Twitter Ye Not - Princess Elizabeth & the ATS '45

Twitter Ye Not - Princess Elizabeth & the ATS '45

A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.

On the 3rd March 1945, Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) joined the women's Auxiliary Territorial Service as a driver and machanic. Here, we imagine the Twitter reaction to a most royal recruitment.

On the one side the young princess in her ATS uniform, with the land vehicle she drove behind her. Across from her is Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, now the Duke of Edinburgh. Despite being born at Mon Repos on the greek isle of Corfu and being part of that country's monarchy Phil the Greek is not ethnically Hellenic but an anglo-german like his wife to be.

Behind him on the ground is Prince Philip's mother, who was a Battenberg (later the less teutonic-sounding Mountbattens).

After these pretty botched portraits I've definitely put paid to my chances of a knighthood...

Museum Journal - Part 21

Museum Journal - Part 21

Part 21 of the Director of the National Museum of Britsh History's Diary, for regular client Museum Journal (MJ).

This month our man describes the exhibition "A Short History of Execution in One Hundred Objects" in Syria, which showed, from Tudor instruments of torture to laser-targeted missiles in Afghanistan, how British technology has always led the way!

As always with MJ the final print size is minute (3 or 4 cm across tops) so its crucial to keep the design very simple and the detail to a minimum.

Notebook No. 143 (frontispiece)

Notebook No. 143 (frontispiece)

I work prolifically in notebooks. Possibly too much so, as not enough escapes its cardboard walls, not as much as I would like sometimes.

But then in many ways my notebooks can be quite prosaic - shopping and to-do lists, recaps and repetition, scribbles for diy projects, you name it, it goes in there. Not the sort of stuff anyone wants to see, not the sort of thing i'm keen to share.

I began numbering my sketchbooks back in Art School in Dublin, and generally they take between 2 and 3 months to fill. So here I am, not far off one score years, and fourteenty-three books, later.

The flowers are symbols of February. The Primrose (first flower) representing Eternal Love, and the scented Violet, representing faithfulness. Both flowers have hearts within them - the former in its petals, the latter in its leaves.

Plus, of course, a self-portrait with dip-pen, in silhouette.

Circle of Fire

Circle of Fire

A quick sketch based upon words from the Kate Bush song Lily, about psychic protection. I feel I need some right now, hehe...

The cardinal points with the Archangels that guard them, with their symbols and the colours associated with each of the four messangers.

Raphael, Archangel of Healing, Gabriel, Archangel of Revelation, Michael, Archangel of Judgement, Urial, Archangel of Fire, Light and Peace.

Biro Sketches - 16th February 2012, cont.

Biro Sketches - 16th February 2012, cont.

Some more scribbles from my 142nd Notebook (started on the 2nd November 2011, and finished this morning. Quite slow for me that).

A few of the Usual (and a few of the Unsual) motifs that clutter my Brain - union suits, logs, babies, legs, pipes and high-waisted trousers!

Biro sketches, coloured up in PS.

Biro Sketches - 16th February 2012

Biro Sketches - 16th February 2012

Some more scribbles from my 142nd Notebook (started on the 2nd November 2011, and finished this morning. Quite slow for me that).

A few of the Usual (and a few of the Unsual) motifs that clutter my Brain - mythological giants, owls, mandrakes, Mr Punchinello, sailors, pipes and ships.

Love is a Battlefield

Love is a Battlefield

A quick biro scribble in honour of Saint Valentinus and his attendent putti.

Here two sentiments on the Struggle of Love from two of History's great philosophers - Ovid (Love is a Form of Military Service) and Pat Benatar (Love is a Battlefield) - two great minds, one single vision.

HVD!

Twitter Ye Not - Galileo

Twitter Ye Not - Galileo

A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.

On the 25th February 1616, scientis, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer Galileo Galilei was formally warned by the Roman Catholic inquisition that his support for the theory that the Earth revolved around the sun was heretical. Here, we imagine the reaction to that controversial injunction on Twitter.

What the warning actually stated was 'the idea that the Sun is stationary is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture.' Presumably in Latin.

I have shown old Galileo with his telescope in hand. Across from him is Pope Paul V, born Camillo Borghese, based on the famous seated portrait by Caravaggio.

Between them stands, just about, the Leaning Tower of Pisa off which GG conjectured that different weights would fall at the same speed. When I was an Engineering student at Imperial College many, many moons ago my personal tutor was Prof. John Burland, who was working at that time in preventing the Leaning Tower from leaning any further.

Energy Ombudsman Valentine

Energy Ombudsman Valentine

Last week I was approached by the lovely people at the Poetry Society in London.

They, in turn, had been contacted by the Energy Ombudsman, a body which keeps a check on the practices of the various Energy Suppliers in this country, to compose a St. Valentine's Day poem, and had commissioned the following rhyme by Matt Harvey.

The poem is about the end of the affair we all seem to experience once the honeymoon period with a new energy supplier is over. My job was to create an image to accompany the text, and I came up with this idea of Cupid caught haplessly and hopelessly in the cables of an electricity pylon.

It’s not me, it’s you
by Matt Harvey

I admit that it appalled me
that day you first cold-called me

but you charmed me, won me over
told me I would be in clover

and I succumbed to your advances
thought: what the heck, I’ll take my chances

I told the Doubting Thomases
that you would keep your promises

you’d said that you would care for me
that you’d always be there for me

oh how very wrong of me
I should have thought more carefully

all that warmth and bonhomie
now seems like such hot air to me

for when I called to clarify
the startlingly high tariff I

was on, you proved elusive
and remarkably reclusive
for one so formerly effusive

in breach of all known etiquette
you started playing hard-to-get

left me feeling so much smaller
as if I’m the nuisance caller

with designs on your affection
which is vexing and perplexing

I don’t think it would hurt to see
a bit of old world courtesy

so I’m parting from your company
who’s dumping who? You’re dumping me

constructively dismissing me
I trust you’ll soon be missing me

and then you’ll once again change tack
predictably you’ll call me back

and find you’re waiting in a queue
to hear, when you at last get through

Goodbye. It isn’t me. It’s you.

Biro Sketches - 8th February 2012

Biro Sketches - 8th February 2012

A few notebook scribbles from this morning's Doodle Parlour.

A clutch of my usual passions and concerns, including, this morning, many thoughts on food - in this cold weather I'm perpetually hungry. Not good for the waistline, but heartening for the spirit...

Twitter Ye Not - Kellogg's Corn-flakes

Twitter Ye Not - Kellogg's Corn-flakes

A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.

On the 18th February 1906, Will Keith Kellogg founded the Battle Creek Toasted Flake Company to market his revolutionary toasted cereal. In time, he would be credited with changing the way the world ate breakfast. Here, we imagine the reaction on Twitter to Kellogg's strange new flakes.

I have shown up-tight inventor W.K.Kellogg on one side, clutching a box of his famous cereal, with bags of corn or maize around him as business takes off. Kellogg and his physician brother John Harvey were devout Seventh Day Adventists and believed that a vegetarian diet, high in cereals, would lead to purer thoughts and less lust and in particular the sin of masturbation.

Across from him stands founder of the british Labour Party, scotsman Keir Hardie, defensively clutching his bowl of piping hot porridge (or porrage). Behind him a big sack of oats.

Between the two men the battlefield of the breakfast table, where Battle Creek's bland flakes took the upper hand.

Despite the Kellogg brothers great efforts to stamp out Onanism (at their sanitorium they would circumcise men, apply endless enemas and apply pure carbolic acid to the clitorises of female patients to deter sexual arousal) both men appear to have spilt seed all over the ground...

Eye Magazine - Classicism

Eye Magazine - Classicism

One of three small drop-in illustrations I have just done for respected graphic design magazine Eye.

This was for a piece about what have been identified as the Seven Types of Design Inquiry. From folklore to theory, via Shamanism and the 'magpie instinct' for shiny things, graphic design seeks to understand itself in many different forms. Philosopher and critic John O'Reilly looks at the myriad ways designers present their lives and work - with a little help from the influential Seven Types of Ambiguity by New Criticism guru William Empson.

Classicism. Here, the need to look back and learn from the Masters.

Eye Magazine - Enthusiasm

Eye Magazine - Enthusiasm

One of three small drop-in illustrations I have just done for respected graphic design magazine Eye.

This was for a piece about what have been identified as the Seven Types of Design Inquiry. From folklore to theory, via Shamanism and the 'magpie instinct' for shiny things, graphic design seeks to understand itself in many different forms. Philosopher and critic John O'Reilly looks at the myriad ways designers present their lives and work - with a little help from the influential Seven Types of Ambiguity by New Criticism guru William Empson.

Enthusiasm. Here, the magpie instinct for shiny things.Hence a modern font and a Georgian print detail!

Eye Magazine - Folklore

Eye Magazine - Folklore

One of three small drop-in illustrations I have just done for respected graphic design magazine Eye.

This was for a piece about what have been identified as the Seven Types of Design Inquiry. From folklore to theory, via Shamanism and the 'magpie instinct' for shiny things, graphic design seeks to understand itself in many different forms. Philosopher and critic John O'Reilly looks at the myriad ways designers present their lives and work - with a little help from the influential Seven Types of Ambiguity by New Criticism guru William Empson.

Folklore. Here, the passing of experience around the campfire of the conference.

Happy Candlemas!

Happy Candlemas!

To-day, 2nd February, is the Christian feast-day of Candlemas, that celebrates the purification of the Virgin Mary.

It is also the Feast-day of St Brigid (Bridget, Bride, Bríd, &c.), a celtic Saint and quite possibly a Goddess before that. Her cross of woven rushes or straw, shown upon the floor, is a Christian symbol, derived from the Pagan sun-wheel.

In gaelic the Feast is called Imbolc, or Imbolg, a name derived from Old Irish, meaning 'In the Belly', referring to the pregnancy of ewes at this time.

Candlemas is one of the four cross-quarter days and marks the starting of Spring. The others are Beltane (May-day), Lughnasa (Lammas or Loaf-mass) and Samhain (Halloween), each approximately 3 months from the next.

In the Gaelic tradition Imbolc is associated with the Cailleach— a hag who gathers her firewood for the rest of the winter. Legend has it that if she intends to make the winter last a good while longer, she will make sure the weather on Imbolc is bright and sunny, so she can gather plenty of firewood. Therefore, people are generally relieved if Imbolc is a day of foul weather, as it means the Cailleach is asleep and winter is almost over. Here in London, it is very sunny and bright indeed...

On the Isle of Man (Ellan Vannin in Manx gaelic) where she is known as Caillagh ny Groamagh, the Cailleach is said to have been seen on Imbolc in the form of a gigantic bird, carrying sticks in her beak. I have shown her in avian form at the top of the picture.

The Monk here carrying the huge votive candle is Brother Aelfric of Felbrigg.

Today is a good day to light candles as darkness falls. Its also a great time for Wiccan initiations and a libation of milk poured upon the ground as offering to the earth wouldn't do any harm either.

Happy Imbolc!