Sometimes when you have nothing to say it is best to just be upfront and honest about the fact.

I have nothing to say.

Posted by Dave at 11:59 pm on July 18, 2005 and filed under Mundane.

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An informational post.

These activities are ranked in order of enjoyability, with 1 being the least enjoyable. This assumes you are not organised / keen enough to sort everything out late at night after your guests have gone home.

1. Washing up
2. Cleaning the grease off the wire grill rack.
3. Carrying out pre-washing up activities.
4. Sweeping up the barbeque ash.
5. Putting away folding chairs.
6. Wiping surfaces where minor and insignificant spillages have occurred.
7. Put away sundry items: gas lamp, matches etc.
8. Deciding what do do with a number of miscellaneous food items.
9. Eating leftover sausages, salad, rolls etc.
10. Eating an excessive amount of leftover dessert.

Posted by Dave at 12:05 am on July 17, 2005 and filed under Essex Life, In-depth analysis.

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Whatever is going on here? Take a look at the full version of this cartoon on the main CartoonChurch.com site to find out.

This cartoon is of course available to subscribers to use in their own publications – see here for details.

Special note for Bloggers: You can use this particular cartoon on your blog – if you provide a link back to CartoonChurch.com or the Cartoon Blog that would be much appreciated. You will need to save the image onto your own webspace though as my images won’t work on your blog. You can use either the small cartoon (260 pixels wide) or the medium sized one (566 pixels wide) or resize it as you wish. I’m making occasional cartoons available for use in this way – obviously I can’t make them all freely available as I have to make a living every now and then and provide good value to the paying subscribers, but I’m hoping this is a fair way to provide some content for bloggers as well. If you have any questions about any of this let me know.

Posted by Dave at 11:52 am on July 15, 2005 and filed under Blogging, Cartoons.

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I was quite interested to find this blog of images of Christ in art, illustration and film entitled ‘Christ portrayed‘.

“As a Christian, I have always been interested in how Christ is depicted from culture to culture, from era to era. I found these images on the internet and, after aquiring quite a collection, I decided to post them here.”

Link discovered via the Cartoonist.

Posted by Dave at 9:56 pm on July 14, 2005 and filed under Art.

2 Comments

There is an interview with some cartoonist or other in the Christian Herald today. You can get to it via the main page and then clicking ‘features’, or at the time of writing this link will take you straight there but without the navigation frame.

If you’ve found the site via the Christian Herald – welcome! Hope you enjoy the site. Please do leave a comment by clicking ‘comments’ below this post. You do need to put in an e-mail address but it won’t be shown on the site.

Posted by Dave at 5:40 pm on July 14, 2005 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Cartooning.

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On Wibsite.com a little cultural exchange exercise has been happening whereby about 20 or so of our bloggers have been posting parcels to each other over vast distances. It is called ‘WISE’ – the Wibsite International Secret Exhange. I was the happy recipient of a parcel from Ian yesterday – and I am pleased to announce that I will not need to do any shopping as a result for several weeks. A superb selection of Australian goodies which you can see by clicking on the picture to the left. The ‘sweet and interesting’ image, by the way, is a detail from one of the biscuit packets which I rather liked. Anyway, thank you Ian!

I’m in the process of buying the last few bits and bobs for the WISE parcel I am about to send. My clue: it’s one of these: Maddie_C, Semele, Dave K, Deeleea, The Shifty Gnome, Ian, Jack the Lass, James, Tearsonroses, Never Conforming, Joe, Chalky, Smudgie, Yay, Fishsoup, Tractorgirl, Ramblin’ Folkie, Arti, Unordered or Nessa.

Posted by Dave at 9:50 pm on July 13, 2005 and filed under Sundry posts.

5 Comments

I’m rather exhausted tonight so there’s a slight dip in blogging quality. (As an aside, an old friend was amazed to hear that I could find something interesting to say every day on the blog. “I don’t remember you having one interesting thing to say every day back when we were in college Dave…” Me: “No, I was saving them all up”.)

Bad thing that happened today. Phase 1 of failing my MOT, or rather, my van failing it’s MOT. Phase 2 will come on Friday when they do the £400 of work and still find it fails.

Good thing that happened today. Some marvellous post. But I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

A link to keep you busy: Yahoo Buzz Log. A good way to keep up with popular culture if like me you live a life entirely cut off from the outside world. Geek factor: high.

Posted by Dave at 11:59 pm on July 12, 2005 and filed under Mundane, Sundry posts.

1 Comment

I asked art blogger and and blog artist Rob Pepper about the pens he uses and he very kindly sent me one. It’s a blue ink pen from a large chain of uk supermarkets (Name similar to ‘DISCO’ but with some different letters).

I’ve included a photograph of the pen (left), but not with me holding it as a recent commenter has told me that I have ‘feminine looking’ hands which need ‘butching up’. I will no longer be posting photographs of my hands on the blog.

Anyway, about the pen:

Plus points:
- It writes / draws very well.
- It is superb value (under a pound).
- It’s a cartridge pen so you could change the ink. I do everything in black so I’d need to get a black cartridge if I was using it for my artwork.
- I suspect it would last longer than the fibre tip and fineliner pens I use.

Minus points:
- I find that occasionally I don’t get a line even when the pen is on the paper. I suspect this is because I sometimes press too lightly being used to a fibre tip pen where a slightly lighter touch produces a slightly thinner line. Or it might be that I hold the pen at a funny angle or something like that.
- I’m not used to using an ink pen for drawing, and so at the moment I still prefer the results when I use a fibre tip. I suspect this would change if I used an ink pen a lot.

Many thanks to Rob for sending me the pen. Do take a look at some of Rob’s work. His blog drawing are done using the “Conscious Reflex Drawing” method, technical name for not looking at the paper whilst drawing. You can order prints of the pictures on the blog by clicking on the image you’re interested in. Rob’s Doxology pictures, drawn during services at central London churches might be of particular interest.

Posted by Dave at 10:42 am on July 11, 2005 and filed under Art, Cartooning.

6 Comments

Assuming that, like me, recent events aren’t going to put you off travelling around London here is an exhibition I’d recommend seeing if you’re in the capital over the summer. The BP Portrait Award 2005 is at the National Portrait Gallery just off Trafalgar Square. Although it is possible to see very small versions of the portraits online you really have to see them full size to get the full impact. Over 1000 artists entered pictures with the best 50 or so being shown in the gallery, and they really are very very good. It’s well worth a look, even if you think that portaits aren’t really your thing. If you go for a wander around the rest of National Portrait Gallery you may well bump into some other paintings you enjoy, but for me the other highlight of my visit was the computer room where you can browse any number of portraits from the NPG collection. I found some of the early cartoons quite interesting, and the fact that the computer room has big comfy leather chairs is an added bonus when you’ve been on your feet wandering around looking at art for a while. And it’s all free.

Posted by Dave at 4:42 pm on July 10, 2005 and filed under Art.

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Opinion seems to be divided as to whether the G8 summit was a success. ‘Good but not great‘, says the Economist, a view shared by the Guardian, who describe it as a ‘missed opportunity’. This piece on the BBC seems optimistic, and Geldof and Bono appeared to be quite positive about it on the news programme I saw last night. On the other hand there is quite a bit of negativity on a few sites I’ve been reading this morning. Oxfam isn’t happy. The Make Poverty History response states:

“Today the G8 chose not to do all that we have asked them that could set those people free. The people of the world are already on the road to justice. They expect their leaders to be with them. Today’s announcement has shown that the G8 need to run much faster to catch up.”

I note in particular that the 0.7% of GDP figure that was previously promised for aid has been entirely left out. The USA currently gives 0.16% of GDP.

Anyone else have any wise and/or insightful insights?

(Click ‘read the rest of this entry’ for the full ‘Make Poverty History’ response).
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Dave at 12:31 pm on July 9, 2005 and filed under Current events, Make Poverty History.

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I put all 14 of the Porpoise competition entrants into a saucepan and the winners (in alphabetical order) are as follows:

Carolyn
Darren
Ron M
Sarah
Yay

Conratulations to the five of you. Your Porpoises will be on their way as soon as I get your postal addresses. I must add that my saucepan lottery to determine the winners was carried out in an entirely fair and honest manner – the fact that 4 of the winners were the first 4 people to post really was an entire co-incidence. There really were 14 pieces of paper and you really were thoroughly mixed and mingled. I suppose I should really have had a neutral observer but then you’d have had to wait a while longer.

If you didn’t win and are in the UK you can still order a copy of Porpoise very easily by sending a pound coin and a stamp as explained here. If you’re not in the UK and therefore have no access to a pound coin but would still like one send me an e-mail and I’ll talk to Si and see what we can do.

Posted by Dave at 12:45 pm on July 8, 2005 and filed under Quizzes and competitions.

2 Comments

I haven’t felt much like doing anything in the way of cartoon work today I have to say following the terrorist attacks in London this morning. Thoughts and prayers go to all affected by today’s events.

I’ve posted a thread on the Wibsite bulletin board with links to one two of the other Wibsite bloggers who have been posting today.

This is the link to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s response which I’ve tried (and failed) to post elsewhere.

Update:
“Every community I belong to sprang in to action yesterday and I heard from people I haven’t talked to for years.”
Report from A heartbreaking work of staggering tiredness on yesterdays events. She is a journalist working in central London.

Posted by Dave at 3:36 pm on July 7, 2005 and filed under Current events.

1 Comment