2012 was a very good year...repeat after me...

Victor Piseta Seleccion de Gardel SUEÑO DE JUVENTUD / CUANDO TU NO ESTAS

Watching the skies.

Arty...the greatest dog in the universe..Still here in my imagination.

Imagine if everything you ever drew remained alive somewhere....

Christmas is coming

Getting ready for your hols? Looking forward to that flight? Can't wait to see who is seated next to you?  I imagine the invisible wife will remain behind her curtains...although she does have a new suede coat.

This way up HD - Amazing Animation Short Film

And sometimes I take an old drawing and colour it in all over again.

Kaori Muraji Merry Christmas,Mr Lawrence

Lift those feet

The background was definitely a demo version of Illustrator CS6. The foreground is a mixture of Photoshop and Artrage...the subject matter is pretty much the kind of things that worry me daily.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIzLsg0L82Y&list=PLABC755BE9C27D38D&index=1

Headphones on...volume up...clear a space...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Twcp46kT4

Dumb Ways to Die

I know this drawing wants to be somewhere but where? I still enjoy colouring in as much as fifty years ago.
Corel Painter4 and Photoshop.

Light the blue paper and retire...

Happy Halloween.

This is the view out of the window here. Presumably coming for Halloween.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2CSsdz/:1HMSRBDi6:Db2x-eaS/www.vectorpark.com/etc/spider.html/

Mooglies in the air...

They're getting closer...

Return to school

Oh fer Gud's sake...blogger's new layout is not very friendly. Shut-eye town is closing down after the summer. Tourists leaving. The beaches are empty.
Above done mainly in Adobe illustrator...a demo version which...sniff...has expired.

Carlo Domeniconi-Variations on an Anatolian Folk Song

On the line

Wow, this new layout stuff in annoying...anyway, it's boiling hot and the peppers are ready. The town is full of Russians...including one next door...who is very miffed that I will not share my internet connection with him and the invisible wife. No sign of Henry for a long time...since before the summer.

 The new shouters up the road have been having spectacular arguments in the street with a kid on a moped. The kid gets very loud and threatens to return to his well which must be something lost in translation on my part. Although..,.the shouters run some sort of clandestine plant business so maybe a well does figure largely in their lives.

Back at the wheel

What....? Having narrowly escaped falling into Moorish refridgerators, outrun hovering vultures, avoided being flattened by tractor wheels, running away from snakes and surviving wild mushrooms I return to find blogland is more complicated than driving blindfold.

Alí Arango 2012. Drume Negrita. Arr: Leo Brouwer. (Home Recording. Berlin)

Milonga - Cardoso (play a piece of one´s own composition)

Framed

Relentless burning heat. Even the handle on the gate is too hot to touch. Bare feet impossible. Rover next door howling at the sky.
I discover to my amazement that I am incapable of framing a drawing. Two right angles, one curved and one missing. Almost a description of myself...

What kind of dog?

The sun is strong enough to fry eggs on the flagstones.
 The above is done mainly in Artrage...which is guaranteed to bring back memories of jumbo packs of coloured crayons and felt pens. It even has glitter and gloop pens.

Ratbag sis & bro

It is too hot. I think my brain may be dissolving.

My hat is better than yours

Well, this is a trusty mixture of Photoshop , Corel Painter Essentials (which has a nifty woodcut tool), and Ultrafractal 4.0 for the swirly bits in the background.
I have to leave, the laptop is at boiling point...a pity because I am listening to "Mystic's Dream" by Loreena McKennitt. Nothing like music to get ya drawing eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIghrxxhQYs

Crusader

Virtually at a standstill with the blazing heat...Massive drawing block so this is an old one touched up. I cannot even play a simple scale. Woe.

Gene Ween sings "White Christmas"

Pit stop in shut eye town

Ouf! Plof! 44 degrees in the centre of Spain so back in Shut Eye Town for now. New set of baking tourists in town, mainly French at this time of year.
One aubergine growing, many tomatoes, some odd gourds, no sign of grapefruit. Frankly too hot to do anything useful. The invisible wife is still next door...groan.

Wolves I have howled with

I remain stuck in Shuteye Town until I escape the dentist. Not long now...

Birdbath

Dragged back to reality for a week or two. Here's a few creatures I have spotted recently. Trial version of Adobe illustrator CS6.

Can't get into that summer dress?

Everything is running down to a stop so I'm putting on the mountain boots and heading for the original Shut-Eye Town where life is ten times more dangerous than here. Watch out for incoming vultures...star-crazed shepherds, the South Americans who move without sound...and the village that won "El Gordo"...three times....in fact I think I'll write a book about that...

Don't look down

And now they have just brought out Adobe CS6....which I'll be testing after this version...and then I'll write to Queen Elizabeth and see about projecting some images onto Buckingham Palace...

Singing along to Mahler

Sometimes when I listen to music it makes me feel sick as if I have eaten too much chocolate cake. I was listening to Mahler when this drawing came out. I like Mahler a lot but sometimes it just makes me queasy...why?

Anyway, this is done with Adobe illustrator 5...the free download which runs out in a couple of weeks. It is amazing software. It draws by itself. Unfortunately it costs the same as a world cruise so I better not get used to it.

Ratbag sis & bro

Well, the chef never turned up and the hotel was a great reminder of Fawlty Towers on acid so it was worth going to. However, I am not sure that I will ever eat octopus again, having learned that they are immensely intelligent...

A couple of  local ladies tell me you have to "frighten" the octopus three times to make sure it is tender for the cooking process. How do you give an octopus a fright? You dip it in and out of boiling water three times!!!!

I shall return to chomping my way through the rainbow swiss chard patch...

Click on the pic to enlarge if you need specs.

Hit that note

This evening, the Dream Team, myself and Alice who used to be Frank are going up to a restaurant in the mountains to learn to cook octopus. It is the octopus festival. The restaurant in question denies any such knowledge of the event according to the dream team's phone calls. Seeing as how the other half of the dream team has just dumped his english chef girlfriend we are all slightly apprehensive of crazy chefs in general...

Moraito Chico por Bulerías.

Dogs disrupting the seabed.

The invisible wife is back again...polishing the plaster lion that the Russian boyfriend placed on Henry's gatepost a few months ago. This is really depressing.
Discovering new tricks in Adobe illustrator. Birds are singing. Tree lily has emerged from flowerpot. Carrots are growing feathers. Many very excited, small children with large buckets on the beach.
Shut-Eye Street will be filling up with the French contingent next week.

april drawings

False alarm

So, Spain open as usual after easter. Arrived at guitar class to find Jordi trying to switch the building's alarm system off...which turns out to be impossible. Sit down to start class and his mobile phone rings. Head of music school ringing to find out if the alarm is still ringing. Mobile phone gets cut off. Mobile phone rings again. Head of school ringing back to see if alarm is still ringing (it is). Class starts again. Door bursts open and two six foot eight uniformed policemen barge in.
"Sorry," says Jordi, "can't turn the fooking alarm off."
"Fook," say the policemen.
"Do you know how to turn it off?" asks Jordi.
"Fooked if we know," the policemen answer. "No trouble here then?"
"No," Jordi replies.
"Oh hey," The taller of the two tall policemen says as he peers at the music stand..."Astor Piazzolla...Ausencias...Isn't Piazzolla fantastic!"
"Yes," Jordi agrees..."Erm...the alarm?"
"Sorry," the policemen burble into their radios as they leave. "Shall we shut the door to the street as we leave?"

I can't spell either

Always check for spelling before finishing...

The unbearableness of being beautiful

If you use the decorative banners and seals in Adobe illustrator as a "brush" you get all sorts of crazy shapes.
I would like to have the white dog with curly tail living here. I am always astonished when a drawing clip-clops out of my electronic pen and I want to make friends with it. It doesn't happen often but I really want that little, white dog.

Special effects.

Getting quite used to the gentle click-clicking blue glow lighting up the door to the porch. It matches the ambilight of the television where we are watching "Troll hunter". The police are back next door and as it is twenty degrees our door is open too. The invisible wife (or Madame Ho, depending on how angry I am at the world) is whispering sweet placations to the police car. Where is Henry? Where is Rover? Rover barks all day when he is at home.

Finally, they leave. Good, because the film is actually unexpectedly good.

Thirty seconds after police leave Rover roars into life and Henry is shouting "Raus" (his theme tune) in the background.

The sun-worshippers are arriving. Cycling like a demon along the beach this morning I see hoardes of ladies the colour of Bimbo bags and with diamond-studded dark glasses. They travel in packs and wear beige, gold and pink. You can smell the coconut oil from fifty metres.

The above is Adobe Illustrator where I am learning new tricks.

Mechanical light

Shopping in a Dutch supermarket can be tricky. I came home with a large bag of beautiful, shining, tiny bulbs and spent all afternoon planting them around the garden. Then I looked up "Red Karmen" in an online dictionary. Anyone need  a sackful of red onions in a few months just let me know.

Henry's invisible wife has definitely moved back in next door with Henry and brought her Russian boyfriend. He is even more paranoid than the invisible wife. Every time I leave or come back home there is a batman- blur moment as he dives for cover behind the gate or the curtains (depending on whether he is inside or out).

Star Coffee

I just read that a big coffeehouse chain is encouraging customers to give their names so staff can call out to them individually when their order is ready. It's never going to work...and this drawing is my polite version.

Look behind you

So, I'm walking around the corner and I see a police patrol car edging slowly down Shut-Eye Street. It comes to a stop outside Henry's house (a common fact). There is a young policeman driving and by his side a new and glamourous police lady. The policeman points to Henry's house and the police lady leans over in her seat to take a good look at Henry's house. Then they both burst into howls of laughter and drive off.

1. Are they laughing because Henry is now sharing his house with ex-wife and her new Russian boyfriend?
2.Are they laughing because Henry has a vodka still in his garage and they have a cunning plan to confiscate it?
3. Are they laughing because the policeman wants a date with the police lady and he is showing her what a terrific sense of humour he has?

Pasted

Playing with pasting and pasting into. If I can remember how I did this I will  be quite pleased.but I have to go...Alice who used to be Frank is coming later for supper and I am making a steak and kidney pie without the kidneys.
Oh joy, new neighbours next to Henry. Aficionados of the song of flamenco, well, the Benny Hill version. Their voices ring loud and clear over "Voz" and "Sons of Voz" on the other side. They may as well go in for the Eurovision contest. They would beat the Finnish grannies.

watch yer aura

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

Astral Projecting...

Toccata - Melbourne Guitar Quartet

Red sky in the morning

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

Time for a wee mental break.

Fernando Sor - Study op. 6 n. 11

Jazerant work

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

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)

Silly Symphony - Music Land (1935)

Notes all over the place