An article/rant/annotation to an illustration. A #Hackney bar and its flies.
This picture is not as sad and blue as it might at first seem, I promise.
It is early in the week and the pub becomes the territory of the most outspoken drinkers. Raised somewhere between Churchill and Harold MacMillan, a night such as this is time for them to spin out a yarn of nostalgic fantasy. Encouraged by the lack of a crowd and with space to fill, statements start to fly.
In the opening rounds the barman athletically hits back with factual blocks and reality-check haymakers; statistics and personal experiences are given. Two histories cross examined, one where 1982 means Thatcher and the Falklands, the other renders Reagan and the AIDS crisis. Stoicism and national pride vs mental health and realism.
In the latter rounds the barman is fatigued, swaying on the backbar, glasses begin to stack up as form begins to drop. The older men seem stronger than ever.
The barflies come in close now, they scrutinise his generations work ethic and make wild political comments on poverty, immigrants and the minimum wage.
The barman is close to sheer bloody despair, he maintains his defence and focuses on breathing while maintaining his professional stance.
But at the end of the night the barman knows HE will ring that bell, they will politely leave and they will return again in a week and maybe, just maybe there will be a change, common ground or maybe at least polite silence.
But what these interactions have given despite the salt in the eye is community and an exchange between generations, culture and class of those participating. No home is ever straight forward, no relative without their good and bad traits and in a world where we often slide into echo chambers online or in our physical environments, the pub is still a place where society is family, face to face, pint to pint. Or maybe it's just a room with alcohol on tap?
In wanting to get active with my fellow doodler community, I wanted to stop in and introduce myself. My name is Dalton Stark, I live in Texas, and i'm a doodle addict, and an advocate for the possibility of anything. For me, doodling is my purest state of being human. My sketchbooks are a very sacred place for me to practice this expressive and arcane form of imagination meditation, which I'm always trying to find more excuses to spend more time in. It is to me, all about intuition, making discoveries, surprising yourself, having fun and maybe even making yourself and others smile or laugh sometimes. I look forward to being a part of this beautiful inky ecosystem with y'all, here are some very secret sketchbook spreads.
An abstract and floral doodle of mine that is available as a print on products on Redbubble, Society6, Zazzle, and Threadless. Try this link for access to all: https://linktr.ee/okhismakingart
Doodle piano by Cédric la touffe. Superforma and The Silo asked me to customize the old piano that was outside at the silo. I first started during the concerts of 10lec6, Loire Valley Valypsos, The Green box and Ineige then finished at Silo after 22 hours of work.
My vision of the character ‘Smaug’ from J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’.
Pencil sketch, coloured digitally on IbisPaint X.
Here is a passage from The Hobbit describing Smaug’s appearance: “There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light. Smaug lay, with wings folded like an immeasurable bat, turned partly on one side, so that the hobbit could see his underparts and his long pale belly crusted with gems and fragments of gold from his long lying on his costly bed.”
This painting is a technique I enjoy mostly because I see figures in the ordinary and draw them out from what I see in abstract backgrounds I paint. In it you see a group of people enjoying time together. I used Acrylics on Aquaboard, a surface especially made for many layers of wet media.
Fineliner scribblings on a back ground of paper... . . . ... . . . . . . ..... . ... . . . . . ...... ... . . A rabble of sozzled birds on a tightrope of joy heading towards the puppet master up above. . . .... . . ... . .... .. .... .. ... . . . . Prints are available (16 out of 20 at the time of going to press) . ..............................
This piece was done with watercolour crayons, crayons, fineliner, acrylic paint and a touch of posca. I was showing that love can be blind and sometimes almost arrogant and selfish, the arrow has hit the spot on the second attempt but the scars are still to be seen. Although the person playing cupid aint always an outside force. I enjoy playing with the titles and am constantly changing and thinking of what it will be called when doing the piece, but i do like my wordplay. this one was a play on horticulture and felt it all tied in to the final design :))
This is available as an a3 sized print.
Recently, I was asked to illustrate the Discworld as imagined in Terry Prachett's work. The illustration (24 "X 24") was printed on a self-adhesive vinyl and applied to the mandator's car.
