Pencil sharpner

Il faut aiguiser nos crayons

After Voltaire, who said: “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” (We must cultivate our garden) – To this I add: “Il faut aiguiser nos crayons” (“We must sharpen our pencils*”) [*I hope!] First, literally. – ‘Start the day with a sharp pencil’ as I like toRead more…

Grave Concerns

11th May 2017 Middle-aged existential worries. “Perhaps the men of genius are the only true men. In all the history of the race there have been only a few thousand real men. And the rest of us – what are we? Teachable animals. Without theRead more…

Prince: Purple Legend

The year is 1994. I’m on a bus (that’s right, a bus) on a school History trip travelling from Scotland to Spain. I’m 14. On my Sony Walkman I have a tape of Prince’s Purple Rain that I must have stolen from my older sister,Read more…

Gesture Drawing and Fast Work / Developing a Style

Gesture Drawing and Fast Work / Developing a Style In this blog post I want to show you about developing a style, and how I advanced my drawing/sketching technique – primarily by doing more gesture drawing. Going to Art College In 2002-2003 I went toRead more…

Spare a thought for us perfectionists at Christmas

I think it was someone like film director James Cameron who was once quoted as saying, “People call me a perfectionist, but I’m not. I am a rightist. I do something until it is right, then I move on to the next thing.” Ha. IRead more…

Archive Sketchbooks (part 3)

Following on from my previous two posts showing some of my old sketches and doodles (where you can see Part 1 and Part 2 here), I thought I would go back to show how I became interested in Art and Philosophy and creativity and whatRead more…