Further in the series of “Things I Drew In A Museum”, I present the badly-hatched skeleton of a Gomphothere, which was the freakiest kind of Elephant there could be; and a colour sketch of a fuzzy Mongolian hat made out of a rabbit’s face. And ears. Only marginally less freaky.
I realise how similar in tone this is to my New Years’ piece, but I just scribbled it half an hour ago and wanted to put it up because I liked the energy it gave me. I’ve been reading “Moby Dick”, and came across this passage in Chapter 114:
And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat’s side into that same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:—
“Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s eye!—Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.”
I’m making that last bit my motto for 2013.
If life has taught me anything, it’s to have many regrets and make only worthwhile apologies.
So I’m not saying sorry for that title.
(It’s a misnomer, anyway. The Little Sinister Teddy-Bear Things all have hobbies, and Ashley Rae’s is finding freshly-hatched eggs and sitting in them. He’s strange.)
A rare moment in which that foulest of upper-echelon fiends, The Gentleman Mummy, is caught taking the air - hatless, jacketless, amuletless and without safety pins for his bandages.
There’s a good reason or two for this; firstly, the Gentleman Mummy’s sketchblog, as poor and dog-eared as it may be, has lasted for an entire YEAR without being destroyed.
Yes, that’s right - it is the Gentleman Mummy’s BIRTHDAY, a whole year (give or take) since the application of a selection of tea-stained bandages and a smart bowler hat to an impressionable young lad in Kent brought his glory unto this wholly undeserving world.
Secondly, in that time he has managed to amass a (modest) amount of followers, which while numbering in hundreds is certainly not a fitting tribute to one of his lustre. But in this day and age, where master pyramid-building craftsmen have gone the way of the Tasmanian Tiger, one must make do with what can get. Welcome, Tumblights old and new. Watch attentively and from time to time, artistic endeavours shall appear…
Thirdly: the Gentleman Mummy simply ADORES speaking in the third person. It reminds him of the glory of his older life, and of the lives to come.
(For Those Who Wish To Know)
Because, of course, when tobacco is not to be had, phosphorus and a pinch of gunpowder tickles a 2500-year-old lung pleasantly.
In the hands of a selection of Sinister Little Teddy Bear Things. Who knows where the buggers have taken it.
Because his trousers keep falling down. Take THAT, hypothetical person-question-asker-being.
An older sketch from the third term of my first year at Uni. I remember so specifically because the few people I was hanging out with at the time were all boring gits, and drawing was one of the few outlets I had to tolerate their infuriating company.
The figure depicted herein is some sort of male muse, Arabic in feature and…something?…in fashion? I don’t know clothes. Clothes are not a strong suit of mine. Nor did my 3-or-4-years-younger self, apparently. I mean, look at those sleeves.
Suffice to say that his books help to prevent the world crashing down upon him, yadda yadda yadda. Also he vaguely resembles The Hanged Man, inverted. Read into that what you will, lovers of Tarot and Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem. (Also: know that I am one of you. That book is BRILLIANT.)
After reading the haunting short story of the same name by Mary Braddon, I sat down in the Gulbenkian cafe, on the Kent Uni. campus, and sketched it out in pencil and watercolour pencil and ink-pen over the course of an hour or so. I was told shortly afterwards by an acquaintance that it looked like Freddy Mercury, on an acid trip. A higher compliment for it I’ve yet to hear.
While drawing, I listened over and over to the following cover of Sting’s Every Breath You Take. It’s similarly haunting, so I include it here.
