Errantry

This is the latest installment in the Dalek Game and is for Georgette Heyer’s magnificently improbable The Reluctant Widow.

In an attempt at self-diagnosis, I have on occasion tried to branch out from Heyer into other “Regency Romances” and I – just can’t. I almost did myself an injury on one occasion, hitting my head against the window while reading a Cartland on the train: the cover was fabulous (I’m pretty sure I kept it for that reason), but there was a paragraph break at. the. end. of. every. sentence. (This isn’t a criticism of romance novels generally, it’s just that I don’t read for romance and few of the novels had what I liked about Heyer). So I’ve worked out that it is neither the romance nor the regency that I like about Heyer. And in Heyer, it isn’t about either romance (although it’s always there) or regency (despite the detail). It’s about wildly improbable adventures that gather momentum and inevitability, thrillingly unlikely insupportable situations, pistols at dawn, carriage races, kidnappings, assumed identities, French spies, murder, awful people, vain people, charming people, *human* people, and Fun. In many of the romances I’ve read, the action is a mechanism to serve the romance – in Heyer, it’s the other way round.

I regard Heyer’s regency novels as one side of the coin that has C. S. Forester’s Hornblower novels on the other – there are strong similarities between the two. But she shares with Lois McMaster Bujold the thundering inevitability of the situations characters get themselves into, and with Diana Wynne Jones the marvelously all-in chaotic denouements.

All of which fits rather well with Doctor Who, and means this wasn’t a complete digression.

Pen and ink (and a scan of an old page). This was a warm-up sketch for a night of work on another project, which should go live soon (I am surprised to have become a person who says things like that). After drawing this, I realised that it was the 25th anniversary of Labyrinth and I should have done a Labyrinth / Midsummer Night’s Dream mash-up. Or very warmly dressed Shakespearean fairies, since it’s midwinter here.

This is for Paul de Kruif’s Life Among the Doctors.

When I was young, after I had an altercation with my father over whether we should go for a 75th reading of Little Red Riding Hood, my family started reading out loud after dinner (morning tea, lunch…). We did this every night until I left for boarding school in year 11. One of the memorably unexpected books was Paul de Kruif’s The Microbe Hunters. I ought to read it again – all I remember was that it was fascinating. So when I saw Life Among the Doctors at the Lifeline Booksale, I brought it home and – oh, it’s wonderful. It is largely a history of the often maverick trailblazers of public health in America in the first half of the 20th century, and it’s sad and astonishing and hilarious. If you can track down a copy, it will be worth it.

This is the fifteenth installment in the Dalek Game.

This is the fourteenth installment in the Dalek Game and is for Alison Weir’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII, which has been on my bookcase for a very long time, and which I keep overlooking in favour of histories of early Australian aviation, but is meant to be very good.

Also, if you want to remember the order of the fates of Henry’s wives, it’s “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”, but I can never recall the order of their names.

It’s because of Flanders & Swann that I remember Greenfleeves (funny name for a fong) is attributed to Henry (“We are Henry the Eighth, we are”).

Sepia pen, ink and wash, with flat colour added on the computer. Thanks to my mother and older sister for striking poses on the weekend, when I was working out what to draw, and these are not portraits by any means! I have also been asked to delete the photographs…

In other news, our group comic anthology on the theme of depression, Kinds of Blue, is fully funded and will be printed before very long! If you would like to order a copy in advance (and we’d love it if you did!), you can do so (and see more information and the whole anthology) from here: http://www.pozible.com.au/index.php/archive/index/1092/description/0/0

This one is for (now Dame!) Lynley Dodd’s picture book, My Cat Likes To Hide In Boxes. Lynley Dodd is best known for her Hairy Maclary books, but My Cat… was her first, and is just wonderful, and very true. “The cat from Norway got stuck in the doorway, but my cat likes to hide in boxes”. Everyone knows Norwegian cats are very wide. This is the thirteenth instalment in the Dalek Game.

In other news, when I posted Wednesday’s Dalek I mentioned our Pozible campaign to print and launch our comics anthology, Kinds of Blue. Three days later, we are more than 100% funded! Thank you everyone! You can still (and please do!) use the Pozible page to pre-order a copy, and you can read the whole anthology here at hivemindedness.com/kindsofblue. I did the artwork for “Knitting Therapy” and “Nihilo“.

Pen and ink fairytale illustration with colour and texture added digitally. Influenced by a book of vintage illustrations and my teacups. This does not happen when I sweep. But I would sweep more often if it did, or if I had that overdress. My birthday is in May so there is plenty of time if someone wants to make me one.

In other news: Some friends have made a book of comics! It is an anthology called Kinds of Blue, and it is on the theme of depression, and I did the art for two. We are looking for help to launch and print it – you can find out more information and see the comics from here: Kinds of Blue

Edited to add: Oh, and look-look-look! I completely missed the publication announcement, but I did this cover for Geoffrey Ryman’s The Child Garden (from the marvellous Small Beer Press).

This is the twelfth installment in the Dalek Game and is for Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog) – and also obliquely for Connie Willis’ brilliant science-fiction cross-over with it, To Say Nothing of the Dog. The original book put me off camping, boating and swans.

Announcement: This is a tiny pen and ink drawing, but you can commission an A4 picture on any subject if you support this Pozible campaign for $100 and it gets off the ground: Help us print and launch Kinds of Blue – and that is very cheap for an A4 drawing! Kinds of Blue is a comics anthology by 14 young Australian artists and writers and I did the art for two of the comics.

This is the eleventh installment in the Dalek Game and is for J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Wendy.

My sister had a Peter Pan party when she was 7 and we were living in Brisbane. There were little pirates and Tinkerbells all over the place, and I *think* that was when we played “pin the hair on the mermaid”. I don’t remember what the pinata was of, but my mother always made the papier mache so thick that you had to break the string and tear the pinata apart on the ground with your bare hands. I had to go as Peter Pan, but at least I got a sword and a green tunic out of the deal.

My father made the sword out of aluminium strips with rounded edges, a rivet and packing tape, and both sword and tunic came in handy for later games of Robin Hood in the tunnels of yellow jasmine, lantana, mango and loquat behind the house. Since the best part of Robin Hood was when Marion showed up dressed as a pageboy and Robin didn’t recognise her, there was no stigma attached to wearing any particular clothes in that game, although obviously Lincoln green was preferred. We made the bows and arrows out of papyrus stems, twigs and palm bark.

The only Peter Pan game we played was one which involved putting on the Disney soundtrack, dancing around the living room singing “we can fly” and throwing handfuls of glitter into the air, to watch it spiral beautifully down to lodge eternally in the maroon shag-pile carpet.

My father still can’t stand glitter.

“The long red-carpeted hall was full of shadows from the one lonely light burning in the middle of the ceiling. Their long coiling shapes looked like dragons. Janet did not mention this to Molly.” – Tam Lin, Pamela Dean

A very little (much smaller than shown here) pen and ink sketch I did last night, while working out the style for another piece. Digital colour.

In other news: it is abruptly cold and I may wear gloves to bed; I have an exam in the morning which just shows bad management and MUST NOT HAPPEN AGAIN; I got an email earlier this week which was a wish I made (aloud on this blog a few years ago) come true; my voice is back; I have a few excellent illustration projects in various stages of completion and shall unveil them in due course; ASIM #51 is out and I have my copies – I have put up a post on doing the cover art and will do another on the interior illustration process soon; and the Dalek game continues.