Here are the rest of his mates!

Here's the final design for the back of the CD!

And the title as you see it is the actual title!

Honest!

Another apology

For crimes against typography. In the post below. There are some more horrors. And I can't be arsed to do anything about them; I know a hopeless cause when I see one ...

And this one's Morris ...

Two posts in two days - I must be getting bored!

This is just the first stage of an illustration to
'Folk Festival', and will appear on the reverse of the CD of which you have seen the front.

I ought to warn you that this morris dancer is just one of a team, and more will be arriving eventually. I'm not sure this is the CD to entice non-folkies to come to these events:

Folk Festival - everybody sing now - Folk Festival

Young man young man it's so cool to be nerdy

Young man young man get yourself a hurdy gurdy

Folk Festival a wop bopaloop Folk Festival

Young man young man you might lose all control

Young man young man take your own toilet roll

To the Folk Festival

(Donnelly 2006)

Select Bibliography:

Donnelly, K. YMCA/Folk Festival. Pub. Epson Stylus Color 760. 2006

Illustration Friday - Phoenix

This is actually an illustration to a poem by Les Barker. He claims that his house has just burnt down because he bought a homing phoenix!

Anyway, here's the little fella!

And a very merry post-Xmas period to you all ...

I'm pretty sure I had a good Christmas. The bits I can remember through an alcohol-induced haze (i.e. when I was in a fit state to drive) were pretty good. Just when it had got to the stage where I was fed up with waking up with a headache in the morning, I woke up to find I'd lost my voice! Then just felt so godawful that the only thing to do was go back to bed to hibernate for a couple of days, but now I'm recovered enough to be feeling lonely and bored, so I thought I'd share some of my Xmas presents with you:

The French maid's apron and feather duster are a present from my friend Kathie. She was getting her own back for the leopardskin patterned rubber gloves and dustpan and brush I gave her last year, and the do-it-yourself voodoo kit I gave her the year before that. Disappointingly enough, I gave her something relatively sensible this time.

The stockings came from another friend. I think she must have decided that, as someone of my advanced years and newly (ish) single, I must need some help! They may all be right ...

The roof is no longer leaking!

This isn't just because it isn't raining at the moment - though that always did make a difference - but because a bunch of roofy men have been stomping around on it for the last couple of days. They have been sawing and hammering and covering themselves in bitumen (makes a change from custard). It's a pain because I can't really go out and do anything while they're here, but nothing like as much of a pain as having a leaky roof.

I did used to wonder where the rain went, though. Some of it would come down into my studio to say 'hello', but certainly not all of it; I can only hope that it was soaked up by the thick layer of moss and small plants which used to grow on the roof, and that it hasn't collected somewhere else in one of those mysterious little spaces that old houses have, only to cause havoc somewhere else.

The cistern was leaking this morning, but that's much more easily dealt with.

I once mentioned to my next door neighbour that it felt like I lived in a house which was permanently under construction; he reckons that it's one of the pleasures of living in a cottage. Theirs is just the same!

Illustration Friday - HEEE-E-E-ELP!!!!

This is the utterance of the Matrioschka doll who has suddenly appeared in the middle of all this mayhem (but her name isn't Keith Donnelly).

This, believe it or not, is the B/W rough in response to a real live brief ... but I'll leave that to your imagination.

As well as the image, I'm in the process of designing some new typefaces - the one that appears on this is called 'Herbert' (in memoriam - see my post from September 14th), but it still needs a bit of tidying up (quite apart from all the distortion I've done in potatoshop).

I've got ideas for some others. Watch this space.

One year old today!!!

I've only just realised! This is the first anniversary of Puflet Palace!

And, wow, has my life changed in that year ...

Yet another collage based on my masking project - actually, I should really be going out, doing some Christmas shopping an' all that, and I will, really I will, but just for now...

I'm also working on a poster which I intend to show to some visitors from English Heritage who will be visiting the college on Monday - this will be a time for totally shameless self-promotion, extortion and heavy persuasion, I hope.

On a totally different tack, I heard an interesting radio discussion yesterday about how angels, spirits and other heavenly bodies in classical mythology, the Old Testament etc don't usually appear to mere mortals as THEMSELVES, but in the guise of ordinary people, animals etc. Now, I don't follow a creed as such, but I do think that there is a lot of psychological and spiritual truth in the teachings of many religions (or they wouldn't have lasted this long). But haven't you ever wondered about the way that sometimes, exactly the right person will come in to your life? Or a really chance happening or encounter, something quite minimal, acts as a pivotal point which changes your life?

An example for me would be, in the early 1990's, I needed to get a 'proper job' rather than being a freelancer (all to do with mortgages, buying out another person). One day I was waiting at a bus stop when it started to rain, so I went into the library which was close by, picked up the Times Educational Supplement (which wasn't a publication I would have ever thought of looking in for jobs), and found an advert for an art teacher at an independent school. I got the job - they were more interested in the fact that I was a professional artist than the lack of teaching qualification. 13 years in the teaching profession - 12 of those either as Head of Department or acting HOD (that's another story), and I'm about to be back in the freelance world.

But none of that would have happened if I'd got to the bus stop 30 seconds earlier, and not just missed a bus, or if it hadn't started to rain ...

Illustration Friday - Mask

Well - nothing on Illustration Friday for weeks, but at last ...

This collage is based on my thoughts around Venetian masks, and is part of a massive project I did a few years ago. On masks, worldwide masking practices, masks in religious ritual, levels of reality in masking practices ... and lots of artwork in both two and three dimensions.

I don't do as much mixed media work as I would like - all so wonderfully messy - but watch this space!