all those names! Jeez, that's crazy. I hope I don't mess up.

As you can see, the show is called Turn Up The Colour, so I expect it's gonna look pretty crazy (in a good way). It'll be awesome to see these really great artists going all-out with a title like that. I'm not actually sure what I'm submitting yet (I have until Friday to do something about it) so um, better get a move on. I've done so much black & white work recently that I'm maybe a little daunted by the idea of getting the crayons out.

The prices will be on the good side of £100 and there will be a lot of work up for grabs. So, if you've been thinking about buying some art recently, you'll definitely find something at Analogue. I guarantee it. Be quick though, the festival crowd will be out in full force, snapping things up. Come along to the opening on the 30th to be front of the queue, to meet the artists and to have a drink.

Here are the full details:

Turn Up The Colour
Various Artists
-
Show runs: 31st July - 30th August
Private view: Friday 30th July, 7-9pm. All welcome
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Analogue Books
102 West Bow
Edinburgh
EH1 2HH
+44 (0)131 220 0601

I might actually use the chance to make a couple more red & black drawings. I've not done any of those in ages. Ah, who knows. Visit the Analogue blog for easy-to-click links to everyone taking part. Share this info in any way you can. Cheers.

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Rain

Earlier today I was planning on nipping to the shops to pick up some stuff. The rain came just as I pulled on my shoes. It reminded me of school holidays. I used to get so angry any time it was wet because all I wanted to do was go skateboarding.

So, stuck inside, I made a tiny video from the window. The music is a track called 'G' from the compilation album 'Johns ABC' by Fence Records. An hour later it was sunny. Scotland, eh.

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9 Empire Biscuits

So I finished a job, saved it and sent it away. I figured, what the hell, I'll take the last hour of the day off. I've earned it. Reckoned I'd play a game or something. Just as I was closing down the last few windows in Photoshop, I started mucking about with little shapes and, almost completely without thinking, spent 20 minutes making 9 little empire biscuits. Why did I do this? What a weirdo.

To be honest, I am pretty obsessed with the damn things. The Galletlys have a particularly sweet tooth and I have spent my life surrounded by cakes and biscuits. My problem is that as soon as I've eaten something savoury, an unshakable craving for something sweet kicks in. It niggles away like having one shoelace tighter than the other. This means I eat chocolate after cereal, cakes after lunch and ice cream after dinner almost every day.

Empire biscuits are my new lunchtime fix. It's the icing. The icing is the best. I'd eat solid blocks of it if they wrapped it up like a chocolate bars. I'm lucky I'm not fat. My insides must be suffering in some other horrendous way. The shop in town sells giant empire biscuits. The staff keep them aside for me and everything. When they started stocking smaller, inferior ones, I complained.

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Holmes vs. Potter

Tonight we watched something I remember fondly from my childhood. The Spielberg-produced, Young Sherlock Holmes. A decent enough film that once freaked me out with its trippy hallucination sequences and Indiana-lite action. It always seemed to come on the telly on a wet Saturday afternoon.

When trying to convince Alex it was a worthwhile watch, I said 'You'll like it, it's a bit like Harry Potter'. Not the strongest of arguments, but I dunno. I don't mind a bit of H.P. now and again. I'm not into the books or anything, but I'll watch the films. Anyway, having not seen Young Sherlock Holmes in at least 10 years, 'a bit like Harry Potter' turned out to be a hell of an understatement. Y'know Withnail & I has that drinking game? Well here's one for Young Sherlock: take a swig everytime something Harry Pottery comes on screen - you won't make it to the credits.The main 3 characters, Holmes (Harry), Watson (Ron) and Elizabeth (Hermoine) wander around their big old school in their stripey scarves getting into all sorts of adventures. They make friends with an eccentric old professor (Dumbledore), sneak about a lot after dark and generally take the piss out of Watson for being a clumsy arse. Sherlock spends most of the film with a scar on his face (given to him by the bad guy, for goodness' sake). Tea is eaten in a massive hall complete with a million candles, comedy twins and scowling teachers:There's even a fencing (wand) lesson where Holmes proves himself to be a formidable fencer (wizard) but is warned that he needs to keep his emotions in check. Or else. As the mystery (some Egyptian mumbo-jumbo) unravels, the gang head out into the London underworld (Diagon Alley) to visit curious shops and people in the search for clues. I'm using Google to find these names, by the way.Best of all though is Holmes' poncey rival, Dudley (Draco). This guy sneers and scowls his way through the film, turning his nose up at good old Sherlock and generally plotting his downfall. He's a bad egg. He chats up Elizabeth. He gets Holmes expelled. He nicks a trophy. Just take a look at him next to Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter:Ooh, that rotter. Pretty close eh? When you see him in action it's hard to not be all 'hang on a second, this is getting weird'. I guess it could still be a coincidence though. Well, yeah, but just wait until Sherlock goes and makes a potion that TURNS HIS GODDAMN HAIR WHITE:Haha, that one got me laughing. It's like J.K. Rowling wrote some weird Young Sherlock Holmes fan-fiction and it all just got a bit out of control. Look, he's even got a couple of cronies tagging along with him. There has to be something fishy going on, right? Right?

Well, maybe. Turns out some guy beat me to the comparison by about 5 years. He goes into a fair bit of depth on this blog about it. There's a lot of interesting stuff about J.K. Rowling's influences, Chris Columbus' involvement in Young Sherlock / the H.P. films and more nerdy comparisons that I could ever make. Some of it is a bit tenuous, but I dunno, if you're into it, you're into it I guess. Here's me thinking I was dead witty.

I'm not meaning to go all conspiracy theorist here. I think Harry Potter has a ton of really cool ideas going on. I'm down with it. These similarities only make watching Young Sherlock Holmes more fun. If you're in the mood, you can even click here to watch the whole thing on YouTube right now.

I better post some drawings quick because this is a pretty embarrassing post to leave hanging around the front page of my blog.

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Desktop Background

I had this pattern sitting on my computer, drawn recently for something that was never used. It's been scanned so big that I tried mucking about with it as a desktop wallpaper. I guess it kinda works. You can see all the mistakes because the original was much smaller, but hey.

I've uploaded it as a 1920 x 1200 jpg so it can be used as a background. Just click here image for the big, full image. I'm planning on playing with the colours and tidying it up a little more (perhaps drawing another?) so stay tuned for less janky looking efforts. Thought I'd use the traditional blue desktop for this one though - like someone's went crazy with a pen over it.

Any suggestions, colours, requests etc. for backgrounds, let me know. I don't particularly intend to use one of my own drawings as my wallpaper so if someone out there knows what they'd like to see, I might have a go.

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What I Wore Today 12

After the video, going back to drawing these things seems a bit boring. Maybe that's why the colours are a bit crazier than usual. You should, of course, be checking out the awesome Flickr group What I Wore Today (in drawings) for tons of submissions by tons of great people. My favourite contributor is probably Carolyn Alexander because she's all sweary and that.

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