Front View / Rear View

This is my attempt at Andrea del Sarto's Head of a Man in Front View which Michelle and I saw in the Louvre in Paris back in 2001. Although I was blown away by all the usual suspects as expected, one of the things I liked the most about going to the Louvre (hehe! ... "going to the Louvre"! tee hee hee!) was that the most memorable things we saw were obscure and unexpected, like some of the amazingly alive sculpture, da Vinci's Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and this wee del Sarto. This really stuck in my mind because, even although it was drawn in Fifteen Hundred and something, if someone said that it was a sketch of a surfer dude who was down at the beach last friday, it would be totally believable.

One of the other memorable sights that day was Venus de Milo's bottom! I wanted to see the Venus de Milo, but we got pretty lost trying to find her and, when we finally were in the right hall, we caught our first glimpse of her from the back. We didn't realise at first that it was her, because you hardly ever see a picture of her back - only ever of her front and face. It slowly dawned on us, from the very recognisable shape, that it was her and I remember thinking..."wow. nice bottom!"

Telephone Pad Lad

This rather shifty looking character is all I drew today, so he gets into the blog - many others (better- or at least not as bad) on my telephone pad aren't so lucky and get the shredder... That's fame for you. Fickle.

Hysterix

When we were kids we used to love Asterix and Obelix - bashing Romans and superhuman strength were definitely on my cool list! I was at a stage of reading when I would just skip over words that looked a bit difficult to tackle and pick the story up again on the other side, and I did the same with the Asterix books we had, especially with the names...Vitalstatistix, Geriatrix, Fullyautomatix etc all looked like words definitely out of my scope. It wasn't until years later - reading 'Asterix and the Normans' during a productive "study period" in the school library in First Year - that I noticed the Normans had names like Telegraf, Nescaf and Timeanahalf and discovered that all the names were jokes! Been there all along! Tada! ...it seemed like the cleverest thing in the world at the time - Hysterix!

SpaceGirl

In Homage to the Grrreat! Travis Charest

Dirigible

Is a doodled dirigible called a Diroogible?

JoJo ~ Eskimo

Yep...Eskimo again!

This is JoJo, the boy who desperately wants to be an Eskimo - an idea i have for a comic strip. The strip may or may not include my Dad's idea for a character - Lucky the one footed rabbit. The jury is still out, but I think it may have legs...





(boom, boom!)

MINT SAUCE

Dedicating this one to my wee brother Kenny 'Fire Puck' Campbell, who scored his first goal playing ice-hockey for the Hamilton Hawks on Saturday night in their epic 20-1 win v the Mariners! Yey! Go Puckdro! Go Hawks!

Kenny introduced me to Mint Sauce, the mountain biking sheep that lives in Stonehenge and features in Mountain Biking UK. Usually drawn by the genius that is Jo Burt.

The Amazing Spiderman

... R.I.P.

Until his tragic murder upon the big screen by Toby McGuire et al, Spiderman was far and away the coolest superhero in the universe. I so wanted to be him. I used to go around listening intently to my "Spidey Senses" and getting into trouble for climbing on the school roof. I loved both the comic books and the cartoon and he had all the best one-liners and witty comebacks.

The cartoon used to be on "Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade" a rather odd Sunday afternoon tv show with an old dude called 'Glen Michael' (real name: Cecil Buckland!) who, rather amazingly isn't dead yet. He would, with the help of a parafin lamp (?) introduce all the cartoons like Mr Magoo, The Whacky Races and ...The Amazing Spiderman. Yey! Cecil would pretend that he was producing the cartoons by magic, using various 'special' effects (such as his own head floating in space) which, even as a six year old, I thought were pretty rubbish..."just get on with the cartoons, you old twit!"

One time, I fell out with everybody at home (I can't remember what it was I was right about in the particular instance, but it would've been serious) and stormed out of the house saying that I was leaving home and never coming back...at the door Neil quipped "see you for Cartoon Cavalcade" and I went mental on him! "I'm not coming back! EVER!" So - I went down the woods and decided I would make a house for myself down there...messed about with branches for a bit, got bored, got hungry and went home. To tragedy. I was indeed back in time for Cavalcade - but had missed Spiderman! ...It still hurts a bit now. I will never know what the Webbed Wonder was up to in that episode - no amount of huffing has ever cost a man so dearly....*sigh*

MAD Guevara

MAD Magazine does Che Guevara!

Tank Girl

When I was about 13 or 14, I used to borrow Alan from school's copies of 2000AD, smuggle them into my room by means of a false bottom in my school bag, hide them in the cupboard and then read them under the covers at night using my torch!! Good times!
Other contraband enjoyed in this way were (among other things) Commando and Warlord comics and 'Aliens, The Book of the Film'! Among the (predictable) favourites from 2000AD were Judge Dredd, the gorgeous (back in the 80's) Judge Anderson and ....Tank Girl


It would be cool to say that my love of comic books started at that time - but actually it was years earlier - with Snoopy! ......Rock and Roll, Baby!

Tribute to Elph

One of my all time heroes is Elph - the grand master of making wee gadgeys like this come to life all over Edinburgh with spray paint or marker pen and cardboard.

Scary Maori

Who doesn't love a good Haka? ...think its the only way to start the day!

All kinds of Fierce

Blue Moon

Still in space... I had a little play with the 'invert colours' option in Paint - good fun! quite hard to remember that darker is lighter and lighter, darker and to work out how the colours invert. Had to have a couple of goes.




Here it is before I inverted it...

To Infinity...

...and Beyond!

To celebrate first 500 Blog views since starting on 12th September! Huzzah!! As i used to try to get Aimee to say when she was about 2: "Today Newton - tomorrow THE WORLD!! Bwuhahahaha!"

I'd pretend to be all cool and indifferent about it while looking windswept and interesting...but that's not my style! Thanks for coming in to look at my etchings - hope they are pleasing, I'm certainly enjoying making 'em and posting them up. Comments from all are gratefully received and I will endeavour to ensure the complimentary ones go straight to my head!

Space Walk, Baby!

...inspired by my Avatar pic on Twitter (@holdthephone)

Girl paints tree

Cool Pink

I really like the way that Manga and Comic Book does different 'camera angles' and thought I'd give it a go...

Number One Super Guy

Who is this super hero? Is it Sarge? No!...
Rosemary the telephone operator? No way man!...
Penry the mild mannered janitor?...COULD BE!

Oh how I used to wish I had a Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu!

Doodle Heads

Just some doodles tonight - exhausted after watching Scotland v England Rugby World Cup match!