Remember the well between the four yew trees

Once upon our great-grandfather's time - or great-great-grandfathers's - a schoolboy named McLeod had a lot of trouble with an in class assignment. He sat and he sat and he just couldn't get the grammar right, until he was the last one left in the classroom. Until suddenly the words came to him, but words he hardly knew and had never seen before: "memento putei inter quatuor taxos." Remember the well between the four yew trees.

McLeod hardly knew what he had written, but his teacher did, and when he read it his face turned pale with fear...

So commences, more or less, M. R. James's A School Story - a great ghost story by one of the greatest ghost story writers. You can read it - and others - here. If you want to enjoy it fully, however, you probably shouldn't look at this picture:

A creepy drawing for halloween, done with a brush pen, various technical pens and markers, and coloured in photoshop.

waiting musician

recognition

look upon my hurts

I don't think so

that time on the patio

Every time on the patio has a lad with a guitar.

A friendly mustelid

Some days you just have to draw a weasel.

out of space

autoritratto

Don't fall in love

Drawn from life with a Pentel brush pen, as usual.

do your duty

Waiting for class

A view of the duomo of Siena

A famous view of a famous building. How many tourists to Siena turn the corner by San Domenico and stop to see the city rising like barnacles on the opposite hill? I know I did.

This etching is based on a pencil drawing I made on site, which you can see here. I made a quick watercolour as well, as the sun went down. See it here.

Note how both watercolour and drawing show a mirror image of this picture. That's because the process of etching flips the image.

careful thoughts

rest for the wicked

A small painting made from life with pencil and acrylics.