The UNEXPECTED SUITOR

Another image, taken from the archive of old notebooks, which I have recently drawn up and rendered. 

This one has the date 12.26 – so it’s been only fourteen years since I first jotted it down.

I suppose you could classify this ‘genre’ as ‘English Surrealism’. 

Baffling to most – and unappealing to many – “Ah – Alice in Wonderland”: people often say at Art Fairs (with a rather troubled look on their face) as they grapple with the strangeness on show – so much at odds with neighbouring stands showing lovely landscapes and portraits of winsome animals. 

But to thy own self be true. How would we have got to an Edward Gorey or Robert Crumb if we all fitted to the Universal Mind of Common Taste? 

When we first moved to Yorkshire I was very taken with depicting the Dales: paintings of the stone walls and cobbled lanes around me…but over the past five years I have drifted back to Surrealism. There are only so many castles and towers and turbulent skies that I want to render.

This image was created on my iPad - which I have been using a lot more in recent months. Having purchased a set of ‘brushes’, ‘pens’ and ‘textures’ from True Grit I was amazed at how easy it became to sketch and draw in a natural way…and add texture and effect….although, having said that, the first port of call is still the notebook and pencil….