My Poor Mum Is In Hospital Again (shes Very Healthy But Has Had Really Bad Luck For The Last Couple Of

My poor Mum is in hospital again (she’s very healthy but has had really bad luck for the last couple of years) so I made her a get well soon card. She really likes Poppet so I hope it will cheer her up.

A while ago I wanted to do a comparison of some of the school uniforms my different characters wear, I can’t quite remember why. Nettle goes to a dreadful comprehensive school not unlike the one I went to, and wears a pretty casual uniform not unlike the one I wore. It might be the only time she ever wears trousers. (At my school only about 3 girls opted for a skirt.) Jessie goes to a slightly more upmarket school but I’m not sure any schools in the UK actually have a uniform like that, in the sense of one without a blazer but with an unusual skirt colour. Possibly there’s a blazer that Jessie prefers not to wear. I think the boys wear grey trousers rather than red. Patience lives in the present day and so has a very fancy-looking uniform, because for some reason UK schools all want fancy uniforms again? I very rarely see secondary school children in jumpers anymore, and more girls seem to opt for skirts again.

It’s been a while since I used my dip pen, I’m always afraid I’ll forget how to use it! I’m happy with how this turned out though. This is the Shaggy Ink-Cap, an edible mushroom native the UK (pick the baby ones if you want to eat them though). They sometimes dye your food black, and you can make ink out of them if you want to. We used to have a patch of these in our driveway but there were never enough to eat, which is a shame because they’re delicious.

Apparently I hadn't got all the eyes out of my system, so here are four more. These are three aliens from a story I don't think I've ever shared before, so I suppose this can be their first introduction! All of them are members of a royal court in the far future, far away from Earth. Their names and species are in the captions, if you want some very minimal information about them. Maybe I’ll post full portraits some other time?

Inktober 2018 : Day 5 - cartridge pen

Lena’s prophetic trances are involuntary, and come on without warning. Her friends have seen it before, but it doesn’t stop being frightening.

Inktober 2018 : Day 1 - Fountain Pentel When Nettle loses her temper at school, the sports field is the biggest casualty. It’s finally time for Inktober, my favourite art challenge of the year! I didn’t have access to my scanner for the first three days, but I was doing the drawings. This year I wanted to try to use some of my less cooperative pens, so this was done with my Fountain Pentel, a bizarre soft nib pen that isn’t a brush but sort of acts like one. I think it’s designed for writing kanji? It splatters a lot when I use it, but it also makes some really nice, scrappy sorts of lines. I think if I keep practicing I’ll be able to do something really good with it.