well chums my apologies for not updating this here blog since bristol, ive not been sucked into a vacuum of couch potato nothingness, ive just replaced my manic job-list goal setting for a more mellow & mild just getting on with things approach. Which is weird.

Bristol Comic convention 2006. comic conventions generally seem to entail; good intentions which fall victim to brain fugue, moments of side splitting halarity at the most inane, twisted and/ or bizarre gibberish; moments of vacant exhaustion; lots of talking, inane, twisted and/or bizarre gibberish; hiding from scary freakoids; laughing at scary freakoids; realising that in fact we are all scary freakoids; etc



This con specifically involved; giggling about Eds new comic concept of "s**b**c*ing";
Dom Reardon and gnillips and everything around them being selloptaped down ( photo too blurry ); evaluating droids arses; tom jones magical hand; the hotel bar emptying en masse when DR Who came on; lots of gorgeous manga lady artists approaching Richmond with lovely art; failing to collect sketches or talk to Colin baker Dr who as i was too hungover; Bristol centre being full of pirates and fairies ?

great comics i'm looking forward to reading : of course WILD WEST WENDY; futureQuake6; something Wicked from FQ; Mangaquake2; omnavistascope by Paul scott; Solar wind the photo edition featuring us lot.( see previous post with me & moustash ); the End is Nigh; shido; & more

below; a pre Dr who slump in the bar.


and now we have the post con good intentions of great ideas which will rust away another year once reality takes precedence.
A Thanks to Tharg for looking over my folio. Big Thanks to all the lovely people who kept me company, especially my long term collaborator and his righteous disgust.

Ta da !

nearly there. i'll finish this in t'morning.

doing a Wendy painting just as an exercise.
bah, i thought I'd be a smarty pants & show how fast i paint n stuff, but it takes aons to get the camera to work. anyway off set that speed against lazy boned slug inertia & it evens out.

Gouache paints rock, theyre so versatile, ive been using watercolours for decades, why ? gouache can do the same effects as well as gloppy, or blendy or intense.
remember the Wild West Wendy comic is now available via mail order here

yes the book is now just about ready to roll out to the printers. We'll be selling it at Bristol Comics Exhibition next weekend. Its also available via mail order from here for £2 plus p&p.

also exiting news today, i went for a job interview on the Isle of Skye



and i got it ! Its an Art worker for a Charity that supports children who are carers, they do great work, its going to be challenging & exiting. couple of days a week starting next month. so i'll be seeing a lot more of those mountains on the 125mile commute.
and thats the view this evening back on the mainland looking across to skye.

We were working on a secret comics related project today. But the resultant photos are funny enough to break the secret secrecy & risk the wrath of a wrathful editor. All will be revealed at Bristol Comics exhibition.
Give those girls an oscar, and me, wilkinson sword.

Put up wee exhibition of my art classes work today , Its down at the local day care centre & theyre having a coffee morning tomorrow , hopefully rich olde ladies will buy all my wares. Really pleased with how good 'my students' work is looking all mounted & framed. shiney happy feel good.
Also proof that my doggies arent really evil.

wrestling vikings.

Also today the hampster died.

The stupid dog is in the frame for lamb killing after picking up a two day old corpse & strutting it proudly in front of the nastyiest neighbours of doom. StreSSSSSS.
and then a grass fire 25 miles away.

time managment? realistic goal setting ? forward planning ? got my nose so far into Wendy drawing at the moment , but still behind my schedule. 9 hours yesterday without pausing to get dressed or anything & still behind schedule, damn day to day functioning, chores, resposibilities & putting out fires ! theyre getting in the way of my ArT dammit. Discovered a new source of handsome men tho , hurrah ! my daughters kerangg posters & magazines, theres a nice proportion of cheekbones in the ROCK world.
had a nice little stove fire yesterday, smoke getting into house thru knackered chimney etc, i did some balancing on top of roof, getting smoked & soaked action, suffering today tho, coff coff.

and made 100 badges for a viking event this weekend, which is held at the heritage Centre who are trying to rip me off over my shop, i could always ask the 20 or so Vikings who are coming to do some hacking & maiming for me, slash, burn , Kill....

All these tasters are all very well , but i dinnae want to spoil the story. So in the meantime please laugh at Wild West Wendy's gran in reference photo.But don't laugh too much, shes kind of grumpy.

Its spring ! The daffs are out; my dogs are ridden with ticks; the labrador keep running away to chase the mangey chav jack russel doon the road; Bob the gender confused parroqueet is trying to do courtship dances with me, the cat, or that nice shadow on the wall; and all sleep and paid work is lost as the Bristol Comics Exhibition deadlines loom.

having funky dreams tho, warzones where a helicopter drawn by Jock flew to the rescue, and being cuddled by a 20 foot robbie coultraine as a film extra in surreal medaevil costume drama... thats what happens when you draw sloppering fat kids.

Chapter 2 of wild west wendy is done, only 3 to go in minus time. no i'm not panicing noooo.
I'm praying , like Wendy, that great Grud himself will bestow me with a living wage, 6 extra hours a day, and a shot gun that i too may dole out justice to the unclean, the unrighteous, the unholy , and the gruddam un-interesting.


actually scrap unclean, i can live with that one.
damn computers, i can't post this post. my scanner won't scan, photoshop won't photoshop...bah

what is muirburning ?

well see how in those photos in the previous post, theres not a lot of vegetation on them there hills ? well this glorious man made boggy desert is maintained in part by the highly pointless practice of muirburning, whereby estate managers & crofters set fire to the hills in the spring, to burn away any palry grass or heather which had previously attempted to grow there.

It might be to encourage new grass shoots for the grouse, but no-one hunts grouse here, possibly its to encourage new grasses for the plague of over populated un-culled red deer that no-one wants.

But this important thing is its tradition, illegal, life threatening, costs the tax payer squillions , destroys forestry, property, sterilises the soil , kills nesting rare birdies, adds to greenhouse gasses, killed a firefighter from this village in 70's, but hey, its tradition. 

 sure is pretty on a day like today. Shame i was stuck indoors cleaning carpets for 10 hours. oh joy.







Thats my hoose behind white specs to left of second pic.
If the weather stays dry, idiots will be muirburning all weekend, so I'll be knackered.

meanwhile there was lots of nice art at the house we were cleaning over in Kyle of lochalsh, 25 miles away. I spotted a watercolour view of our village, then recognised the name... yeah me, it was one I painted in 1982, 24 years ago !!! very bizarre.! s'gotten me inspired tho.

Alas My friends i have strayed from the path of true blogging. yeah verily i was seduced by the wanton lure of myspace, link its basically a ginormous mutual advert for people mainly musicians, who all pretend to have loads of friends , its a great way of listening to unsigned bands, if you can find them in the squillions. or its a great way to get depressed because they're not real friends & you havent got as many friends as they have & your friends aren't so cool & famous & are uglyer.
everyone on my space is very smiley & pretty, thats also depressing in its simpering vainity, wheres the bloody humour ! anyway, Thargs my friend now, he's green & everso sexy, but he claims to be 29, when we all know he's of indeterminal age. like me.

all of which detracts from the shuddering horror of approaching deadlines, the size of the application form for the art worker job & the fact that i should have heard by now about the animation filum, is that late post or a knock back ?

Easter Sunday.

, we went to roll our painted eggies at Balnacra, the site of our old House. The girls wanted to go back there. strange after nearly 6 years.

Its always hard after all the bad stuff thats happened since then. Everything has really over grown, but sadly the sheep are getting in otherwise it would be a nice mini wood, tho the actual house is all gone theres all these childrens artifacts in the garden.




But it was great to play again in our woods, even tho they too have been trashed by the hurricanes of the last two years.

and then we were tiny unrecognisable specs in the backround of the time team, which was nice.

Goddamn it this towns quiet, too quiet, anyone would think the townsfolks have all gone to bed early in the anticipation of un-holy pagan Easter eggs tomorrow. Well no goddamn easter bunnys coming here lessn i says so.

sheesh. random round up.

computer probs can't get crisp version of Wendy pages sorted.
gone into grump with results so far. muuuust do better !

a day of hotel work serves as nice reminder of why i need to focus on making pennies from art.

spotted an 'art worker' job in paper with my name on, working with kids who are carers. sounds great. shall apply.

got myself a solicitor on board to deal with the problem with my shop. 
Hurrah, My car has actually passed an MOT, i thought i needed to buy a new one this month. thank the gods of spiralling debts for that favor.







* its all a shame really cos history, archeology & the whole link to the past thing is still one of my obbsessions, but stuff them, i'll keep my crannogs & hut circles to myself.

after.