Ash Dieback.

M.R. James, The Ash Tree.

It's not my favourite of the James pieces I've done but it's the one where I've managed to give myself the creeps.

All Mouth.

More M.R. James. Poor afflicted Mr Dunning passes an unsettled night.

"The obvious course was to find a match, and also to consult his watch: he might as well know how many hours of discomfort awaited him. So he put his hand into the well-known nook under the pillow: only, it did not get so far. What he touched was, according to his account, a mouth, with teeth, and with hair about it, and, he declares, not the mouth of a human being."

 

Now, if you want to extrapolate any sort of Freudian interpretation of the fear of a mouth with teeth and hair all about it, that is of course your prerogative as an independent reader.

American Robotic

'American Robotic', pencil on A3 paper, 15cm x 18cm.

Building.

Started this with some extravagant ideas in mind of filling in under Mr Waits with portraits of characters - Edna Million in a drop-dead suit, Jack the Cutter and the Pockmark Kid, Birdy Joe Hoaks and the like, but it stalled before I finished his hat. 

Lord Bunn then posted some beautifully ornate lettering work in progress on Twitter, and the lights went on again. 

Pencil, all pencil. A3 paper.

Lunch Break

When they built the highest building yet, they found odd things up there. Odd but friendly.

Lunch Break, pencil on paper, 16cm x 20cm, on A3.