Shut-Eye Town

watch yer aura

2012-03-08T17:02:00.000+01:00

I know the gag for this cartoon but I am having technical difficulties in the brain this afternoon. Photoshop and Manga studio are obviously affected by sun storms... or me?
Maybe I can get it finished tomorrow?
Cameras charged up just in case they sky does something tonight. Listening to birds singing in a forest on iTunes and if you put the headphones on it's just like being in a forest. Quite convenient for when all the streetdogs start their barking matches...which will be any minute now because school's out.

Vancouver 1907

2012-03-07T12:02:00.000+01:00

Astral Projecting...

2012-02-26T16:41:00.000+01:00

Toccata - Melbourne Guitar Quartet

2012-02-26T15:50:00.000+01:00

Red sky in the morning

2012-02-20T10:43:00.000+01:00

Ouf! Blimey...Fact no. 1) Did you know that when it's minus twenty three outside your specs snap in half in your coat pocket? And now I know why all those ads recommend having a spare pair...which I don't...and the spec shop is shut because it is Carnival here in Spain. But my specs broke on the other side of the planet...just before the fourth of six plane flights. Fact no 2). When it is minus twenty three outside your nose crackles when you breathe and your face goes numb after six minutes.
Fact no 3) Why, when I name my latest creation "Wildwood" do I discover that someone else who I have never heard of has done exactly the same thing?
Fact no 4) Super glue nor sellotape fix broken specs.

Wildwood

2012-01-21T11:43:00.000+01:00

Time for a wee mental break.

Fernando Sor - Study op. 6 n. 11

2012-01-15T13:35:00.000+01:00

Jazerant work

2012-01-14T15:20:00.000+01:00

Adobe illustrator is so full of bells and whistles it is virtually impossible to draw anything without asking...and what does this brush do...? I still haven't worked out how to colour in using a paintbrush.
Last night I dreamed of talking, exploding cats..whaat?

wind wind wind

2012-01-08T16:51:00.000+01:00

Most of town on the verge of tipping themselves into the nuclear sea down the road if only to escape the howling winds that have roared relentlessly for weeks. Myself included. The invisible wife is back whining in the kitchen next door. Sometimes I think they leave the window open on purpose so we can delight in the aroma of burnt food, cigarettes and old dog food. Excuse me while I go and stick my head in the lavender bush.

Drawing "ACCORDEON JAM" (cartoonage on youtube)

2012-01-06T10:50:00.001+01:00

Silly Symphony - Music Land (1935)

2012-01-02T16:02:00.000+01:00

Notes all over the place

2012-01-01T16:47:00.000+01:00

Police escort

2011-12-29T16:23:00.000+01:00

Quite a party going on next door the other day. I'm in the garden admiring the giant pumpkin and suddenly hear car doors slamming, much squeaky slamming of Henry's gate , many voices...but speaking Spanish, not the usual German. Henry sounds even more plastered than usual and after a heated exchange I gather Henry has had his own personal police escort back home and is being ticked off for being, drunk, disorderly and really should not have been driving.

I wasn't going to mention this, except this morning an ambulance parked outside our gate and a police car pulled up at the same time. I shouldn't worry. Henry drove off ten minutes after they left.

The above is done in Adobe Illustrator, whatever I do in that is mostly done by luck.

Eric Whitacre - Water Night

2011-12-26T13:37:00.000+01:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

2011-12-23T15:46:00.000+01:00

Walking backwards for Christmas?

2011-12-21T15:53:00.000+01:00

Howling, monster winds. The water has been off all day and is sputtering and coughing back into life. My worst fears confirmed, the invisible wife is back in town, adorned in floor-length leather coat, and still with Russian boyfriend in tow...and a grey-looking Henry, plus vino buddy, plodding along behind. This is not good news. The smell of black tobacco hovers...
The above in Ultrafractal, Photoshop, Painters essential.

Francisca

2011-12-21T14:51:00.000+01:00

Are you sitting comfortably?

2011-12-18T14:17:00.000+01:00

Spain is now virtually closed until around January 7th. Henry next door left his old Mercedes parked outside our garden gate for two mysterious days. The ex- invisible wife who eloped to the Ukraine a couple of weeks ago turned up on his doorstep again...and vanished again.
The above done in Manga studio and Photoshop and thanks to Voltaire for the idea.

Pat Metheny Trio - Into The Dream [2004] HD

2011-12-17T17:56:00.000+01:00

I'll be wanting my tea.

2011-12-14T17:02:00.000+01:00

Fractalactalactal and Photoshop and Manga and me. Excuse me...it's time for a cup of tea. Sitting in Spain listening to CBC radio in Toronto. It is eleven o' clock. Nine degrees and a proposed fare hike in the air.You needed to know that.

Shape animates a splash

2011-12-14T16:15:00.000+01:00

Ratbag Sis & Bro

2011-12-12T14:46:00.000+01:00

CIACCONA www.luteduo.com

2011-12-12T11:10:00.000+01:00

Travels in Nubia

2011-12-11T15:36:00.001+01:00

Above done in Manga Studio which I love because it draws the panels for you. I have been experimenting with self publishing and used a company called Photobox to make a paperback collection of drawings. I'm really impressed with the quality of their work. I will definately do a cartoon book when I have enough.
Pierogi dough made. Only nine or ten stages to go. Tree going up tonight.. Jingle, jingle, tinky tonk, walking backwards towards Christmas...

How to make Babi's Ukranian Pierogies (perogies)

2011-12-11T11:06:00.001+01:00

But But you can always fry them lightly after they have boiled (with onion). Final step after eating...curl up in a small ball in a safe corner, under a staircase, and wait for Spring.

Don't look behind you.

2011-12-10T10:55:00.002+01:00

The creepy plastic Santa Claus are sprouting from the walls of houses and last night I dreamed of Manderley. No, I didn't...but I did dream about an impressive alien, ariel, military invasion amongst a star-studded sky. Full technicolour but oddly no soundtrack.
Time to start making peroghies...I never could spell that.

Where's sis?

2011-12-07T11:54:00.000+01:00

Experimenting with Adobe illustrator. The Voz on the other street has been tile-cutting for days. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZttt ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZttt. Sometimes I feel like this street is based on Blue Peter.
Spain is now closing down until mid-January because of the festive season. Only three public holidays this week.
The nasturciums are blooming, how bonkers is that?

Lullaby - Andrew York - Anne Mari Hagen

2011-12-06T15:33:00.000+01:00

Sis & Bro

2011-12-04T16:46:00.000+01:00

Strangely quiet streets. People abandoning Mother Spain in droves. But they all have vast amounts of relations to flock towards. Nobody knows I exist but I better call in the antlions just in case...

Koyunbaba - Carlo Domeniconi parte 3/4

2011-12-01T16:16:00.000+01:00

Trouble sleeping?

2011-11-29T17:18:00.000+01:00

I think there maybe some of these on the roof. They arrive as the sun goes down...and they skitter...and I run out very fast but never see them, Probably just as well.

Pirai Vaca: Koyunbaba

2011-11-29T16:18:00.000+01:00

El camino

2011-11-27T15:14:00.000+01:00

Just rummaging through old folders and computers today. Who are all these folk? Where do they come from?

wacom drawings2010.wmv

2011-11-27T10:41:00.000+01:00

tabletmadness3

2011-11-25T10:48:00.000+01:00

That floating thing...

2011-11-24T12:37:00.000+01:00

Henry next door doesn't actually believe much in doors so that's how he crashed into the sitting room yesterday clutching the plastic dustbin he had borrowed. I don't know what he wanted it for but it involved a great deal of shovelling rubble in his back garden. Great news he announces! The invisible wife has left him for the Russian and they are going to go and live in the Ukraine. Hooray, he says!
I used to wonder if the invisible wife had buried Henry in their back garden but maybe the roles have been reversed?

rainrainrain

2011-11-20T12:52:00.000+01:00

Spirits sink as the high, insistent, familiar, complaining voice of invisible wife whines out from the kitchen window next door and as I return from the rubbish run spirits droop ever downward. Henry is plodding along the road with Rover the alsatian...followed by...invisible wife with new Russian boyfriend. His only sign of nerves being a cigarette cupped in the palm of his hand behind his back...the boyfriend, that is. This is not good. After her several attempts of sending round "ladies of the night" to tempt Henry into something he might not want produced as photographic evidence for impending divorce...she has wheezled (I don't care how you spell it) her way back into his house...which accounts for all the shouting earlier. Oh...and it looks like rain.

Click on pic to enlarge if you have nothing else to do.

Saxophonist Amy Dickson - Philip Glass' Violin Concerto No 1. - Exclusiv...

2011-11-16T15:59:00.000+01:00

Il Giardino Armonico performs Vivaldi's Flute concerto (RV 428)

2011-11-14T13:29:00.000+01:00

Knight Lichen

2011-11-14T10:51:00.000+01:00

I do not like November. It's too long, too dark and probably tastes like damp canvas. I thought I had been frightfully clever in choosing "Shut Eye Town" as the blog title. It comes from a poem in a book that belonged to my father when he was a child. Wrong.....there are so many shut eye towns out there. I should have googled before I made the banner.

I still don't like November.

111111

2011-11-11T11:42:00.000+01:00

Henry has roared off in his hoochmobile. The Reiki Mistress and her husband are back after a week huddled under stormclouds in France. Their cat managed to stay alive despite refusing to eat most of that time. Spring bulbs popping up everywhere. Something about this time of year...if I were a bicycle tire I would be flat.

Full moon, auspicious date, Rememberance Day. My grandfather flew in both World Wars having joined the RFC at eighteen. He was member number 15.

For Sephora BEST VERSION EVER !! Rosenberg Trio and Bireli

2011-11-10T15:50:00.000+01:00

Seaside

2011-11-10T14:41:00.000+01:00

Lady with tea-cosy

2011-11-09T14:44:00.002+01:00

I knew this lady years ago. She was a shepherdess, and used to wear a tea-cosy on her head and amazing silk gowns that a Spanish Ambassador gave her from his travels. Her husband looked after his country abode. Years later, this lady and her husband are now millionaires...due to the national lottery. The Ambassador is no longer in this world.
The two people in the film are nobody at all, I'm just playing in Adobe Illustrator...and now I am off to watch "Doctors"...my one and only favourite soap. I know...it's SHOCKING.

Four-eyes

2011-11-08T10:57:00.000+01:00

The new music school is up and running. It used to be the old medical centre but has been transformed with gleaming wooden floors...a front door that locks itself automatically so the kids can't actually get in unless they run round the side of the building and rap on the shuttered windows. The doorbell doesn't work and there is only one set of keys for the building which houses two guitar teachers, a percussionist, and two pianists. Nobody will go down to the hardware store to get copies of the keys made because the local council says they are in charge of the building. Red tape makes me see red.

Larva - Spider.wmv

2011-11-08T10:30:00.000+01:00

Small dog big world.

2011-11-05T16:31:00.000+01:00

Rain, rain, rain, snails, rain. Got soaked in the rain, music books soaked and turned purple by bag that doesn't like rain. Large sliming snails everywhere, eeerg. The musician below should be world famous.

Capona by Kapsberger - Rob MacKillop Theorbo

2011-11-05T10:04:00.000+01:00

Hoppity Skip

2011-11-04T14:04:00.001+01:00

The absence of the Invisible Wife is taking a sinister turn. She is still in town as it happens, and in the company of a Russian. Half past seven last night Henry pushes the doorbell and is swaying gently by the gate.
"Please come and remove bad lady from house?" he asks..
"Em...."
Bad lady is seated on Henry's porch surrounded by beer cans and small, old (but stern) man at her side. Henry reverts to his usual warcry of "RAUS HIER" but they remain stubbornly seated.
The bad lady is actually quite large and has a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other.
"Henry is asking you to leave," says Patrick at which point the bad lady explodes..."He stole my tobacco. He stole it!" She's shaking her frothing fist at Henry.
"The thing is," says Patrick. "The thing is...I don't care what you do but the guy who lives in that house over there is probably calling the Police right now because he gets very upset when Henry shouts."
"I see, " the old but stern man says thoughtfully..."In that case we are out of here. Goodbye Henry. Friends still?" He reaches out to shake Henry's hand...
"RAUS, RAUS, RAUS."
Exit bad lady (still clutching beer can and swearing incoherently) and man. Small, black car takes off up the road. Henry shakes our hands profusely (second time this week).

Steve Baughman plays Lady Athenry and Planxty Hewlett, by O'Carolan

2011-11-02T17:41:00.000+01:00

Night-life

2011-11-02T14:45:00.000+01:00

The skies are about to split asunder so this is brief.
Woke up at five yesterday to an overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke right by my head...so did Patrick. Neither of us smoke anymore. Next door on the left is empty. I know this because I am looking after their cat.
The above is done in "Artrage" which I urge you to buy but only if you have a drawing tablet.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T10:10:00.002+01:00

Rabbit in the pumpkin patch and on lookout duty. If you are handy with a pair of needles you can find his inventors here...
http://twinsknit.blogspot.com/

It is confirmed....Invisible Wife has left the building. Henry has reverted to his carefree bachelor self and almost broke both Patrick and my wrists as he shook our hands in celebratory triumph.
Excuse me...I have the above pumpkin waiting to be carved. Have a scarey one!

soria

2011-10-30T16:21:00.000+01:00

Sis & Bro

2011-10-30T12:06:00.000+01:00

Most Sundays I try and rough out an idea for a Sis & Bro cartoon which sometime next year I will put together with Maureen and self publish...then I will throw away my rejection slips from The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, Mills & Boon and various children's publishers...or maybe I should frame them? The ones that say "We LOVE your work. We LOVE your characters and style but we DON'T LOVE YOU.

Whatever you do...DO NOT listen to Tom Waits singing "Poor Edward" and then be stupid enough to look up the story it is based on and then google images....unless you want to sleep for twelve hours in a row and have the weirdest dreams ever...

Slopes off to make black, lentil dahl......

Gracie Barrie - Stone Cold Dead in the Market 1946

2011-10-29T11:32:00.000+02:00

Skeleton Frolic (1937)

2011-10-29T11:08:00.000+02:00

Juggling

2011-10-28T11:51:00.000+02:00

I realise that I know nothing about music theory and the lanky fellow next to me dressed in an Iron Maiden T-shirt and chains is reeling off a virtual concert into his immaculate notation book. It is confusing because the note I call "B" is called "Si" here and "Si" also means what I call "Yes"....you C what I mean? But "C" is called "Doh" ....aaah duh!

Rain, rain, rain, no sign of Invisible Wife for a few days. Henry is staggering around with a new pal Otto. They are driving a very old Mercedes....erratically. I am waiting for the Invisible Wife to turn up with a flamethrower...

Aniello Desiderio performs Variationen über ein anatolisches Volkslied (...

2011-10-25T16:26:00.000+02:00

Be Sharp...see

2011-10-25T11:41:00.000+02:00

Plodding back from music language class (on a par with deciphering the Voynich Manuscript) and see a pickaxe lying outside the gate of Henry and Invisible Wife. I now know that the German word for please leave this establishment is...."RAUS".

Head on a plate.

2011-10-23T11:06:00.000+02:00

Well...I've managed to obliterate the spottydog blog, I don't know how, I got it back, it vanished, and now I can't link to this one. I shouldn't complain...
Henry next door is back and having discovered his invisible wife has not been very wifely recently...is trying to boot her out. But, she is made of stern stuff so I am off to look for my bullet-proof vest.

Joao Bosco - Obrigado, gente 2

2011-10-22T14:22:00.000+02:00

Autumn Leaves

2011-10-21T11:36:00.000+02:00

Guitar class starts today....and I'm all broken fingernails after weeks scrabbling over Roman stones. I saw three vultures while away, standing on a rock in a field, more than waist high. I kept moving...

Dreamtime

2011-10-20T16:09:00.000+02:00

I've lost the blog, found the blog, made a new blog but with the wrong url....I'll get there eventually...