pigeons everywhere!

For your viewing delight, some sketches of fancy pigeons!

I took my friend Nam to an agricultural show my village hosts annually, at which I magically transform from a serious academic semi-goth to a lunatic in wellies getting excited about sheep. It's genuinely one of my favourite things about the village, they have rare breeds of sheep and pigs and sometimes Dales ponies and there are strange chickens and a pigeon show! There's a produce contest where people show off enormous marrows and a man who demonstrates how to shear sheep and spin wool by hand! And a Tamworth pig with a dozen ginger piglets!

My favourite part is the fancy pigeons. I love the 'blowers' best of all, with their enormous puffy necks. They always look so proud of themselves, strutting around their cages.

Yes, I am a country bumpkin. I've disappointed you all.

The Vixen and the Lioness

These are some illustrations I made for Ollie Tigwell, a graphic designer I know from university, to use in a small booklet containing the fable of the vixen and the lioness. I did them in a bit of a hurry, having been ill for a few days, so I was very pleased with how well they turned out in the end.

The fable goes like this, by the way:

A vixen was taking her babies out for an airing one morning, when she came across a lioness with her cub in arms. 'Why such airs, haughty dame, over one solitary cub?' sneered the vixen, 'look at my healthy and numerous litter here and imagine, if you are able, how proud a mother should feel.' The lioness gave the vixen a squelching look and, lifting her nose in the air, walked away, saying, 'Yes, just look at that beautiful collection. And what are they? Foxes! I've only one, but remember that one is a lion.'

I think the moral is meant to be quality over quantity, but I actually like foxes better than lions so to me neither mother came across very well. Woops.

journal pictures 4

Finally all my work for the Inspired anthology is finished and delivered, so I have time to work on other things again, huzzah! Not that I've done any other things yet, so here are some more journal pictures for your enjoyment. Most of these were drawn after the functional end of 3rd year, so I think they represent a high point of drawing quality - I was bored enough to pencil them first.

If you're interested, Sammy (depicted here) did a comic of this incident from her point of view. I was thinking of doing one from my end of things too, since I swear it scared me more than her.