Quarehawk

Done a few months ago for a magazine.

This was my first attempt at an oil painting. I thought it was going well up to this stage where I had the foundation down. I was getting cocky. I was walking around indoors wearing sunglasses like some kind of big-shot artist guy, mere days away from purchasing a beret.

Then later I tried to add colour to the painting and arsed it up totally. Ah well, I’m learning. I consider it a decent start.

This sketch is intended to be the basis of an oil painting I’m planning. I’m hoping to get around to actually painting it sometime before the inevitable heat death of the universe.

What better way to spend a Saturday morning than doing a digital drawing of a scene from Withnail And I, in sepia?

Wow, what a week! Got a write-up in TWO national newspapers. This from The Daily Mail Wednesday the 12th of May …

And then the Irish Sun on Sat 15th …

Also got a mention on 2fm, on Colm & Jim Jim’s Breakfast Show. Delighted! Gotta say thanks to Ryan Tubridy for being such a good sport and putting the caricature up as his Twitter Avatar, which is what led to all the exposure.

Now, what next? How am I supposed to follow THAT? *breathes into a paper bag*

No collection of caricatures is complete without at least one attempt at Elvis. Now just need to do Marilyn Monroe and Sean Connery for the trilogy. Might try Connery this weekend, Saturday maybe (or “Shatterday” as he’d call it).

Bit of a mixed reaction to this one. A few people I showed it to said it doesn’t look anything like Kevin Spacey and that I must have been having a mental episode if I thought otherwise. And fair enough, that’s their honest opinion. There’s always going to be different reactions to artwork and I suppose you have to be prepared to take a bit of good-natured criticism once in a while (I’ve cut off all contact with those people now and will devote the rest of my life to ensuring their dreams go unfulfilled).

One of the signs of getting old is when you’re boarding a plane and you spot 2 pimply teenagers presumably being shown around the cockpit as part of a school outing, and then the doors close and you realize that THOSE WERE THE PILOTS.

Another sign is when you wake up one day and you are the same age as the host of The Late Late Show.

Ah, Heff. I wonder is he slowing down a bit nowadays though? Because here’s a recent entry from his Twitter feed …

Good Man. How could I have doubted him? He’s still living the life. Or maybe he’s speaking in euphemisms there, who knows?

Hard to believe he’s 52. Tragically Shane MacGowan has had his teeth fixed now, but it would have been madness to draw him with perfect teeth. Nobody would recognise the pic.

You’d have to love him though. He’s become an Irish National Treasure. Although a pedant could point out that he’s not strictly 100% absolutely totally Irish in the technical sense of the word if you’re splitting hairs, but who cares? He’s more Irish than a lot of our soccer players.

Along with a few sports heroes, Shane MacGowan belongs to an elite revered group upon whom are conferred a special power - the power to walk into any pub in Ireland, stand at the bar, and wait for the stampede of punters wanting to buy him drink. Yes, even in Cavan.

I would imagine this really boils the piss of someone like, say, Michael Flately.