Mick and Keith’s day off

In England, it’s traditional for elderly couples to spend their remaining days sitting in deckchairs and not saying anything to each other. You can see this in most English seaside towns. With each passing year, Mick and Keith look more and more like a couple that ran out of things to say years ago, but nonetheless are determined to stick it out to the bitter end. In this drawing Mick has finally got round to reading Keith’s 2010 memoir, ‘Life’ in which Keith lets all his feelings out towards Mick (hence that rather sheepish look of Keith’s). But better out than in don’t you think?

Streetview

Most of the things in this drawing come from things found on Google Streetview. It is all drawn in different kinds of cobalt blue. I wanted to get a Delft-blue style look going, and I sent away for as many different drawing materials in cobalt blue as I could, but they all came back in these different shades of blue. I have no idea what the real cobalt blue should look like. But there we go.

Not going out

Not going out—drawn in pencil, charcoal, and pen and ink.

Also shown is the original idea in my ideas book. I’ve had this one book for years, where I put the ideas down so I don’t forget them. Sometimes it’s ages before I actually draw one up properly. This was one of those.

William Burroughs

William Burroughs‘s final diary entry reads:

“Thinking is not enough. Nothing is. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience—any fucking thing. No Holy Grail, no final satori, no final solution. Just conflict.
Only thing can resolve conflict is love…Pure love.
Love? What is it?
Most natural painkiller what there is.
LOVE.”