lighthouses.

I absolutely love lighthouses. I love the sea, so I guess this is a natural extension of this affection. It is also partially because of my love for one particular Moomins book where they move to a lighthouse. Quite some time ago I did a series of drawings of polish lighthouses. This was the first one and the only one that I actually went on to the top of. One of my ideal places to live would be on an island with a lighthouse.

I just keep on dreaming.

untitled collaboration

These are effects of collaboration with Lindsay Ure. This is the text and illustration I did for the said text, you can see the other one here.

You think about them while sitting in the sun. The tip of your cigarette throbs orange between the grey of the growing ash as you inhale, sitting at a café, sipping your latte. The noises around you are muted, quiet trams and foot traffic. A bell mounted on a bike handle chimes, cautioning. Wind pushes itself through the streets. The morning light reflects off the canal in front of you. It darts across the rippled water among swimming mallards and sinking leisure boats, shining up to the buildings pulled forward by the weight of their many windows. The water sparkles as if covered with coins.

They are tall navy coloured houses with decorative white trim, lining the canals, leaning into one another like narrow books stacked loosley on shelves. You wonder how to describe them; their endearing unevenness, their lines attempting the elusive right angles. How can you illustrate their pultritude? As European as empty wine bottles, as crisp as tailored suits, as romantic as tulips in basketed bikes...Bricked rivers flow under, beside, in front. An arced bridge is a conversation between them. You sip your latte. They are exquisitly handsome yet oddly familiar, their grace stands unaffected. They remind you of prostitutes tied upright to benches to sleep, but that reference does not do them justice; their beautiful dysfunction is too charming. Next you try to imagine them as windmills tipped into one another, but then ask yourself what would happen to the overlapping blades; Victorian dollies on display; fat crows on telephone wires; crooked teeth in fat women’s mouths; illustrations in a graphic novel about the life of Vermeer. You decide that none of these work, you need to be more economical in your phrasing. ‘They lean’, you say to yourself.

Dark Forest

A pretty new addition to my sketchbook.

I was feeling a bit down and after trying to draw same thing about 5 times and still not being happy with it I just started a random scribble and this came out. Miles happier with this one than the monsters that came out (and I will never actually publish as they were just rubbish).

I am trying to come up with new design for my main site, since that one is very dark and I got a bit tired of it. And it's so black and white... I want something autumny. I have some ideas (especially after scrapping the idea number one that just wouldn't come out right - as mentioned above), but I think it will still be a bit until I actually do it. And autumn is almost here!!!

In the meantime I am reading one of my favourite books ever - Moominvalley in November. You can only read it if it's cold and miserable outside though, otherwise it won't be the in the quite right mood.