Going to Leiden!

The opportunity arised late last year to go to the Netherlands, or more specifically - Leiden.

We fly over there on Sunday and the closer it gets the more excited I'm becoming.

Leiden has a range of museums that we'll be visiting while we're there and we have the opportunity to stay on a 1911 clipper boat! We'll be sharing the boat with students from Germany and the Netherlands to work on a comics project focusing on something that we find in the museums.

I'm not sure what to expect in terms of how busy we'll be, but I hope not too busy so that I can go sightseeing and experience the city.

If anyone's interested, here's the website for the clipper: https://en.slaapschepen.nl/hotelovernachtingen/korevaer-leiden/

And a helpful summary of the museums - and links to their respective sites - available in Leiden: https://www.visitleiden.nl/en/see-do/experience/museums

#Leiden #Travel

Mort

Left Hand Doodles

My tutor once told me a story about an illustrator that he knows: She was working on a piece of work for someone and in the middle of the project she broke her wrist, or her fingers, or something - anyway, the point was that she wasn't able to use her dominant hand for anything.

To combat this she trained up her non dominant hand to perform as well as her dominant one.

Pretty amazing, right?

I've always wanted to be ambidextrous and since having eczema on my right hand often puts it out of commission, I thought I'd begin to train up my left hand.

Well, there's something left to be desired here, I think, but it's a good start and a lot more coherent than I anticipated.

The snail has the smoothest lines, don't you think?

Not sure whether this is wholly true, but practising normal activities with your non-dominant hand is supposed to help exercise your self control, as well as build up the necessary motor skills in the non-dominant hand. Watching me try to brush my teeth with my left hand is hilarious, trust me.

Thanks for visiting!

Mort

Welcome to the Land of Derpy Roughs

The first thing you should know about how I work: I always draw in pen. This means I can never run away from my mistakes, they're always there looking at me with relentless regret and sorrow of ever being drawn.

Just look at this poor, poor cowboy and his tiny, tiny arms. Needless to say it's either going to hinder him immensely during shoot outs or he's going to be the fastest gun slinger in the entire wild west.

All the best for him in his cowboy endeavors.

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Needless to say, robots and the rise of AI is something that a lot of people are concerned about these days. But I don't think we have much to fear from the likes of the robot below. He's just all talk, he's stuck, unfortunately, in the T pose eternally.

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I'll leave you with this little guy. He doesn't look at me with the same lament as the others, he's almost smug - knowing that he can never be erased.

I present to you Phteven:

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I hope you've enjoyed looking at my not-so-finished drawings. It's part of the process that isn't often shared between artist and audience. I'm sure there will be more charming sketches to come!

See you next time.

Mort