Rambunctious

I deserve to be shot at with stinky fish by this cat after a month of missing in action on my blog here! Shocking stuff. This is Rambo, a friend of mine's maincoon that was killed by the family daschunds, so I rustled up this caricature for him in memory of his faithful companion over 13 years.

Dips and Devastation

Here’s a little take on Christians and depression I felt led to type up today. Contrary to popular teachings (probably from the same evangelists who punt the health, wealth and prosperity doctrine that God takes no responsibility for), the oxymoron “depressed Christian” is very much a reality. Elijah could fill you in on that one. We just want to find a juniper tree and die beneath it, really.

The thing with depression is that it’s not just feeling miserable and “snapping” out of it, as the perky personality types would suggest. The overall consensus in the mind of the melancholic is that there’s no escaping here. Nothing heralds joy. Your cogs and machinery slide to a weighty halt. And stop there for days at a time sometimes.

What are the triggers? Too much stress, for starters. Those are my perils right now. An uncomfortable living arrangement, feeling financially not only hopeless but trapped here for life (both in this house and with a pile of debt collection papers) and two ways to keep my mind occupied pragmatically. I can work. Or I can sleep. Neither really works that effectively and when I’m unable to do either, I’m lost and restless and start to panic.

The obvious is spending time with God. In His Word. Seeking His heart and mind on my matters. Praying constantly. Any suicidal depressant knows this is virtually impossible on any given day of zero coping mechanism. Thankfully, I can leave it to God and ask for the grace to plod through it. Still, the emotional strain is easier levelled with a Xanor some days. I’ll admit to that. That edge that rips at your headspace like a razor blade is so much nicer when a chemical turns it to cotton wool. That ought to stir up the fundamentalists who have no empathy for the darkened, serotonin craving mind, but unless you’ve been there, the depressant will always be distanced as the leper.

I should point out the difference between the manic and the suicidal. The manic leans towards extremes and is alternatively referred to as bipolar. I know several. I’d rather be in the suicidal division, actually. You know what to expect and you know what to avoid. And it’s pretty much one route...down. What you have to do is focus on making your way back up. At the very least to a functioning level.

What are the remedies? Doctors recommend less stress. In an ideal world, we would have tapped into that one years back. It’s not an option. But we can assess the load we can carry. And learn to say no. We can prioritise the important versus the allegedly urgent. We can’t afford to speculate on the big picture some days. Minutes at a time are much easier.

With regards to the depressed Christian, God gets it. Staying there for too long is not His ideal, but He gets it. He feeds us through it and tells us to rest up. It’s all good. And another contradiction in terms of the fundamentalists who believe science is evil is that medicine is good. Abusing it won’t resolve anything, but thank God He created science. I wouldn’t be a living diabetic if it weren’t for insulin and I wouldn’t be a reasonably functioning melancholic if it weren’t for anti-depressants.

Politics Den

Busy with my first political toon for a kids' history book. Big, bad Britain oppressing little Swaziland here. Haven't finished SZ chick yet since I'm still to find out whether I can use the abbreviation on the chick. I mean, Swaziland is a big word to fit on one small chick here!

Skater Boithdays

Birthday presents and cards all into one for skaterboys special day. Just a quick 20 min toon to keep the fingers flowing and the style loose. And yes, he loved it!

IF - Mango Island

You just can't take me anywhere, really. I totally missed today's Illustration Friday theme, which was "island". But I guess I can still slap it up on my blog, and I have been a slacker lately with the ol' blog entries, huh? Been so busy with book illies - just finished a grade 6 English book and start two Swaziland readers next week, due in full colour by month end. Eek!
This little island scene was a book cover for Heinemann Publishers for a story about a cat and a rat that lived on an island and just ate mangoes to survive. Would do any girl a world of good to drop weight, but so unthinkably not healthy after all!

Sunglassed, Spiked and Smilin'

Hauled out this old woman's magazine filler. I've always found cacti are just screaming to be cartooned.

The Butcher, the Baker, the Handyguy...

Hauled out this recent bit of storyboarding and character design for an advertising agency. They loved him, so my work here is done, I guess...

Meshuga Month-End

“If there’s an end of the month in heaven, I’m not going.”

I quote these words from a friend of mine who is also a freelance artist. What brought them to mind was the fact that it’s the first of another month tomorrow and I don’t have the bleedin’ rent again on time. Debt dates and remuneration dates are like the north and south poles on a magnet when it comes to bringing them together. Weird physics or something. Fortunately, I have a merciful landlord who’s been phenomenally patient with me, but I can recall some pretty dark months with moist forehead and clammy palms where not even a Xanor could reel my brain in from unhealthy preoccupations and way too much analysis.

Who invented the end of the month, anyway? Probably the same soul who thought up the credit card. Either way, you’re screwed. People get a little crazy month-end, have you noticed? They’re either a pent up elastic band that let’s it all go before the sting happens, except it hits you, not someone else. Or, like me, it’s a reminder that you now owe twice as much as last month at this time. Klaps like a curve ball that caught you off guard. With interest.
Years ago a little switch used to go off in my head about a week before the last day of the month. Housemates kept their distance from my room. Wrestling a Rottweiler appealed more to them. Until I paid my rent, that little switch sent unnerving impulses to my brain that wouldn’t let me relax. Since I moved to Joburg, that same switch never used to turn off at all. Ever. Lately, it’s not even on. It’s more like a faint sms in the room called my head. It beeped, but I don’t have to reply to it just yet.

Month-end has a lot to answer for, really. It’s probably responsible for incalculable consumption of anti-anxiety pills and alcohol globally, the burned out overworked who can’t keep up, and gallons of bad blood between the desperate who borrowed money and the “rulers” who lent it to them (personally, I’ve never believed in lending money to people – if I have it, I’ll give it to them; if I don’t, I simply can’t – I know the pain of owing people money and the Bible will back me up on this one). Granted, there are people who are just hopeless with cash control, but whoever you are, the end of the month bites big time.

Sadly, it’s not going to go away. It’s here to haunt you like the breath you have the day after you packed back a pizza with more crushed garlic than a snow capped hill in a blizzard. Sigh...so back to work we go. Have a nice Monday, everyone. With the added bonus of it being the first of the month on the same day.

Get Fresh at the Weekend

When Mel & Kim sang this back in the 80’s and I was a teenager, I remember associating it with partying. Or maybe meeting someone you got all goosepimply with at some house party. But now, at age 35, it feels more like an anthem I should sing weekly. Somehow, years ago I didn’t mind working weekends. Lately, I really get testy when I have to illustrate or design while everyone else seems to be having breakfast or lunch with friends at the resident pavement cafe. It’s a funny thing. When I’m working at my desk, I frequently fantasize about cuddling up to my pillows and reading a book. That’s what weekends are for, right? To get fresh again. I doubt Mel & Kim meant it like that, but I’m going with that theory on my part.

Another thing while I’m on the topic of getting fresh in general is that it feels like I haven’t washed my hair since the turn of the century. That’s because I’m on deadline a lot lately and I’m one of those weird girls who can’t wash her hair without blow drying it properly. You know, lifting the roots and curling the tips and finger brushing with a dash of hair wax. Rather time consuming. Possibly the underlying gist of the old excuse, “I can’t make it tonight – I have to wash my hair.”

I’m a nocturnal by nature. My creative juices and the ability to transmit them onto paper don’t happen before lunchtime. I work anything from a 12 to 16 hour day on everything from my administration to cartooning. During the week, I’ll pack in nights so late that I’m listening to the mid-afternoon show via streaming audio on a radio station in Chicago. But come the weekend, I’ve become like the masses I opposed so vehemently only 6 years ago. Pah, I thought, there’s work to be done! Er, actually...there's quality time out to be had. Tis the sabbath.

Then I moved up to Johannesburg and spent my first year not knowing anyone, living in someone’s backyard and crying my heart out on Saturday mornings when I’d come home alone from the mall and seen families and friends having breakfast and coffee, groups of friends walking together and laughing or couples standing looking into shop windows.

Don’t take time out to relax for granted. I put in a couple of extra hours tonight because, come rain or shine, tomorrow morning, Sunday, I’m meeting friends for breakfast. And then I’ll come home and get through the deadline I’m on. I can spare the time...

Community Cloggers

Housemates are a funny thing. Iron still sharpens iron. God loves community even though we might want to smack other tenants upside their ear. And one of the ways we grow is when our community ticks us off. This observation occurred to me again today as I went to my fridge this morning and found someone had broken the seal on my mango juice and had some. There were several ways I could either respond or react to this.

1. Lock my fridge (I have the key in my desk drawer, I’m just really loathe to take that step).
2. Stick a sarcastic note on my fridge door for said party to read when they get thirsty again.
3. Kindly ask said party if they had some of my mango juice and request that they ask my permission to drink my juice in the future.

I took step number three. It’s the one which is a response and not a reaction. Because it’s done in love, not with vengeance or sardonically. Although I thought the note was fairly worded and went as follows:
“Before you help yourself to anything in my fridge, unless I have offered or you have asked, it’s a boundary crossed that shouldn’t be assumed. I have a weekly budget – please be considerate.”

I thought this was grammatically awfully diplomatic, but the gentle confrontation was still God’s top seller. I had to whip the note back off the fridge door and buy the book in the end. And the mango juice drinker seemed all good with it. Nothing worse than a vibe with the person sleeping on the other side of your bedroom wall, is there?

I’ve always said about the comparison between living with others and living alone (my all time preference because it just cuts out taking on other people’s people, thefts, others walking into the bathroom when you’re naked and soaking in a hot bubbly one, people moving your things around or using the last of your sugar and you get to walk around in the nud) that when I live alone I can leave a great big chocolate cake in the middle of the lounge floor for three days and still find it there after a week if I want to. But that’s a bit of a lost dream in my life right now, so I best learn to get along with my housemates.

Anyone notice how the TV remote becomes a power tool that no one wants to relinquish? There are four main characters in our little 13th street drama in Parkhurst – the landlord, who spends a great deal of time watching CNN, Sky and news and weather on any channel he can find it, our other housemate who watches mostly doccies and the odd movie, the kid who plays High School Musical and cartoon channel full throttle for a solid afternoon’s viewing and myself, who’s kind’ve hooked on Crime Investigation channel, and upwards to Animal Planet, with the odd Zone Reality thrown in.
And the television pecking order happens as follows:
1. Landlord. He owns the house so he gets to watch what he wants for as long as he wants to. That includes The Olympics, cricket matches until you can cry and rugby games in length that make the lounge almost ooze testosterone. But he’s the landlord and a rather considerate one most times when you can convince him to switch a channel.
2. The other housemate. He doesn’t come out much but once he’s picked a National Geographic episode or History channel special he favours, you best enjoy it, too. Fortunately, I do.
3. The kid. More High School Musical than you can stomach in less than a day. And The Suite Life of Cody and Zack with the hyped all-around overacting and dramatisation that kids seem to love is ever popular with this girl.
4. Myself and the hardcore stuff that no one tends to hang around long enough to sit through. Such as Crime Investigation – mostly too disturbing. Animal Planet’s rescue doccies can make a grown man cry, so everyone avoids the lounge when I’m watching bedraggled poodles get their first bath since months of neglect. Those ones touch my heart and I’m also designing a vet’s logo, so it’s indispensable reference for me. And there are those nights when I just want to be left alone to veg off and won’t budge off the Style Network. Yup, homosexuals plutzing over a beautifully dressed nest does me just fine for a light watch some nights. And no one else wants to see that. I’m just bingeing visually on creativity.
But more adventures of the house on 13th in the days to come. It’s a full house. That can only mean the chances of a dull day being about as possible as the neighbours’ cat not drooling onto the ivy as he watches (through his eyes) delicious, fat, not very fast or bright pigeons on my feeder from a distance.

Religion, politics and the "intellectuals" who waffle on about them

Admittedly, I’m writing this article because I’m procrastinating some design work I should have started roughly 10 hours ago.

The catalyst for this typed up waffling session of my own here was a conversation over the weekend with two friends of mine. Suffice it to say that a dinner conversation involving either religion or politics is going to set off some fireworks and nobody is ever right. Except God, of course, but so few seem to listen to Him these days, huh? Personally, I’m always up for a healthy debate as long as it doesn’t get vicious. My frustration is lack of knowledge or the irritation of a belated reciprocation, usually just as you’re climbing into bed and your debate mates have long gone home.

What fascinated me with Saturday night’s dinner discussion was how people just refuse to see God in things. He’s all around us. When I watch red crested barbets feeding on fruit in my garden, I can’t believe there’s a movement out there that thinks evolution exists. What? Lightening struck a mud puddle millennia ago and over the years, design just co-ordinated itself? Those colours just came together quite by chance? Chance, as it turns out, doesn’t exist.

My friends and I launched into territory called “women running churches”. Personally, I disagree with this rather contemporary concept in the church and know that a lot of churches have bought into feminism in a rather disturbing way. The Bible is unequivocal about women in church leadership, but my friend has her feminist agenda all worked out. Here’s one for the feminists from me, a woman:

I don’t even think women should run companies, let alone be president. They just weren’t designed to handle that kind of stress and leading men is not God’s design for women. Which is one of the key reasons they shouldn’t be pastors, either. And when they do become pastors, it dilutes the gospel and waters down the Word of God, which states they shouldn’t. God created Adam first to watch over Eve, not the other way around. It’s all there in black and white, yet somehow people just flit by it or reinvent it according to their agenda. Christians who rally for this amplify hypocrisy, a label those in the Christian community who mean business with Christ constantly battle to negate.

God isn’t trying to tell women that they’re lesser beings than men. They just have a different purpose. Ladies, could we stick to God’s plan here, please? And you feminists that are demanding to be treated as “equals” are messing it up for the rest of us girls who love being treated like women by chivalrous men. And they do exist. We like being protected. We like the door being opened for us. I’ve noticed that chivalry is edging its way sheepishly out of society’s back door. Why? Because men are afraid of women freaking out if they offer to even help them carry their groceries, never mind change a car tyre. We're being pressured as women by this reaction to "become men".
Feminism is rooted in bitterness. That I can empathise with. I’ve made a lot of mistakes based on bitterness. I don’t buy into feminism, though. I never have. What rattles me even more is a man who has bought into it and expects me to as well.

I’m also astounded at how people interpret the Bible. For instance, my friend stated that the reason someone she knows is a vegetarian is because the Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill”. Eh? I was vegetarian for 8 years and never did that even occur to me. When I recommitted to Christ in 2000, I was convinced I’d be a vegetarian Christian. Not for long. And how would that “thou shalt not kill” rule apply in terms of vegetarianism versus sacrifices God expected in the Old Testament for sin?

I reckon if you’re going to come all guns blazing into a debate, could you at least read the material we’re discussing? Not fragments. And don’t quote the televangelists, either, because they’re mostly worse than the people who don’t know what they’re talking about. I haven’t read the entire Bible myself, so there are some areas I’ll plead ignorance. Then I’ll take it up with a friend of mine who is a Christian apologist, listen to teachings on it by wise men of God, find out what it’s about and hopefully be the wiser for it.

We know that some intellectuals are just all wind, really. I think Richard Dawkins has way too much time on his hands to come up with his outlandish theories. But he’s convinced himself and a whole following that God does not exist. Smart bloke, but not terribly wise.
I heard the term “atheist whore” on Saturday night when my one friend called our other friend that (sometimes debates get really entertaining when you just leave two people to take one another out when they were originally in cohorts against you). I guess some atheists are all about the “God doesn’t exist” agenda until they feel like God botched something up and then they’re all over Him in disgust like watery salad dressing.

Nevertheless, the novelty of a good debate will never wear off with me. You’ve got to be prepped, though! I’m no theologian, sadly.

Family Hit by Wave

One of the illies for the book I just finished illustrating...at 5am last Wednesday morning. Creak. Groan. Yawn. But I made deadline!

Mouse Trap

One of the last illies for the book - just have to start colour roughly this year sometime. Bit of a mouse situation in this boy's bedroom...I never know what's going on in these stories since they're written in a different language - I just get the brief and hope for the best. I picked up a smidge of panic with a dash of helplessness here, so let's let that puppy rip and rock on!

Mystery Science Theatre

Does anyone remember good ol' Mystery Science Theatre back on the Sci-Fi channel (before DSTV made a really bad call removing that gem)? Mike and his bots Gypsy, Tom Servo and Crow, trapped on the spaceship with nemesis Pearl and her whacky cohorts sending really bad movies through that they're forced to watch, and then there was the mad professor and his sidekick. Humour that was just soooooo way outta the box it had to be on the Sci-Fi channel. Someday when I can afford to splash out around R500, I'm gonna buy me the box set of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Those voice-overs that Mike and the bots used to do on old black and white movies and ninja films used to have me laughing so much I'd be wiping the tears off my cheeks. It's made my week having discovered them on You Tube. I confess, I confess...I've capped my gigs already, what with downloading clips of MST3K every night. Must build up collection, yerrrrrs, must build itmmmbwahahahahaha! And put on DVD, yeeeeerrrrs.

Pardon my momentary questionable rationale there...all that spaceship humour has triggered off my own cabin fever. Tick, tick, shiver.

Couch Catharsis

And so the book illustrations continue. Here's the main character feeling rather despondent on the couch while her puppy listens attentively. I start colour today. Well, heck...I oughtta! This puppy is due on Monday! And you know which puppy I'm talking about!

Good Ol' Family!

Designed an 8 year old girl character for a grade 3 storybook I'm illustrating. She gets all the girlie accessories from fluffy slippers to hearts on her duvet. There's the family puppy, too - cute and brown and endearing. Mom and Dad are warm and caring and there are two older brothers as well. Nice set of dynamics there. I look forward to colouring these but have the remaining pencils to finish. Including the...dreaded...family...on...the...ferry sketch. Aaaaargh. The detail. Finicky, finicky, finicky. Shortcuts will just look awful. Being the perfectionist that I am (selectively, anyway), I'm just gonna have to see this puppy to the end. Details an' all.

Tattoos - The Timelessness and The Terror

We’re turning down a different passage in my memory archives cottage today. Yeah, I said cottage.
It’s a childhood thing. Think Beatrix Potter. And here’s the story (not very Beatrix...erm, ahem):

I used to design tattoos many moons back. I also have them. Hence the term “timelessness” in my title. People often ask me if I regret them (some really offbeat ones actually touch them at the supermarket). I don’t regret my chops. I didn’t even think that much about what I wanted in terms of design on my body – I have a friend who is a brilliant tattooist and he spent four hours on each one, and when I shuffle off this planet I’m sorry I can’t take them with me. What did my mother say when I got my first one? “Well, at least I’ll be able to identify your body with that tattoo on your arm...”

The terror, you ask? Mully, my friend the tattooist, had just opened up shop two doors up the drag on the street where I managed his sister’s grunge and antiques outlet. The problem with that was that the tattoo “mafia” demanded a percentage of the profit from anyone who opened a tattoo parlour on the mafia’s turf. Mully had been fighting Lucky’s guys off for years and kept clashing with them and ending up in hospital with serious injuries, much to the dismay of his family and friends, as well as loyal clients who wouldn’t go to Lucky’s little chop shop. And the mafia “big boy”? Kevin, based on Rocky Street in Yeoville, Johannesburg. I’d heard legends about this guy, one of which was the tattoo of a tear he had on one facial cheek. Well, boo hoo. He called the shots. And some of those shots happened back in Durban. And I’m not talking figuratively, either.

You get the picture. Not a gherkin to be pickled with, this Kevin.

One morning I arrived at the shop, hung-over and grumpy as usual. I opened up and plopped our wares on the pavement outside, hardly noticing the menagerie of motorcycles parked across the street. In my thirties, I like to call it “selective observation” because for an artist, there’s a lot I don’t notice. It must have been around 10:15am when a skinny mullet head with a denim jacket (in retrospect that was a badge of some sort on the back) walked into my shop and asked where Mully was. I rolled my eyes and said he was probably late again, but that he should be there shortly. He shrugged and said thanks and left. This was nothing unusual since Mully was nearly always late for appointments, if he pitched at all, so his clients generally came to his sister’s shop for explanations.

This particular day I was designing a sheet of tattoos for him (tattooists call it a “flash”). I sat sketching up dragons and flying snakes when the mullet walked back in. He stood beside my desk and asked if he could use the shop phone.
“Ja okay, as long as it’s not long-distance.” He said okay and stepped behind me and picked up the phone. While he waited for someone to answer, he leaned over my shoulder and commented, “Nice flash.” I perked up and thanked him. “Yeah, I’m designing it for Mully – those bladdie Hell’s Angels keep stealing his flash every time they beat him up.” I clucked my disapproval and shook my head.

Suddenly he responded to someone on the line. “Howzit, Kevin. We got Mully. What do you want us to do with him?” Now, I’ve had two of what’s referred to as bowel movements ever in my lifetime thus far. One of them occurred here. Just the movement, mind you. Let’s not upset the sensitive readers here. The other is another story, which you’ll read about sometime soon. I know I swallowed really hard and broke out in a small sweat. Bear in mind, it’s no picnic keeping the drawing flow going when a Hell’s Angel is standing behind you on the phone to the “main honcho kanonee” up in Joburg who decides your friend’s fate any second. But continue to cross-hatch those dragon scales I did. The mullet paused and then said, “Ja, okay...uh huh...okay. Cheers”, promptly put the phone down and sauntered out of the shop, thanking me for letting him use my phone.

“Hey! That wasn’t a local call, buddy!”

Must’ve been the shock. All I know is I lit up a cigger and made calls. Mully’s sister, his mom, friends....anyone who could get there immediately and help him. I shimmied my way along one wall of the shop and snuck a peak out of the window, where my goggling eyes took in a nightmare scene.
The Hell’s Angels were all standing around and I couldn’t see Mully anywhere. I did see the leader of the pack, however - a massively fat being who was so large he couldn’t fit into jeans and bulged instead out of track suit pants. His thighs were so plump that he had to lean one foot on the ground at a time as he squelched his monstrous buttocks on his Harley. I learned later that his name was Tiny.

By the time Mully’s sister screeched to a halt outside the shop, the gang had already shipped him off in the back of a scrap heap of a car to Lucky’s chop shop.
The tension. The tears. The terror.

It’s years later now, of course, and I can happily report that Mully got away with no injuries on that occasion. I heard a couple of years ago that Kevin was stripped of his title of president of that particular chapter of Hell’s Angels and the rule was that he had to have a big black line tattooed through all of his chops. Can’t imagine what they did with that tear.

I’m currently compiling a book of stories like these, so would heartily appreciate feedback from you lot out there. Throw in a comment, by all means, please!

Part 2, Part 2....is that really you?

DRIVE-BY SHOOTINGS
And thus the kook whack went off the rails completely. He phoned the Narcotics Squad to come to the house to search it for drugs when he knew he’d left bottlenecks and dope all over the place. He sent a message to me via a mutual acquaintance that he was going to drive past and shoot me at the shop where I worked. And he threatened to come back and break in and destroy everything in the house from the microwave to the carpets. My housemates and I spent my birthday locked in my bedroom with all of our belongings stacked to the ceilings and my puzzled cat to keep us company.

Say no to drugs, kids.

Oddly enough, I bumped into this individual at a Johannesburg flea market a few years later. Joburg is not as large as it seems when you’re hoping to have left the whackwallies back in Durban. But alas, there he stood, chatting to me as though ne’er a drive-by shooting threat had been issued back in ‘97. And he asked me for my phone number so we could keep in touch...

This brings me to observations about people. Aren’t they an interesting lot? We all have our little quirks, some of them amplified vastly with chemical induction. The good Lord knows I have some idiosyncrasies that can throttle my friends around several badly shaped bends.
You trust people who move in and take the north-facing room and fling down a few silk kikoi’s over the furniture before you’re told they’re from Cape Town and Pagad has them on their hit list because they’re in debt.

Mothers, fathers, siblings...are you aware of where your flesh and blood is tonight?

The Adventures of Communal Living - The Good, The Bad and The Shot At.

COMMUNAL CLASHES Part 1
I’ve lived in some communes that I’ve been meaning to write about for years. Some of them involved drugs, a lot of alcohol and changing of locks with threats of drive-by shootings. I know people who’ve lived with escaped convicts who’ve tried to kill me. I’ve had a housemate’s belongings put out on the front porch before barricading the front door while I stood on the first floor balcony as he screamed up at me what a heartless bitch I was. I puffed calmly on my cigarette while I sipped my gin and tonic and gave the nosey neighbours something to stare at. Since they insisted, you know. My landlady, her husband and their two little girls trembled in the bedroom downstairs as the verbal war on the upper level ensued. I hopped onto their phone to call the Flying Squad (at that time familiar to us as the Flopping Squat, or if we were really drunk, the Electronic Yellow Pages). The dude at reception was taking so long to take down my name and address, not to mention the situation ensuing just outside the bay window where we could see said offender hammering and kicking to break down the door, that I told him I had my own backup and, as Kurt Cobaine was prone to croon, to pay no mind.

Trouble...

Spine, my next door neighbour, who happened to be studying to be a dental technician pulled out of his driveway with his gat on the front passenger seat, ready to be whipped up, should that be at all necessary. He tracked our housemate from hell around the corner and stopped the car next to him to get him inside. Of course, he tried to sit on the front seat but that’s when Spine cautioned him that that’s where the gat sat. So he begrudgingly got in the back.

Part 2 tomorrow...

Workin' Out at Work

Hauling out some ol' archives here. This was for Mutual & Federal for a series of in-house desk planner toons back in 2005.
Speaking of working out around here, just got commissioned to illustrate a kids' educational book on rather short notice - 45 colour illustrations due in 2 weeks. Shrieeeeeeeek! But it's a fun story and I get free reign on the style, so I look forward to eating, sleeping and breathing this project until August 15th...

Don't forget to comment on the Buzzfuse!

The Downward Tinsel Spiral

That's right, folks. August kicks off this weekend. Frightening stuff, huh? I'm ashamed to admit that I missed not only this year's Christmas deadline for greeting card design, but Mother's and Father's Day, too (sheepish stance with accompanying blush). Think about it...in roughly three months, Christmas cards get shelf space in your local product flogger and today I think I dreaded the season. Y'know it's gonna be all green and red and gold before you can spell "Christmas bonus". Is it just me getting on in years and feeling the days, weeks and months slip by quicker? Anyone else feeling the wind and spluttering sand particles as we're left in the dust here?

Of Dolphins and Daydreams

Been insanely busy lately, which has been nothing short of a good thing, considering the dismal drought at this time last year (aherm, the reason I'm now renting a room somewhere...sigh, the perils of freelancing). Picked up a couple of good clients and hopefully things will roll along at a reasonably timeous pace from here on out. That's up to God, ultimately, but maybe He feels I'm ready to manage some full nets around here.
Just looked at my recent blogs and atomic soda is crying out for colour! So, here are some dolphins I painted back in 2000 for a friend in Cape Town. I was just looking at my landlord's whale-coated tablecloth earlier today and thinking, it's been some time since I painted sea-life. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Dubai Dromedary

An image for a fridge magnet I'm designing for a client over on the Palm Islands.

The Workout and The Sneeze

Popped out 14 toons for an HIV brochure today. With ad agencies it's always due yesterday or, at the very least, end of today. In this booklet my little character has to make sure he watches his health. This was a pretty kewl project because the style was easy for me. Ah, if only they were all as such...

Faith Factory

Sketched this puppy up quickly tonight at rather short notice for a church that's starting up a project geared towards helping the impoverished. They go in "jobless joe" and hopefully come out the other end with skills they can use to bring in an income. They wanted a clean cut, leaning-towards-superhero feel, so our fun characters come in later if the board approves the idea of cartooned pitch to business folk out there. Had lots of fun doing this one!

Synchronised Moegoes

I think I spelt moegoes wrong. Is it moegoes or mugu's? Anyone? I can hardly call myself an advertisement proofreader and newspaper sub-editor with this kind of question on the cards, huh? Eep. This was a cartoon I rustled up for what I thought might be a range of greeting cards with a South African flavour. I liked the black and white feel, but in retrospect, maybe colour was the way to go here. Some mistakes, too, I blush to note. Like the croquet sticks I'm calling water polo equipment...and there's just no way I'd hand-write the font nowadays.

Tattoo Love

I watched Miami Ink last night for the first time. I wish I hadn't because I just want to get more tattoo'd than I already am. It truly can get addictive. Or maybe that's just my addictive personality with tattoo as my potential poison of choice. Skin ink is what inspired this design for a valentine's range of greeting cards. I still diggit. Bit of pop art thrown in there, too. The thing about Miami Ink is looking at the designs these guys punt out...there's some rich talent out there. In retrospect, having almost become a tattoo apprentice myself in '98, I'm glad I didn't - I could never have cut it like those boys do. Some beautiful stuff. I enjoyed the years of designing tattoo flash for chop shops back in Durban and, graphically, it's stood me in good stead with line paths and boldness, shading and confidence with lines.

Wicked!

Storyboarded my scones off today at an agency called brandbar. This image has nothing to do with that job (I won't see those scanned in puppies for a long time, methinks). An agency I'm on the books with for called me Friday last week to pitch up at this gig 8:30am today, Monday. No brief, no map with directions...you know those gigs you dread because you've just spent the past week and weekend flogging book illustrations to be completed on the same day you start the next job? You didn't take the weekend off to relax, so now you're just a smidge grumpy by the time you've conquered (tongue firmly in cheek here) the traffic to Centurion and sat down at the conference table to be briefed.

And you know, it turned out to be one of the nicest gigs I've done in a while. Call me sentimental but I don't like working outside my studio. Today I was totally spoilt with my own office with closed door, a laptop with internet access and as many cups of tea as I could swallow in a given day. Nice people, too. And what tops a day so nicely is when the folks who commissioned you actually compliment your work and really diggit. And want you to come back for future projects. Nice one after all. Did I mention I got supper, too?

What struck me today was how often I realised I was smiling while I was drawing. Yup, I'll say it again...I really love what I do!

Bet on the Vet

When animals go shopping...funny how I've kind've come full circle in terms of bringing my cartooning back to the ol' burb where I grew up back in Durbs. All those years growing up, going to junior, primary and high school in the same 'hood and now the vet down the road from where I grew up is the one I'm putting together some animal characters for - he has an animal hospital and a vet shop he needs some fun designs added to.
If my snotty English teacher who loathed me could just see my work now...sigh.

Fear the Loathing

You can tell I went through a bit of a Steadman phase with the above version of Atomic Soda.

Dang if it ain't Hunter S. Thompson tomorrow night on Final 24. I was never enamoured with that man. Nor with his writing. There slumped hedonistic and self-centered, as well as not particularly wise in a chap if I've ever observed one.

Here's a little irony. I was chatting to a cartoonist friend of mine over in LA a couple of years back who attended the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Awards, held every year in a different part of the States. Ralph Steadman was honoured that year with the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award for his illustration work, including the cover of the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas book. Ralph Steadman, if you'll recall, did the artwork for Orwell's 'Animal Farm'. Not to mention a host of other amazing and uniquely notable artwork. Brilliantly talented. And what does he go and do on the night he's honoured? He gets so shickered that by the time he makes it up to the microphone, he totally behaves like a putz and rants off on a diatribe and generally p's off a number of well-known toonists in attendence. How much does that smack of Thompson's antics over the years?

Not purdy, I'll tell ya. Not purdy at aaawl, she drawls... reminds me of me back in the day. Or mostly night, as I recall.

Ex-Goth at Breakfast Meeting

I was chatting to a friend tonight who booked us tickets to see John Vlismas this coming Saturday to cheer me up after a rather wasteful submission to depression recently. Apparently I'm the only one of his friends who likes stand-up comedy. Before I knew it, he'd convinced me I was coming with him next Saturday to see The Exploited, who are finally coming over to SA to perform. I almost laughed off my chair. Granted, Johnny Rotten is still out there, making the odd rather unsettling appearance, but Wattie Buchan and the boys? Performing here? Turns out my friend possibly has an interview with him, which means all those interesting backstage politics, not to mention bumping past the groupies. We laughed about the kind of crowd this sort of gig would attract and there's no way I'm going to this thing without my camera. We're rather sentimental about The Exploited because I guess it takes us back to our punk/goth days when we lived together (see http://marciaatomicsoda.blogspot.com/2008/03/restless-leather.html. We'd walk past a busker playing a violin and Krash would ask, "Got any Exploited?"

The reason he wants me to accompany him to this gig? He rates me as one of the "cool people"...I gotta giggle at that because I hit 40 in 4 years time. Still got my tattoos and black hair and that odd little edge that either intrigues or disturbs people at weddings and baby showers, but otherwise I'm pretty harmless! Nevertheless, it's a great reason to get dressed up in the ol' leathers, slap on a bit of make-up and watch a fascinating evening of events.

And wonder at how much I've changed, actually. Thankfully.

Tail End of this Puppy

Yawn (because it's 11:44pm, not because I was bored with the project). Finally put my book illustration puppy to bed tonight. Some observations I recalled today about book illustration deadlines. The final 24 hours are obviously the most stressful but it's also when the proverbial matrix spits out a wealth of distractions and demands on your time. Felt like I was fighting off people who wanted my undivided attention, to the point of locking myself in my room and slapping a "On deadline...disturbing me would qualify as a bad move on your part" sign on my door. Oddly, I answered my phone. People who don't illustrate books for publishing houses don't get this. We all have our respective pressures, but in my little world, this kind of project is up there with the big boys. Members of the "setback committee" include Telkom and my failed ADSL line for 3 days. Which meant no research online. Bliksem.

Even though I've put the illustration pile in an envelope addressed to the artwork controller, the adrenalin is still coursing its way through my system here. Admittedly, I was so distracted with the polishing up and scanning of the artwork I almost forgot to invoice my client!

Now there's an interesting point. When I forget for a fleeting moment that I need to send an invoice with the artwork, it brings home to me why I do this. Because I love it. This is a client I've had since 2003. No complications or delays with these people. It's always been simple - they give me the brief, I do the artwork, they send a driver to collect it, I invoice them, they pay me. No comebacks, just about no changes, I've never been late with a deadline for them with the exception of a request for an additional 24 hours on one...don't we artists wish all our clients were like that? Sigh. These are the kind of clients I'll work through the night for, they can phone me with an urgent deadline and expect it yesterday and I'll do it.

Here's to the good clients...the ones who are professional, don't piff paff around and pay up on time. And well.

Whimsical about Weekends

Boy, have I missed the boat with so much this past week because I’m on deadline illustrating a book. Today, however, I refused to work with the same degree of uncompromising commitment as I generally do on a weekday...because it’s Sunday. Yes, I’m probably going to pay with hours into the night this week, making up the time I spent relaxing and chatting with friends at a braai. But it was so worth it. I don’t know if it comes with age, but I’m just danged irritated if I don’t take a Sunday off. Gone are the 7-day weeks with handcuffs to my desk on the weekend. Man, God did not say take the 7th day to rest because He was just being legalistic. It’s necessary. Tonight I scritched up a couple of illies and kind’ve inadvertently (pffffbt! hahahahahaha!) logged onto Facebook and YouTube and got lost. I notice a lot of my deadlines happen on Mondays. Hmmmm....

A Tribute to my Mom

I sent this letter to my mom recently. Thought some of you might relate to this and the season preceding the loss of someone you had a strained relationship with because of your own issues and some of theirs. I will always be grateful that, although it's taking me some time and emotional effort, I am encouraged and urged to treat my mother with what I hope is the love and honour she deserves in these, her last days. The one thing I have found impossible to do with either of my parents is tell them I love them. That's all changing now. I thank God for changing me.

Dear Mommy,
You sounded so down this weekend when I spoke to you...it prompted my heart to write you something that I hope will mean lots to you and cheer you up whenever you look at it during your time left here with us.

Here are some things I want you to know mean so much to me as your daughter that you played such a part in.

You taught me how to live my faith in Jesus Christ, even though I turned away from Him for 12 long years. I know that you prayed for me to come home all those years and He answered your prayers because, like the prodigal son, I did come back.

You taught me how to pray. Especially to begin my prayers with “thank you for...” in faith. God hears and He answers every one of my prayers in His own sovereign way, even in ways I wish He didn’t but He knows best. I trust that implicitly. He is good, even when things in my life go bad.

I still have so many items that remind me how much you care (too many to mention) – like medicine you packed together in little first aid kits for me with migraine tablets and pain tablets. And the foot care items. The little manicure kit you gave me. The clothes you sewed and made for me that Christmas you and Dad spent with me – those were special times when you measured and fitted me with those outfits and I’m so happy to wear them, knowing how you put your heart into making them for me. I often use the pin cushion you gave me. I still have that hankerchief with special oil on it. And the cushions for my lounge, even though they’re boxed away right now until someday I have my own home again. The sticky note pad you got for me. The underwear that mothers specially pick out for daughters.

Can you believe I still have that pepper you gave me Christmas 2006? One of the hardest things about losing that flat was that we spent a special time in it together as a family. Especially at the diningroom table when we had Christmas lunch together. It was my home I could share with you. I cried when I gave away that table because I couldn’t take it with because I didn’t even know where I was going. I’m so glad we got that Christmas together. Thanks for bringing the tree and decorations.

Thanks for my childhood memories, even though some weren’t good. That wasn’t your fault.

I was remembering those egg flips you made me when I almost died with diabetes. If you thought you were a sloppy housewife, you were still a great mom. I remember how you described my head rolling off my pillow when I was so ill and you knew something was desperately wrong. It takes a good mother to notice something like that. And do something about it. I know you and Dad made financial sacrifices when I had to go onto a special diet of marie biscuits and liqui-fruit, because you were struggling while I had to eat the right foods as a diabetic. Thank you for doing that for me. For all the financial sacrifices you made for me that I never thanked you for.

I showed those snapshots of you to people I talk to about you often. You were and still are such a beautiful woman. I don’t know if Roy Muller knew that properly.

Thank you for taking care of Grandpa the way you did. He meant so much to me and you made his last years here special.

I still look at my black canvas portfolio and think of how you paid for that for me, as well as my college fees. Thank you for supporting me.

Thank you for all those amazing cakes you baked for my birthdays.

There are some things I regret.

Like moving so far away from you and Dad. You learn when you’re older that you can never get those years away back again. Family is still so important. Despite the damaged years, that realisation is one of the truest things I know now.

I don’t know if you’ll meet my husband – God hasn’t introduced him to me yet. If it hadn’t been for my wasted years of foolishness, I might have been happily married already. I don’t know.

I’m sorry I never gave you grandchildren.

Mommy, I don’t know how many years you have left...maybe just those three or four the oncologist said. But I’m glad we’ve made peace with that. I hope Daddy will soon, too. I’m glad we know that you’re going to an ever-evolving Kingdom that is all peace and perfection and reunion with God and long-lost loved ones, including Granny and Grandpa and Bollie. And others.

I’m so glad for that day at the beach we had together, too. Just us. And that last day at the beach we had as a family.

You’re the reason I won’t move to Cape Town just yet, if I’m even supposed to. I’m sorry I broke your heart when I moved away from Durban.

I know you love me – it has only occurred to me how much in these latter years of my life. All those times I wasn’t coping with life and wished I was dead, I’m glad I’m still alive and didn’t let you down so that you lost both your children. I want you to know just how much I love you. I don’t want to try and say this at your graveside when it’s too late.

It breaks my heart to watch you go through the pain and physical disintegration you’re experiencing with the cancer now, but I know the eternal inheritance God is preparing for you far outweighs the pain and loss in ways we cannot begin to see. Even if it’s impossible to imagine right now. It awaits you...Jesus adores you and can’t wait to lavish it upon you! I thank God for that promise.
“...Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1 Cor 2v9

I love you lots and lots, Mommy.
All my love,
Muffet
xxx

Catharsis a Shmarsis (strictly off the record)

Here comes a bit of a catharsis...some relevant realisations have occurred to me this June. Firstly, it’s been a year since I started renting a room in the current house I’m in. I admit I tend to grumble in my deserts. Permit me a small whinge, Lord...honestly, I never thought I’d still be here. Sure, look, there was no definite plan. But still here? Sigh.

On this insomnia-riddled evening (early hours of the morning is more applicable, actually), I’m afraid I’m thinking too much again. This happens when all I do is sleep and work. I no longer tend towards emotional eating. There’s no cash to do that, anyway. One of the drawings for the book I’m illustrating is a bathroom scale. I never stand on those things. I just assess how tight or loose my clothing is on me and I’m either fat or dropping some weight. Maybe it was months of weigh-less as a disturbed, fat teenager where I had to weigh in perpetually and the deal with them was that, if you’d gained even 0.2g over the past week then your name wasn’t called out in front of the group, followed by your loss announcement for that week, even if it was 0.1g. How desperate are women to shed every last fibre of potential weight when you’ll clamber to get to the toilets before weigh-in to eek off 5g of urine?
As I say, that’s why I probably don’t bother weighing myself. Tonight, however, the bathroom scale for reference was sitting quietly in the corner of my room chatting amiably with my shoes when I hit an impulse and whisked it away from its new friends (the bathroom is some way off from my bedroom, it gets lonely that end, I know) and stood on it. It wasn’t pretty. I don’t want to talk about it. My clothing has been fitting more loosely over the past couple of weeks and that’s been great. Until that ratty scale smirked up at me that I weigh 2kg more than my usual. No sense there, so moving along to other irksome preoccupations this week.

There must have been a private meeting at the beginning of this week where my clients gathered around the great poker table of life, lit up fat, smelly cigars, topped up exotically overpriced cocktails and threw in a couple of bowlfuls of super greasy deep fried crisps just to mark their territory. And plotted to torture me with 12 page contracts to sign over my artwork or they would not pay me. A late arrival would decide to reject 2 of the 6 canvasses I spent a week and weekend creating with another set of ideas I can’t possibly wrap my fragile little head around until mid next week, when I finish illustrating the book.

Then there is Dubai....the bay of plenty. We’ll see what prosperous little treasures this holds. Here’s where I have to pull on my business girl outfit and get it together with logistics and symantecs and costings and turnaround times....yawn. All for a cause that’s all for my finances but insomnia now bows to little quivering snores. Let’s call it a proverbial business day, shall we?

Of Hearts and Dads Themes

Despite my official "crappy clients week" not-so-celebration today, I can still share this little product shot of some recently published greeting cards for 2008 and eek out a bit of a smile. Father's Day range is currently on the shelves. Not the best quality pic, but you get the gist!

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Makin' a Run for it...

I reckon at the end of next week, I'm going to wish I could do just this...ride off into the sunset of anywhere as fast as possible. This week has been a mix of catching up work, churning out the best I can under some unexpected circumstances pockmarked with several curveballs, meetings ominously fresh from the netherworld, delivered on a very sharp kebab stick. Nice to be busy, but busy work being nice. That, however, is another post altogether and I'm brainstorming it as I tickle the keyboard here.

Happy Africa

I get rather sentimental some days when I look at old work I've done and think about the potential our country has in so many ways. What obviously influences me most is the African aesthetic - design-wise, there's loads of potential. We are blessed with much that is indigenous to us and it's a great joy for me to cartoon such things. The bonus is to watch kids' faces light up when they look at my work. This little medley of animals was a book cover for an educational story about an elephant that ran away and got lost and then found his way home again. Hence his happy face. I guess the monkeys got it down for being my favourite characters in this pic.

Not on the System!

It all began with a phonecall for a briefing on a book cover illustration the following morning. A fairly long drive from Parkhurst to Midrand in terms of time-squandering if the job fell through, but who am I not to throw good old fashioned caution to the wind and, since I don’t drive, get my friend to thump in the address onto the GPS and haul me there? Who knew, perhaps this impression of reliable flexibility would lead to other gigs, right? Cue sound of game show buzzer when you get the answer…WRONG!
And so the nightmare began. Friday morning, I got the low down on the double page spread illustration and the red flags technically weren’t yet due to fly, even with pencils due that afternoon - a given in the illustration industry. Any freelancer will roll their eyes skyward and curl their lip as they recite “deadline horror tales”. So, my scribbles were dutifully e-mailed through to the Artwork and Production Co-Ordinator that afternoon. The supervisor would apparently be in on Saturday to screen pencils and give the go-ahead for colour to be completed by Monday morning. That’s right…just one weekend to complete a full-colour DPS book cover from scratch to completion. No problem. No call from the supervisor Saturday, so I chased up my original “briefer” to find out what was happening. He said he’d phone her and get back to me. He didn’t. Monday morning, I phoned to get some answers.
No one knew. Someone had to phone someone else. Then someone would phone me back. They didn’t. Tuesday, I chased up again. This time when the Artwork and Production Co-Ordinator asked me how I was, I told him I was feeling a little stressed…wasn’t he, I asked, considering the deadline was due yesterday? Not at all, apparently. A couple of weeks went by and one or two changes had to be made during this time, by which I’d chilled considerably. Heck, if they weren’t in a hurry, I wasn’t losing sleep. This was a company, after all, who when they had to send scanned, e-mailed pencils from me down to head office in Cape Town, didn’t simply hit the Forward icon on their task bar, but printed out a copy and then couriered it overnight…to Cape Town. From Joburg. Seems head office doesn’t know how to press “print”. And every time another change had to be approved, an additional 24 hours got wasted couriering a printed copy across the nation.
Cue bright red flags in abundance and awfully windswept ones at that.
Week 3 and I’d booked a flight to Durban on Thursday to help my parents pack up house to move up country after 34 years in the same house. Astonishing quantities of clutter accumulate after over 3 decades. My mother had been diagnosed a couple of weeks before with liver, abdominal and bone cancer with accompanying tumour behind one eye. I rate this a family emergency…time to band together and help out. Family comes first. Monday I was still pulling teeth trying to get a go-ahead on colour from my client, warning them I was leaving Thursday and would not be taking this project with me. I was prepared to work through nights if I had to but I was running out of time. Once again, someone had to phone someone else and no one got back to me. Tuesday’s voicemails to them were fruitless. Wednesday, I’d made a decision that there was just no way it was going to happen. Wednesday afternoon the supervisor (who was never available on her cellphone to begin with) left an “urgent message” on my voicemail. Panic seemed to be weaving its way through production corridors that end. I’ll be blatantly candid at this point and admit that I laughed while I packed my suitcase.
Thursday morning. Flight that afternoon. I received an e-mail from my client stating that his bosses and supervisors had asked him to re-commission someone else, that I must invoice for a 10 percent rejection fee and that, although the artwork was well-captured, it was not improving and there had been too many delays. Too many delays? No one gets back to me within time frames, management ignores my voice messages and couriers copies to head office overnight…and there are too many delays?
It goes without saying I was revolted. And proceeded to telephonically take out the Artwork and Production Co-Ordinator. My personality strongly suggests I hunt you down and storm your office. Fortunately I had a flight that afternoon. Priorities prevailed. I invoiced them, via e-mail, as per instruction from the Artwork and Production Co-Ordinator. It was March 13th. A month later I chased up the invoice with the accounts guy. He phoned me back the following day because he couldn’t track it down. At this point, he assumed it was on the desk of one of two people who had to sign it before they then posted it…that’s right, I said posted it to head office in Cape Town (sound familiar?).
An infinite array of brightly coloured flags, not the least of which were red, began to flutter violently on my horizon.
I pointed out I’d e-mailed it through March 13th. Here’s where the accounts guy paused and suggested I send through another invoice to his e-mail address. So I cancelled my previous invoice, wrote out a new one, scanned and e-mailed it to my helpful friend in accounts, who phoned me back to tell me he had a problem printing my invoice out. I’m thinking…what IS the DEAL with these people and printing things OUT, already! Turns out it has to be an original invoice. Then why give me his e-mail address to send through my invoice? Intriguing Questions 101.
“Are you suggesting I drive out to Midrand to personally drop off an invoice for 250 pathetic rands?”
“If you could please do that.”
“No. You’ll have to send a driver to collect it.”
“We don’t send drivers. I don’t know what to suggest, but it has to be an original.”
I’m rubbing my eyes at this point. My ulcers are picketing my stomach with rude messages and my eyeballs have decided on north as a direction to glare at.
“What is your physical address so I can post it via snail mail to you?”
He gives me his address. I post the invoice the following day. After two weeks I chase it up again (not being unreasonable for time here, I reckon) and it’s still not on his desk. He suggests I send another one. Not a sausage, I’m thinking, and a couple of days later, he decides to check his post and Bob’s your auntie. Well, in this case, anyway.

A week later he phones me to tell me he can’t pay my invoice because I’m not on the system. I patiently ask how it is that the person who briefed me initially with this project from heck on a kebab stick did not inform me of this. The accounts guy doesn’t know, but will happily e-mail me the respective form, which I can then print and fill out. I ask him if I can scan it with my information filled in and e-mail it back to him. No…it must be an original. That’s another two weeks’ postage. Then I’ll be put onto the system. Then my invoice will be sent to the two people who have to sign it to authorize payment to me (crikey, if past turnaround time is anything to go on, the 2010 World Cup will happen before my payment does) and then it will be posted to Cape Town’s head office.

Pardon my cynicism. It’s May 19th as I write this. That’s over 2 months since I first invoiced these people. I don’t mean to whinge. Must be South African time.

Men of the Music

I got in touch with this old friend of mine via good ol' Facebook today and remembered this caricature I scribbled up of him with his geetaaar. He loves music and has an awesome voice, so I got this baby coloured in on a card and got our home cell group to sign it individually...bit o' encouragement goes a long way.

Croc Snacks

Another fridge magnet design...another of my favourites.

African Airlines

The Big 5. The big journey. This is for a fridge magnet design that will be moulded and hand-painted in colour. My client suggested the vulture....awfully African pending disaster with that roped up engine on the "sky taxi". It's one of my faves and I look forward to seeing what they did with it in colour.

Comments on Buzzfuse as usual, purleez.

O is for Ostrich

Trying to keep a South African flavour with the alphabet animals. And ostriches rock!

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J is for Jellyfish

Another one of my favourites for the kids' alphabet series. Jellyfish are such fun to draw! If I ever did a sea life mural, this guy would be in there for sure!

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E is for elephant

Quick ellie sketch for the letter E on kids' alphabet canvasses.

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Monday's Uncooperative Foot of Toes

I did this one last year. Obviously a Monday morning and I think my foot fell asleep while I was working at my desk.

Early Christmas

Here's a greeting card I did for a law firm...