Check out Paul Bommer’s website for further details and feast your eyes on his glorious clickable image:

London Illustrators’ Gathering
on
Wednesday 10 March 2010, 7pm onwards
@
The Crown Tavern
43 Clerkenwell Green
London
Ec1R 0EG

Nearest tube: Farringdon Station-approx 3 minute walk

All Welcome!

Saturday was spent at the National Gallery in the company of friends and astounding Medieval paintings. En route to the gallery (an impromtu visit), we gawped at an abandoned nose stuck bubble-gum-like about a quarter of the way up the inside wall of Admiralty Arch.

Death usually stares back unashamedly in Medieval paintings. From political spin to seraphim, highbrow to shaved eyebrows, perspectives contorta (okay, maybe this word doesn’t exist), to snail-symbolism, gold & god, graceful harts, folded robes in profusion pink, to pre trans-fat Medieval flesh overburden by Medieval living and open wounds- how can one not be over-powered by all this visual? A painting by Piero di Cosimo called The Fight between the Lapiths and the Centaurs provoked much animated discussion. It’s a saucy violent wedding painting hot enough to fire-up middle-aged mortal loins. The painting appears to be one big phallic fightathon. Perhaps it may explain how the nose ended up on Admiralty Arch. Meanwhile, downstairs in the National Gallery’s pleasing Dinning Room, a fine looking leg of Parma ham remained as yet, unsliced.

Here’s a rough incomplete sketch of The Fight between the Lapiths and the Centaurs:

And here are my mates cunningly disguised as Middle Aged symbols. Don’t they look cute.

The tale (Gillian Smock has another bad dream):

Apart from the strange blue bird on my wooden ark, I was alone in the world. Rain fell for 30 days. On the 40th day, I waved ‘au revoir’ to the last drowning giraffe.A sea-scape dotted about with giraffes gasping for air is not a pleasant sight. I never liked giraffes, they made me feel short and insignificant. No one likes to feel short and insignificant. I was employed as Senior Assessment Administrator at the Department of Anger. I pushed forms. I also pushed people. My unique selling point was my ability to fill out forms blindfolded. With a job like mine you don’t need vision. Once I smelt the numbers and codes imprinted on the top far right hand corner of the form, I knew exactly how to complete the paperwork. If I could describe myself, I would say: I am that person walking on the sidewalk wishing everyone around me dead.
My troubles ended when the rain started. Everyone had drowned. I do not welcome over-capacity in any shape or form. I am a keen advocate of saving the planet which is why I don’t have children, however, my campaign against an evil book called ‘The Joys of Propagation’ proved unsuccessful. I received many death threats. Humans should not beget humans. I do not welcome family trees. I welcome condoms.
The bird got lucky, by the time it landed on my ark, my gun had run out of bullets.

They say one learns from mistakes. People talk a lot of crap just to shut you up in the vague hope you go away somewhat anaesthetised by tranquilizing dumb arse non committal platitudes. Do you ever suffer from anaesthetised hamster-in-the wheel syndrome whilst someone shouts at a distance to keep going coz one day you’ll get results? What if you never do? I’m in that ‘what if’ phase.

Here’s a bit of my line work fed into Photoshop resulting in unclear, unfocussed narrative. It’s not an end product, more the beginning of the end. This experiment needs narrative straight-jacketing and some sex appeal (ok, design appeal).