I’d like to give a quick mention to Paul, whose children’s comic book ‘Exile Road’ is being used by the Spring Harvest Christian holidays this year. Paul writes a ‘Wiblog’ on my other site (the one that was broken but is now less broken than it was). You can read information and discussion about it on the Spring Harvest Christian holidays site.

Just as an insignificant aside, is anyone who reads this weblog going to the Minehead Week 1 Spring Harvest Christian holiday from the 5th to the 10th of April this year? I have no particular reason for asking - it is just idle chatter.

Posted by Dave at 6:53 pm on February 27, 2008 and filed under Cartooning, Art, Ecumenical matters, Religion.

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The UCCF are encouraging Christian students to help illustrate the gospel of Mark using doodles. The scheme is called ‘oodles of doodles’ and is explained here. 400 000 copies of the doodled-upon gospels will then be given out to students this September.

An example of a good evangelistic doodle is shown above. One assumes that the three lightening bolts represent the wrath of God, the heart represents the human condition, and the five stars represent astrology. I don’t know about the seaweed - I haven’t worked that out yet.

The doodles must not use words or letters as explained in the downloadable instructions, reproduced below. It would appear that numbers are OK. Punctuation is a grey area, and therefore discouraged. Non-literal gospel drawings are encouraged, but not outside the box.

I for one am in favour of encouraging people to doodle so I think this scheme has my hearty backing. It is my opinion that pens and paper should be given out on the way into all church services. If everyone did more drawing the problems in this world would be cut by about 10-12%.

Monks have been illustrating gospels since early times. This is also relevant, but I forget why.

Background information: The UCCF is a conservative evangelical university Christian Unions organisation. See here to see the posts I’ve written about them in the past.

Posted by Dave at 5:28 pm on January 25, 2008 and filed under Cartooning, Art, Ecumenical matters, Religion.

13 Comments

Important update: The e-mail referred to in this post has been confirmed as a hoax. Please don’t forward the message on if you receive it. Details below.

The following e-mail has been both circulating and doing the rounds:

‘Royal Mail has traditionally alternated between sacred and secular designs for their Christmas stamps and this year it is the turn for a religious image. Royal Mail has issued two sets of designs this year. The main set of designs, available in all the main denominations is of angels, which is vaguely Christian but not explicitly so and certainly not specifically Christmassy. They have also issued a ‘Madonna and Child’ design for first and second class only. Post Office staff have been instructed to only sell this design if people specifically request it, but obviously people can’t request it if they don’t know it exists! If people don’t buy these stamps, Royal Mail will claim there is no demand for religious Christmas stamps and not produce them in future. Please therefore ask for ‘Madonna and Child’ stamps when you do your Christmas posting and also tell your friends, contacts etc. to do the same. Thank You.’

I have seen it on a number of blogs, including Richard’s Connexions (here and here), David Faulkner’s (here and here), Anglican Main Stream (here and here) as well as a Facebook group which I joined because Ruth Gledhill joined it and I am easily led and I didn’t want to be missing out. The Ship of Foolsers are discussing it too. Some of these sources are sceptical, but some aren’t.

The BBC reported on a related story a month ago. To see these stamps in greater detail I’d recommend this site which has in-depth analysis, pictures and (if that wasn’t enough) some commemorative postmarks. As you will note the angel stamps commemorate the tercentenary of Charles Wesley, ‘Anglican priest, co-founder of the Methodist movement and hymn-writer’.

Well, I don’t know. I, like this blogger, think the e-mail is all a lot of nonsense. If you are a Royal Mail employee who has been instructed to hide the ‘Madonna and Child’ stamps behind the driving-licence-change-of-address forms, then please do write in. Please, I am willing to be proved wrong if there is evidence to the contrary. But until that happens we should do what we should do with all forwarded e-mails with no verifying source - ignore them. Unless you’d like the ‘Madonna and Child’ stamps of course, in which case feel free ask for them - just don’t take too long about it as I and all the other readers of this blog will be waiting in the queue behind you.

The rest of us will have to make do with the John Wesley series. We’ll just have to live with the fact that commemorating one of the best hymn writers in the world (ever) is ‘vaguely Christian but not explicitly so’.

Update: From the comments section of the Blue Anorak site:

Royal Mail has been pleased to clarify the situation which is that no such instruction has been made, but that with 14,000 post offices around the country practice might vary as to what customers are offered. They have made the following statement:

“There is absolutely no intention on our part to suppress sales of the Madonna and Child stamps in order to be able to claim there is low demand for religious stamps in future years. Indeed, we have produced tens of millions of them, and we want to sell them!! We have given publicity to both types of Christmas stamps, and the availability of both has been widely covered in the national and local press. Furthermore we plan to have the Madonna and Child stamps available every Christmas in future, alongside each year’s “special” set, which will continue to alternate between religious and secular themes.”

I’m waiting to hear whether this has been posted anywhere ‘official’ so we can squash this thing once and for all.

See also Nicthevic’s post in the comments below:

Revd Paula Vennells, who is a non-stipendiary minister in the Diocese of St Albans, and Network Director for the Post Office says this:

“The rumour that the Royal Mail may be encouraged to stop printing religious stamps at Christmas is completely unfounded; and the request to circulate it has been extraordinarily unhelpful…No-one in Royal Mail group gets up in the morning with the negative motivation implied.”

This e-mail is almost certainly a hoax. Let’s try to get the word out, but by contacting webmasters etc, not forwarding on e-mails.

Posted by Dave at 6:19 pm on December 7, 2007 and filed under Church, Art, Current events, Religion.

6 Comments

I’ve always found that the word ‘row’ helps to attract visitors to a blog post, hence the title.

One of my cartoons is being used as part of an exhibition in the Hereford Cathedral library. I was unaware of the fact until Simon, of Thinking Anglicans website fame, saw it there and reported the fact to me. I am flattered of course, as I am rarely exhibited, although it might have been nice to have been told.

The exhibition is called Distorted Image, and…

It explores how distorted images throughout history have resulted in prejudice, discrimination and enslavement.

…which is encouraging.

I’d like to apologise now for all of the prejudice, discrimination and enslavement that my work has caused. The cartoon in question, which is in a display case along with several old books including Amazing Grace originals and suchlike, is this one:

Posted by Dave at 11:59 pm on July 22, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Art, Festivals and Exhibitions, Anglican goings-on, Religion.

34 Comments

This is an urgent request from the Anglican Communion Office:

Any Anglican Episcopal church with an image of The Transfiguration is asked to send a photo (scan) ASAP to the Editor, for use in our magazine.

Just to repeat, a photo of the Transfiguration is required by the Anglican Communion Office. If you were present at the Transfiguration and managed to get a photo then please do send it in to them. I appreciate that most of those present at the Transfiguration would not have had a camera, so a photo from a mobile phone will do just fine. If you were present at the aforementioned event Jim Rosenthal would like to hear from you.

Thank you.

Posted by Dave at 9:43 pm on June 20, 2007 and filed under Art, Anglican goings-on, Religion.

8 Comments

I have taken this from my ‘to scan’ pile. Drawings go in the ‘to scan’ pile if I am not filled with enough enthusiasm to scan and use them, but they are worth keeping rather than throwing in the bin. It is a kind of purgatory-like state in which cartoons can stay for many weeks or months. Possible years in fact, but I do not think that the ‘to scan’ pile has existed for a year yet. Before that the ‘to scan’ pile was part of a shared ‘paperwork’ pile, which in turn has existed in one form or another since I was old enough to own paperwork, so perhaps about thirty years.

It is a rough copy of a motivational Bible reading poster. The idea is that such a poster would be affixed to the wall, perhaps with blu-tak, and by its presence would encourage greater diligence in Bible reading. It is a project I might or might not pursue depending on the demand. The artwork is shoddy thus far, I will admit. The man has a thin head and no ear. I know that there are people with thin heads and no ears, but this is a poor depiction.

I could produce motivational posters on other topics if the demand was there. Perhaps general ones: ‘Show greater enthusiasm’. That sort of thing.

Posted by Dave at 11:57 pm on June 17, 2007 and filed under Art, Religion.

10 Comments

This post is of interest mainly to people reading who are fairly local to me, which is probably in the region of between none and three.

The Leigh Art Trail is on at the moment in Leigh on Sea. The idea is that lots of local artists display their work in different venues, and people can wander around and take a look. This is a BBC report. It finishes this Saturday, the 16th of June, so I am a bit late posting about it.

We are going there this evening as some of my oil paintings are on display in the college where I have been doing my evening course. It is part of an exhibition called ‘ART’, so called because that is what it is. The exhibition does not really seem to be advertised anywhere unfortunately, but it it is at the Leigh Community Centre in Elm road, which is about 12 minutes from the railway station. It is next door to the Police Station and just down from the Sarah Moore pub. Leigh is about 50 minutes from London Fenchurch street using the railway. The Art Trail would make a nice day out on Saturday perhaps. You could print off a map and everything. Do not travel specially to see my paintings from any distance though as your disappointment will be widespread and bitter.

If art isn’t your thing there is a free folk festival in a few weeks time.

Posted by Dave at 1:27 pm on June 14, 2007 and filed under Essex Life, Art.

7 Comments

At the weekend we went to a Church Weekend Away. This is a time when a church goes away, usually for a weekend. The aim is to become a more enthusiastic Christian. We went to Ashburnham. I love Ashburnham. It is a sort of a Mecca for Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and those on Church Weekends Away. For Evangelicals it is probably one of the holiest sites in East Sussex.

These are some leaves I wrote on and left on a bench for the Pentecostals to discover. I enjoy leaving messages for Pentecostals. You should try it.

In the end I went back to the bench and retrieved the leaves as (1) I decided that you might enjoy them more than the Pentecostals, and (2) It occurred to me that one of the Pentecostals might have their Church Weekend Away ruined by finding the leaves and not knowing what to make of them. The last thing I want to do is ruin someone else’s Church Weekend Away.

Posted by Dave at 9:41 pm on June 12, 2007 and filed under Church, Art, Religion.

18 Comments

There is a new church cartoonist in town - see Ian’s Youthful Blog for the particulars. I am impressed. I am not good at doing cartoons about baptism and especially communion, so have secretly made some notes.

On a not-really-related-but- slightly-related-I-suppose note, here is a good piece about how to display artwork on the internet. It is taken from the promising-looking ‘lines and colors‘ weblog. I will be reading half of it because I do not really do colours.

In News: I had mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwiches for lunch in an attempt to lift my morale. I pick the basil leaves fresh from the plant in the kitchen which you are only supposed to water when it droops. It seems cruel but that is what the label says to do. I love basil. I even like the sound of the word. Basil, basil, basil. Mmmm.

Update: Ian has added more junior cartoon church pictures.

Posted by Dave at 11:59 pm on June 6, 2007 and filed under Cartooning, Art, Links: cartoonists.

9 Comments

If you want to become a world renowned artist overnight the Anglican Communion can help you. All you have to do is design the official Anglican Christmas card for 2007.

The only slight confusion is that the Anglican Communion website says “please note the request to send a copy, rather than the original artwork”, whereas the poster says “Original artwork only please”.

This is the true test. Anyone who can solve the riddle an produce artwork that is an original but not an original ca win the glittering prize.

Posted by Dave at 5:23 pm on May 22, 2007 and filed under Art, Anglican goings-on, Religion.

6 Comments

This is a scene from my Tuesday night portrait painting class. The model is reclining, and the painting is midway through the first of four two hour sessions. The medium is oils. Viewers with eagle eyes will perhaps see a thin brush poised on the easel.

I don’t know how people model for art classes. I tried it for ten minutes and found myself wanting to laugh at nothing in particular. I think it is because the tutor has to explain to each pupil why they have not quite got your chin right and that your nose should be longer etc.

I have been enjoying this class - even more than the still life oil painting course I did before it. The people who paint portraits are more sociable than the ones who paint still lifes (or should it be ‘lives’ - I don’t really know). I find it relaxing because with painting one does not have to think up as many ideas.

I don’t know whether I will do another course in Leigh on Sea next term. On Tuesday some youths in a car pulled up as I was walking back to the station and started to ask me questions in silly voices. All very funny, but intimidating when you are on your own armed only with a sketchbook, a small tube of burnt umber and a nearly empty bottle of turps. This is the third incident involving threatening groups of youths in cars in the twenty five weeks I have been going. I do not feel that safe in this part of Essex after dark, but perhaps I need to toughen up a bit. I’m sure it is very safe compared to many places in the world. And armed with my tube of burnt umber I could probably take on most adversaries anyhow.

Posted by Dave at 11:56 pm on May 3, 2007 and filed under Art, Photographs.

9 Comments

Former Beano and Dandy artist Graham Kennedy sent me some links to a couple of sites that he runs to do with illustrating the Bible. First of all the Bible Picture Website, which has his work available to buy for use with children’s sunday school groups etc, and then the Bible illustration blog, which deals with some of the issues faced when illustrating the Bible. An interesting sample post: Bible pictures: Cartoon Vs Realism.

Above: Feeding the 5000 in 3D. This will be ideal for readers who happen to be wearing green and red tinted spectacles. You can buy this image and some others as a powerpoint here (I’ve had to reduce it to fit into my template - the original is way way clearer). You can buy the special specs too.

I don’t know that my black and white cartoons would work terribly well in 3D. I’d need to do lots of sculpting with bits of wire.

Posted by Dave at 9:39 am on May 2, 2007 and filed under Cartooning, Art, Links: cartoonists, Religion.

5 Comments