Out of office

Here’s your 2018 xmas card mini sketchbook*, see you next year.

See how the sausage is made: https://youtu.be/8_j8KWr8gNQ

*letterpress on brown card, 2-plate solarplate for the front image, metal type for the back text, 3 hole pamphlet stitch to sew in the newsprint pages

Aye aye aye

I cut copper sheet into a circle, etched it using acid, printed it using messy ink and an electric press, then painted on top using drawing inks. There are easier ways to make a good picture but this is among the very best ways.

10″x10″ on Somerset paper. Series of 50. For sale individually, £85 each.

Good displayed individually, fun displayed as a pair (same or different colours), creepy when they’re all together.

Yes I can paint pretty much the eye colour you want. No I won’t match it exactly.

I’ll have these for sale at BALTIC Self-Publishing Artists’ Market tomorrow, Sat 21st April. http://baltic.art/artists-market, then hoooo I need to sort out my online shop. But you can email if you want to bagsy one.

Everyone with a nose should picket.

Comic in support of #USSstrike #ucustrike for fair pensions. Making comics is good stress relief, as is seeing so many supportive colleagues and students.

Updated to include day 2: some positive signs of progress, still a long way to go.
Day 3: snow, support, and strengthened logistics.
Day 4: grateful for excessive use of GIFs and for gritting lorry drivers.
Day 5: glimmers of hope

Day 6: solidarity in comics form
Day 7: solidarity continues
Day 8: media coverage
Day 9: solidarity through comics and booze

Day 10: The Thick Of It fanfiction
Day 11: the power of beeps
Day 12: we are institutionalised
Day 13: a university is a big school
Day 14: la lutte continue

Action short of strike week one: back to work but not quite back to normal
Action short of strike week two: this has gone on too long to quit now
Action short of strike week three: the emperor’s underpants are unravelling
Action short of strike week four: nostalgic about the future

Limbo one: hello is this thing on?
Limbo two: maybe nobody knows anything anyway
Limbo three: bad ideas agency strikes again
Limbo four: an overwhelming surplus of diggity
Limbo five: they said I’d better take anything they’d got
Limbo six: aesthetically challenged

Labour pains one: wait, what?
Labour pains two: last one to fall off wins
Labour pains three: weekend off

Silly season one: looks promising, but could still all go to pop

(Also: first printed volume of comics for sale, 36 pages, £2.50 hellolyd.bigcartel.com)
The price is set so I can cover print and postage costs; if there are any profits they will go to the Newcastle Branch of University and College Union. Or, I’ll swap for a comic you’ve made (or equivalent bartering).
The first few orders received a free badge made out of my picketing armband – badges are now all gone.

Extra-cautious disclaimer: this comic represents my view. For official UCU (University & College Union) info on the strike, see https://www.ucu.org.uk/strikeforuss

If you enjoyed reading this comic, please consider donating to the UCU Fighting Fund if you are able to. It helps support people whose wages are docked because they’ve taken part in industrial action. https://www.ucu.org.uk/fightingfund

Good, not bad, insufficient.

Yesterday I went to a printmaking-collage-patchwork workshop at Northern Print. Printmaker Bridget Jones did showing and telling about her work, and shared offcuts of her prints for folks to have a go at their own cut&stick.

I made a lavender bag. I enjoyed it. It took 2 hours of workshop time plus another hour to finish at home. It wasn’t hard. Playing with someone else’s offcuts was good to use patterns I wouldn’t usually make, yet the finished thing looks pretty much like something I made. A patchwork lavender bag isn’t going to change anyone’s life but it’s a pleasant enough break from more intense work.

In other news:

• I’m continuing with a drawing-a-weekday, still enjoying my Nadrash series (quotes from Hansard parliamentary record, rubber stamp lettering, with drawing/painting). I enjoy it and the drawings are good, so it’ll continue for a while. Here’s the inevitable Tumblr page: https://dailynadrash.tumblr.com/
• Work is good and work is busy. Work is mostly PhD in Education about comics, other comics & Education projects, other Education but not comics projects, and occasional bits of stuff. There’s a lot of it, so this year’s priority is finding sustainable ways to keep going without toppling over. So far so good, innit.
• Somewhere over the holidays I did some knitting. It’s been a while, and it’s good to have a project that makes me watch TV. I also dug out The Tank (sewing machine) to fix a scarf and hem some shirt sleeves. The Tank needs more use.
• There isn’t enough printmaking and bookbinding in my life, either separately or combined. There needs to be more of this.
• Also it’s a while since I packed a suitcase, so that wouldn’t go amiss.
• All in all, not bad at all.

That’s enough for this year.

Ok here’s this week’s Nadrash/Hansard illustrated interactions, including a dive into the archives on Friday because the current lot knocked off early for Christmas. 

I enjoy doing this peculiar panel-a-weekday project. There’s a fair chance I’ll carry on with it, or something similar, next year. But now for a couple of weeks of more sleeping, less internet, and as much reading/writing as other commitments allow. 

Festive hibernation to you all.

Here’s your Christmas card, in a choice of colourways.  3D fabric paint on wood on card. 

A bit more work to do, then it’ll be time to switch off the internet until next year. 

A parliament of weirdos.

Look look it’s all animal themed! I’d wondered if a visually themed week of quoted interactions from Hansard was possible*, and here it is. 

Also this week my activity sheets are up on ComicsClub.blog for their monthly Comics Challenge series. If I’m gonna encourage kids to make their own weird comics – because what kids should worry about the possible professional and commercial future of their comics – then I’d better keep up my part if that deal. There are plenty of resources out there to help people make comics. Sometimes it’s the weirdness that needs a boost. 

*said no one else, ever.