Vopnaburið has arrived

Since my last post, many months ago, the sun and moon have danced through the sky, seasons have shifted around me, and a new shop and studio space have taken shape in Reykjavik's Fishpacking District thanks to the endless toiling of myself and my man, the ever talented Sruli Recht. It is called Vopnaburið. Icelandic for The Armoury.

Therein, we sell Sruli's products of refined luxury and my illustrative creations in the form of original artworks and printed goods. Hold your breath and squeeze your eyes shut tight and before you know it, my new range of gift wrap will be available for purchase instore and online.

Three of Spades

In a way, she felt like they had already kissed long ago. More than a kiss. The sum of hundreds of stolen glances, private smiles and small conspiracies was much greater in her mind than a dozen kisses. She wondered how long you had to look at someone before you had reached the equivalent of a kiss? How many inscrutable moments were necessary to constitute the right to ask for something tangible? What was worth more: the reality of lips finally meeting, hungrily, in haste, or a collection of remembered incidents that could be replayed, extrapolated upon, and made perfect by the passage of time? The idea of it exhausted her, drained her of reason, and kept her alive at the same time. His power, neither absolute nor fatal, was nonetheless akin to the spadille itself, and definitely of the same suit. He trumped her like a metaphorical Three of Spades. And from her beating core to her jangling senses, she loved every minute of it.

'Twas the Night Before Fistmas...

'Twas the night before Christmas,

And deep in their lair

Assassins lay baking

Their weapons with care.

Their foes were all nestled down snug in their beds,

As visions of skirmishes danced in their heads.

‘Kerchiefs at their throats, and treason in mind,

These devious bakers their talents combined.

One good with alchemy the other construction,

An evil intent their MO for production.

They sharpened their blades and measured their spices,

And baked a whole tray full of deadly devices.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

The bite of the wind and the shriek of a crow.

All played a part in their reprobate scheme

To make killer cookies with a seasonal theme.

They spoke not a word as they granted their treats,

To the cutthroats and cretins they knew from the streets.

Sweet on the tooth, with a sting in the tail,

Perfect for tea parties or a spot of blackmail.

As the dim dawn of Christmas appeared in a sliver,

They swiftly disposed of the evidence down river.

You could hear them exclaim, as they drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a clean fight!"

Thank you to one Sruli Recht for saving Christmas and flying co-baker on this one.

New Sugar

Most excellent online publication New Sugar recently published a handful of my work in their second edition, bless them. Here is a sneak preview of the showcase. But please do pop along to their site and download the magazine if a) you're at all interested in what's new and super sweet in illustration, 2) you're keen to hear how I answer such questions as "Favourite biscuit?", and thirdly) well, actually there is no thirdly. But who am I to contest the magic number?

Boys, boys, boys.

So I've decided that it is my duty, as a professional, to study boys. Illustratively speaking. In detail. See what I do for you people? Always taking the tough assignments.

This winsomely skew-whiff fellow is the first in a series. More to come.

Pay-pah.

If I were a bird, once I was done with free-wheelin' in the clouds and conversatin' with bees and flowers and things, I would return home to my nest. And what would my nest be made of? Why, paper, natch. Scraps of ancient manuscript and offcuts of pricey lineney stationery and whatever bits of delicious, battered, mysterious parchment I could get my claws into. Would I be a bowerbird? Probably. But then again, it's only hoarding when left unused, stockpiling, right? And I use my paper, every last shred.

The thing about beautiful paper is the drawing often emerges from it. That's half the work done before you even begin.

Why I Heart Free London Museums (# 2687 in a series).

The rap sheet of Pandora is long, the beautiful devilry of her seductive charms blamed for liberating all the evils of mankind. The original femme fatale, she kept nothing on her bedside table but a box full of hope.

Helen had more of the victim about her. Hatched from the egg of Zeus, kidnapped by lusty Athenians, courted by Gods and monsters, and raped by Paris, she now stands prostrate in cracked marble watching the tourist trade glance by.

You can find these heroines, these contradictory models of womanhood, not in Grecian fields of weatherworn ruins, but sitting primly in the great sculpture hall of the Victoria and Albert museum. (Just after ye olde gift shoppe, innit.) No man has flung themselves at their feet for some time. Few look upon them now as the goddesses they once were. From their modern vantage point, it's just a daily procession of list-ticking sightseers and the unseeing galleratti. They're long since used to being overlooked.

Perhaps why they were so happy to be sketched.

Wouldn't you just kill for one of those mythological profiles?