There is a 698kg squid building a website at squidsquid.com. Really. According to this website my squidname is michelle the gelatinous mollusc. Except that I am a goldfish. I am confused. Probably why I am a goldfish. This will make more sense after you visit squidsquid.

Quick sketch in red pencil and technical pens of a character “Beloved” or “My Beloved”.

“Save” or the failure to -”to keep safe, intact, or unhurt; safeguard; preserve” (Dictionary.com). In lieu of actually doing a real drawing for Illustration Friday this week (after one failed attempt), I thought I might pull an old sketch out of the archives.

So, a train wreck. I seriously doubt any train would every crash in quite this manner. I had it in mind that it was snaking through the air after coming off a broken bridge. A moment of freefall just before it hits the ground and everything goes to hell.

A quick sketch that was originally intended for Illustration Friday. But I decided it was too off topic (”save”) and will do another later. Not happy with the rendition, but love the idea of jellyfish with spine. Idea occurred after seeing a post somewhere on jellyfish made out of porcelain, and thinking how much the tentacles looked like a backbone.

(Click image to enlarge)

This weeks Illustration Friday topic was “homage”, so here as a homage to one of my favourite authors, Kelly Link. The illustration is based on “Catskins”¹. However, I did take a few privileges with the illustration and it isn’t completely true to the story nor does it illustrate any particular scene in it. The aberration is mostly the cat costume, and that two of the characters in it are one and the same, but I wanted to show both aspects of the character. Anyway, go buy the book and read it. Especially if you like zombies.

I actually quite like this sketch and plan on making it into a painting when I have the time. So highly unlikely to occur in the next couple of months.

1. In “Magic For Beginners”, Small Beer Press, 2005 Harper Perennial, 2007 [↩]

The Illustration Friday topic this week is/was “Pet Peeves”. I saw it as an opportunity to develop a sketch for the Vulgar Army project. It just happened the Illustration Friday topic was ideal.

My pet peeves are too numerous to recount. At the moment, it is generic by-numbers-octopus-propaganda and political cartoons. Not that I object to octopuses being used in propaganda/political cartoons. There have been some very imaginitive ones such as: L. D. Bradley, “Before the Trojan Horse is admitted, The Puzzled Citizen will have to be shown a little more fully, . .” Chicago Daily News, 3 February 1909 and the Harper’s Weekly cover Oct 6, 1900 showing the “Hunting of the Octopus” (Edit: “Hunting of the Octopus” by William Allen Rogers).

It is just, they are typically:

1) Write names of issues, organisations etc on limbs

2) Put head (or hat) of whomever you are trying to lampoon on octopus. Alternatively, tattoo their name across octopus forehead

3) Involve maps or globes.

Which isn’t to say these techniques don’t work. Take the Trojan Horse and the Hunting the Octopus. Both use labels to show what they are trying to represent. But they don’t just dump the octopus in the middle of the page, on a map or globe and stick someones head on it.

Edit (23rd March 3.30pm):

Links
David Hardy (April 2007) Octopuses and the NRA
TONMO.com (2003-2008) Octopuses & Propaganda
Quotidian Hell (May 2007) Quotidian Hell