The One

Something a bit different this time .

This is the first of the 'Graffiti' pictures ,inspired by 'One among the sleepless'.I've had rough sketches and ideas for months but haven't been able to pull anything together that did this great story justice .I felt the illustrations had to be contemporary and taking my inspiration (in part)from the underpasses near my home i settled on the Graffiti idea .This one shows the 'Petrol'

scene (if you're not familiar with the story go to http://www.mikebennettpodcast.com/ to find out more).

I've used ink ,pencils ,spray cans ,sandpaper and bits of text from old magazines to create a stressed and worn surface to paint the images onto .The trick with these pics was to work very quickly and not worry too much about how accurate the drawings were .this i hope has acheived something that has the spontaneous feel of Graffiti .

As always listen to the story and please feel free to comment .

As the moon rises...(pastel on paper )

The more i see this the more it looks like a companion picture for ALL HAIL!

A kind of before and after thing ,this one shows a calm Underwood caught at the moment of change .Colours and patterns swirl around him as the moon rises ,settling as he is transformed in the vampire Underwood!.As always check out the story at http://www.mikebennettpodcast.com/ and any comments are always well recieved.

Underwood's Gramophone (The Bleeding Gramophone)

Underwood's Gramophone (The Bleeding Gramophone)

Inspired by the closing scenes of U&F part one . Where David enters the room to find Underwood listening to music ,while the body of Gavin lies a few feet away .This is a great scene ,made i think by the production . The choice of music is inspired and really sets the mood for the closing scenes .With the Gramophone picture i've tried to draw on the uneasy calm of the scene .I have two versions of 'gramophone ',this is the more graphic of the two ,and the more disturbing !.As always pop over to http://mikebennettpodcast.com to listen to listen to this great podcast .

Point of entry(acrylic on canvas)

Strange one this .....!

Strange ,that it seemed to almost produce itself .I took Mike's idea of an entry point into the Hall of Mirrors that was always moving ,well that was my take on it !,and portrayed it as a moving ,breathing ,living thing .There is obviously a surreal feel to this painting and i hope a touch of humour as well .

And the shovel ,well that's a reference to a couple of incidents in the Hall of Mirrors tales .

Visit Mike's site www.mikebennettpodcast.com to find them if you like ,or contact me .

And i will reveal all!

The last words of Geoffrey Leech (acrylic on paper)

One of my favourite images ,inspired by the H.O.M.story 'Salvation'. This idea came very quickly and is meant to portray the hopelessness of Geoffrey's situation .The tape over the mouth represents the frustration of being in a situation that no one would believe . I was also reading AH POOK IS HERE by William Burroughs at the time which contains a line 'screaming without a tongue without a voice'.So the image is a sort of merging of ideas from the two stories i suppose.

The image is painted using Acrylics ,a medium that i seem to be using more and more these days .

My local gallery did recently tell me that this and some other recent work ,'wasn't really their thing'. So i don't know if that's a good or bad thing really.Still i don't do' sheep in fields' or 'still life with vase '

Sadly Underwood and Flinch has come to the end of part one .If you haven't heard it you should get over to www.mikebennettpodcast.com because it really is a great episode ,well done Mike !

All Hail !! (pastel on paper)

An attempt to create something not scary as such ,but a bit disturbing .
I was after capturing the moment his lordship turns to the sect after being ressurected ,after tasting blood!.The image started as a doodle and just grew into a portrait of Underwood ,over a period of a couple of days .It is very hard to produce an image that is scary ,because we are bombarded with images every second of every day ,but a friend recently saw 'All Hail' and told me 'that looks well fucked up!'.So job done there then .

I've also created a U&F file on my flickr page www.flickr.com/photos/artofthewatchman/ ,where you can also find an illustration called 'Monster' inspired by the poem of the same name from Mike Bennett's 'MissWong ,someday we'll meet again' poetry podcast which can be found atwww.mikebennettpodcast.com or itunes.

So pop over to Mike's site and have a listen !

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Underwood lives!

Inspired by U&F episode 16 ,this captures the moment when the blood starts to enter the bearded Underwood's body ,and life starts to to flow through him !
I also tried to get a sense of worshipping Underwood into it by the use of the hands ,so "all hail ,the lord UNDERWOOD"! (Oh ,and don't forget to become a follower of U&F and this blog !!,but don't get killed in the rush to do that !!!).
As always any questions ....