Illustration Friday 070706: Skyline

The Brits among you may recognize this as the Tyne Bridge - the famous Newcastle landmark that has recently found itself in competition with the newer, ingeniously-designed Millennium Bridge, and the Sage Gateshead, a futuristic concert hall, both only a couple of hundred yards away. To anyone familiar with Newcastle, the detail of the arch and the distinctive lamps will be enough to identify the location.

This is a manipulated version of a photo I took a few months ago.

Illustration Friday 063006 : Sticky

Sigh. I ran out of steam again. Started to work on this last weekend and was happy with the shell, but had no time at all this week, hence the (all-too-phallic) snail's resemblance to one of the unformed pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

We had a slightly surreal close encounter with a slug a few months ago. It apparently climbed up the front door, came through the letterbox (in British houses, actually a hole cut in the door), squeezed itself past the metal barrier, descended to the hall carpet on the other side, then made its way under the radiator and over 6 pairs of shoes before crossing the threshold into the living room, where it had slimed its way a couple of yards along the living room skirting boards before we discovered it, looking very sorry for itself. Its epic journey from the front yard was reversed in a matter of seconds. Kind of sad, really...

Illustration Friday 062306 : Rain

Spent last week away at a conference, so never got 'round to completing anything for "Dance", and now I find myself exhausted by trying to catch up with all the *real* work that I'd left undone. So, that's my excuse for a rather uninspired bit of doodling. I hope to have my oomph back for next week's challenge...

Illustration Friday 060906 : Jungle

Haven't had much chance to look at the links on IF this week, but I expect at least two or three others have done something very similar to this... If I'd had more time, would have liked to try my hand at vines and tendrils, and some dappled light.

Illustration Friday 060206 : Portrait

My favorite portrait of all time was painted by Velasquez, and lives in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Its subject, Juan de Pareja, was also a painter. I discovered him in the late 70s, when I was living in Manhattan, making a monthly pilgrimage to the Met to escape my coursework.

For years, I had a postcard of this painting on the bookshelves above my desk. One very hot night 20+ years ago, when it was impossible to sleep, I unearthed an old set of watercolors and pulled an all-nighter painting my homage. My only light was a pre-halogen desk lamp with a very yellow glow, so I didn't realize until the morning that I'd been rather heavy-handed with the yellow paint!