Okay, so following on from my last account of how I may have passed the time over the last few months, the perceptive grumpybloke saw straight through the fiction and hinted that I had actually been engaged in doing bugger all. Pretty damn close to the truth my good man, but not entirely accurate.

I have, in fact, spent a good few hours hunched over a small scarred wooden table in my newly constructed studio at the bottom of the garden, pen in hand dripping Indian Ink, lamp burning, music playing, while I produced six illustrations for a band called Fields. Available on CD in your local HMV or similar sometime soon.

Now it’s been a while since I plied this particular trade. In the past, dating way back to my days at Decca Records before The Beatles broke up, when Brian Jones was still in The Stones and The Who were yet to release Tommy, I have earned a good deal of my living drawing and painting. In more recent times this activity has been pushed aside somewhat by matters of a more executive and overseeing nature, but, with my impending succession from the tyranny of a day job – a colleagues description, not mine – I am in the market once more. Therefore I was very happy to accept this commission; coming as it did from a designer I know who recently left regular employment to set up on his own.

Each drawing, measuring 210mm square, not counting preliminary sketches, took in excess of ten hours to complete with only short breaks interrupting the sound of scratchy pen on board. Frankly, I had forgotten how intense this process could be. Each time I glanced up at the clock, some phantom finger had moved the little hand on an hour and an almighty power had nudged the sun closer to the west. It’s a sensation similar to meditation where one's focus is directed onto one shrinking spot, blocking out much of the surrounding world, where its all-to-easy to literally become lost in the subject. So much so, that after several hours of separation from the finished drawing it can come as a mild shock to return and see what has been achieved.

Now this review can work two ways. It can be a pleasant surprise or a disappointment. It is easy to overwork a piece, so that it loses life, becoming dull and leaden. This is especially true of line drawings. Happily this only happened once during the production of these images, but despite the long hours spent there was no alternative other than to start again. In a set, if one isn’t working, making do just isn’t an option, if, that is, there’s time left to put it right. Luckily, this time there was.

Once complete, having been received with enthusiastic approval by all interested parties,
five illustrations have been incorporated into the CD booklet while the other is to feature on a 7” single release. So begins a revival in my contribution to arts and crafts. And long may it continue.