Herion- the Velvet Underground

Heroin.
You think, female hero? Then you think...no. That's not quite right. (I mean, that could be the stuff that the heroine was on to save the world...but heroin does not equal heroine and that's that!) But that's just the heroin part.. (and how I thought of Alice, who is a hero in Wonderland).

I love the name "The Velvet Underground​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​". It makes me think of moles in mauve velvet waistcoats and spectacles a-rest on their noses scurrying through their doily infested chambers which are their homes. And with that, I think of Wind in the Willows. And childhood. And my all time favourite Disney movie from way back when, Alice in Wonderland.

This is photo from my bedroom. Tiny tiny chair with a tiny book with a dusty red leather cover, gold trimmed pages and black and white sketches of the original Alice In Wonderland. The point? General love and adoration of Lewis Carroll. He is an inspiration for weird thinking. And we all need more weird in our lives..

So back to songs and meanings and cool band names. I had originally done a drawing of moss, and the ground beneath it, put it upside down so it was the velvet (moss) under the ground.

It was terrible.

Luckily old Lewis, ever faithful, was sitting on my chair...

The velvet part is the ribbon in Alice's hair...and she's underground because silly thing fell down that rabbit hole..

And as for the whole heroin thing-I am reminded of when Alice drinks a bottle of unknown stuff because the label told her to. Similarly, she eats that mushroom from a hubbly-smoking caterpillar with millions of feet.
That sort of naivety is often how people get into drugs, that and pressure. Pressure from the general cool, no exact face. A label on a bottle...

(Lastly I have done two cover arts. The second with no banana skin. This is the alternative cover, which had a banana peel sticker on top of it, and you'd peel it off.)

I love this page.

The Boxer

2 playlists down, 25 days left, 8 to go! (Pressured much?) 


And so we come to The Wonderful Playlist of Fantastic Mr Fox. (Background info...Fantastic Mr Fox is Matthew. And he is this cool guy who is simply mad on the guitar.) 
Miles Wavis aka 47 ft. Fantastic Mr Fox - "the Mighty Bosch" from Matthew Dickinson on Vimeo.



So from his playlist I've chosen two songs, the first being The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel.



I then went all nature lover on my sketchbook and decided to show a figure putting up owl boxes.
In the shadow you can see the owls that are there thanks to it (and how far it gets determines the amount of homes for the owls...) Another thing...the figure doesn't have a gender, or a name, or represent someone. It is a representation of man. And how a single, anonymous person can made a noticable impact. 


The circle thing is the sun setting, I think. The sun setting on an idea, the idea finished. Completed. (Hence the red background).


Sometimes I don't know why I draw what I do...

Nevertheless.

Hero

People of the world, Happy Christmas!

Well it's been ages since I touched my sketchbook, and what more perfect a day to fill it than an overcast day, with Love Actually on a loop and eating marzipanned fruitcake day?

I chose another song from my playlist, "Hero" by Regina Spektor. (Awesome song. I did know it before I met the 500 Days of Summer playlist, however. (http://www.500days.com/500-days-of-summer-soundtrack-listing.html) A note on the movie, it had lovely clothes and actors and music...but that is it.)

Back to Hero, and what I did.

I decided to show a patriotic side, and with it, South Africa's pride in Nelson Mandela.

We are known as the rainbow nation, and his is the face of it. That's why it only made sense to show his face in all the colours of the South African flag (namely black, white, yellow, green, red and blue).

Here's to you, Madiba!

Ps. For interest's sake: Madiba is the name of the Xhosa tribe to which Mandela belongs. Culturally, it is a sign of respect to call someone by their tribe's name.