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‘Disco Solo’

With office party season is nearly upon us it is a good time to remember that you don’t have to take your clothes off to have a good time. But it can save on washing.

The title of this picture comes from a friend of mine. When she found herself with nothing to do on a Saturday night, she would still put on her make up and visit ‘Disco Solo’. This was a euphemism for drinking like a thirsty fish, playing her favourite floor fillers and bopping round the living room, usually naked. She said there were big advantages to Disco Solo over the real thing. The drinks were cheap, the music was absolutely brilliant, it was easy to get home and she never did anything she regretted the next morning.

Speaking of discos… Among other evils like TV, intercontinental missiles and The Sound of Music, we can thank the Nazis for unwittingly creating the discothéque. Live jazz music was not allowed in Vichy France so young Parisians gathered to play records in cellars. After the war, the first official disco opened in Paris in 1953. The legendary Whiskey A Go Go was run by Régina Zylberberg. A Polish Jew who, as a young girl, had spent the war hiding from the Gestapo and brutal nuns. No wonder she had the urge to dance. Régina was the first to spin discs from two linked turntables so there was no gap between songs. Say thank you, Grandmaster Flash.

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Ivy Number Four

Ivy is a popular plant in the festive season. She was also a popular girl with the boys at my mother’s school. My mum never quite explained why. Apparently Ivy owned the only bike in the village or something.

In Shropshire, a piece of ivy (the plant) was fed to animals on Christmas Day to keep the evil spirits away for the coming year. Strange because ivy, especially the leaves, is poisonous to most animals. This either tells you how connected Christmas is with pagan rituals or reminds you to swerve round Ludlow.

Always a keen gardener, my mother also warned me that although it looks good, Common Ivy can be really bad for your house. Once the tendrils get into the fabric, it can really break up a home. I think my mum was talking about the plant there. Though she starting spitting and viciously attacked a bush with some shears while explaining that.

All of which tells us that although ivy might look good, it should be treated with caution. I would ask my dad about it, but he ran off with another woman when I was very young. You’ve probably guessed her name by now. But Holly from the laundrette is a discussion for another day.

The name of this painting is a clever pun if you enjoy Roman numerals. And who doesn’t? The original is for sale on the website if you want something evergreen clinging to your bedroom wall.

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Handsome Chap. This dog is a Pointer. So called, because they stand and point at things. Which would be a useful gift if you were lost in a forest and needed to find the way out.

Don’t try this. These dogs can’t read maps and, rather than use their nose to find magnetic North, they tend to point at small mammals, discarded fast food boxes, trees and other Pointers. You could be in the forest a long time with only squirrel and old bits of KFC to eat. Though at least you might have company with other hapless Pointer owners.

Despite this, owners of Pointers adore them and they insist there are only two types of dogs. Pointers and all others — which are Pointless.

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Lucy, first time model, posing to celebrate a significant birthday. That's me in the foreground drawing her in her living room.

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Grlpower! The sustainable energy solution of the future! Einstein predicted over a century ago that if women achieved critical mass acclaim, a reaction might occur that would unlock incredible forces held within. Scientists finally harnessed the secrets of this unlimited power source during WW2 after the USA created a highly secret research centre in Los Alamos. The Womanhatten Project cracked the secret. Not long after, the Little Girl and Fat Woman bombshells effectively ended the war in the East. Understandably, the world was nervous to start with. In fact, it was only with the release of ‘Whole Again’ in 1998 that the general public started to understand the untransmutable quality of grlpower. Amazingly, it didn’t matter which women were in the band, it was always Atomic Kitten. There are currently eight new grlpower stations being built in the UK, and the government has given the go ahead for the biggest and best. This will be the appropriately-named Sizewell double G plant in Suffolk. The beautiful woman in my drawing was a first timer who realised at the prime age of sixty she was ready to pose. She was unsure if this was because she was finally confident enough with her body or just no longer cared what anyone thought. Either way, I’m so glad she did. She is amazing. And stuffed to the gills with grlpower. (More of her on the website in my commissions section).

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Original drawing created with a live model using ink from a nozzle on paper. Animation added with Adobe After Effects.

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VOODOO

Soluble pencil and wash on paper.

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POPPY FLOPPY HAT

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FIGHTING BACK

Deborah was a first time model and an NHS nurse in the UK.

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Male Problems.

It doesn’t matter how incredibly rich and successful you are (trust me), getting dressed is still a pain in the arse. It signifies that nasty transition from ‘I was in the best place in the world’ (bed or a bath) to ‘I’ve got to actually get on a do stuff’. To make it harder, clothes are designed by nature to fight back. This is evolution at work. What Darwin called the survival of the fit least. The clothes that resist the most, usually by getting smaller each month, are the ones that live on at the back of the wardrobe. Left unchecked, they go on to breed that offspring collection of weird socks, pants and tee shirts you don't remember buying. And, seriously, do we really need pullovers, jumpers AND sweaters? It is costing me a fortune buying one of each. I’m starting to think they are same thing. Demonstrating the eternal struggle of man is @ssantos_model . When you look as good naked as he does, its a crime to cover any of it up. So he sensibly found a job where he didn’t have to wear clothes to work. The original painting is available if you are interested, just DM.

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Milton Cheer up, buddy! I’m not sure why anyone would breed a dog to look as glum as possible, but that seems to be the idea with Basset Hounds. Either that or the chef just took it out of the oven too quick and it sort of drooped. Or maybe they misread the ingredients for a Gun Dog and made a Glum Dog by mistake. The breed probably should have been called a ‘Helpmeimmelting Hound’. Anyway, however self obsessed and ungrateful I become on occasion, (which is plenty) looking at one of these mutts always cheers me up. I may be having a bad moment, but I’m not THAT miserable. And I’m kinda jealous of the ears, they look really cosy. This particular sack of joy, Milton is available on a greeting card through the website along with other more jolly dogs.

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Peace Pagoda

World peace is a slippery monkey to catch, isn’t it? Perhaps the best way to stop people fighting each other is to threaten to kill them all. Parents use this approach with quarreling kids in the back of the car. Indeed, the global pandemic which, for a short while, threatened to wipe everyone off the planet did reduce international conflict in many regions. But apparently this was offset by the number of people in lockdown that murderised each other. Net result, zero. The Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park, London was erected in 1985 by followers of the Nipponzan Myohoji sect. Not by Queen Victoria, as some people wrongly believe, who was still busy on the Lloyd’s Building. Hidden inside the structure is a giant robot called Gort. Legend has it that when the right time comes, Gort will step out and destroy us all unless we stop arguing and help old ladies across the road. In the meantime, it is a lovely place to visit on your bicycle.

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Best Bridge

London is my favourite city in the world. I’m biased. I’ve lived here most of my life, but I’ve been lucky enough to visit and live for a while in quite a few other places and some are good, but lack that tang of fear and beauty. Don’t get me wrong, there are still great places I’d love to visit - King’s Landing, Coruscant, Camelot, Cardiff - but those are all hard to get to and would probably result in death if you did manage it. The Thames is the life blood of London, which was built around the river over 2,000 years ago to worship the water and add regular and huge amounts of poo into it. A tradition that continues today. Straddling the river are a series of mainly ugly bridges, but there is one beauty. Albert Bridge. Construction was started by Queen Victoria’s husband, as the name suggests. He was fascinated by rivets and riveted by professionals. But the bridge wasn’t finished until many years after his death. In honour of its patron, Prince Albert’s famous and original ring is welded to the top of the south eastern tower. There are 4,000 bulbs that light up the bridge at night and Victoria, who trained as a steeplejack originally, used to personally maintain them all. Right up to the turn of the century. Nowadays they are LEDs (Lovely Electrical Doo-dahs) and the current Queen hardly ever has to change them. I painted this view of the Best Bridge from Battersea Park in the summer, but that’s another story. The original is still for sale, enquiries within. #albertbridge #princealbert #ringforservice #dialnfornonsense #thames #London #ankh-morpork #westeros #starwars #arthurianlegends #ministryoftruth #inkdrawinglondon #bridgesoflondon #bridgesofmaddisoncounty #bridgesofjeffandbeau

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Here’s a big blue boat with a bloke on the beach, some birds and a bunch of billowing clouds bibbling about in the background above the bay. Do you know who Beth was? She was the original name for the letter B when it was part of the Phoenician alphabet more than 3000 years ago. She looked different (it was before the nose job) but made the same sound and was second in their alphabet too. So next time your brain is being boiled and you find yourself babbling bollocks, you can blame bad-ass Beth.

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Working Flat Out. Compressed charcoal and watercolour on paper. First time model who very much enjoyed the experience and came back to try it again.

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Liquid Woman - dripped ink on paper. Drawn from life and created by using the ink straight from the nozzle on the bottle. Fun to do but takes ages to dry!