So, to get myself drawing more regularly (and dust off those old skills!) I got back into life drawing by attending sessions with the Dulwich Art Group, and I’ve found it hugely enjoyable and rewarding. “That’s nice, Steve”. Anyway…

Shameless plug!

As part of the Dulwich Artists’ Open House Event we’re having an exhibition where a bunch of us are displaying some of our work. I’m showing two ink drawings taken from the same pose; a neck/hair study (shown here) and a full body drawing. I think there are going to be about a hundred pictures on display from about 30 of us, so there’ll be more than just my scrawls to gawp at!

The show is on for two consecutive weekends: 12th–13th May and 19th–20th May from 11:00 to 18:00 at The Sea Scout Hut, Green Dale, Dulwich, SE22 8TX. It’s next to a girls’ school about 20–30 minute walk from East Dulwich station. Here’s a map. I’ll be there myself for a couple of hours on three of the days doing my bit. Oh, and it is of course free!

There’s also a private view on the 12th from 18:00–21:00 where there should be nibbles and drinks. I won’t be there as I’ve an important birthday to attend, but everyone is really nice so don’t be scared!

Something I rustled up for a recruitment leaflet here at the day job. Some of the developy-types are off to a PHP conference (which sounds riveting!) to round up more troops.

Run off a quick sketch, scanned this (using a rubbish scanner/photocopier thing) and then traced this using the pen tool in Illustrator. Here’s the sketch. For fun.

The House of the Four Winds, John Buchan, 1960 reprint

Cat & Mouse, Günter Grass, 1968

Soft Fruit Growing, Raymond Bush, 1951

The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham, 1960

I was mainly drawn to these for their charming/odd cover illustrations, although I’m yet to read any of them — due to both being engaged in reading other things and in an attempt to maintain their condition. I also managed to get hold of a copy of Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud, which I mentioned wanting in my last update. Whilst not in perfect condition, I still love the cover, in particular the assertion of “science fiction by a scientist”!

The Black Cloud, Fred Hoyle, 1960

Here’s a nice little drawing of a particularly self-satisfied looking cat sitting by a letter “L”. For anyone wondering, the “L” is in Minion Pro. But you already knew that, right?

Pencil rough; lined in black indian ink with a dip pen; type blocked in with more lovely indian ink using a paintbrush. Scanner is out of action so I had to resort to an iPhone photo for now!

A while ago, I decided that, for me at least “shiny” was dead. I noticed that I wasn’t the only one too. By a long shot! I went ahead and removed all the shininess from my logo, adjusted my CSS so form buttons would match and redesigned the social media button on the right there. But I didn’t stop there, oh no. I carried on and made a load more buttons, and now you too can have clean, sexy, solid icons of your very own.

Allow me to present the madeofsquares Clean icon set — 21 social media and sharing buttons for use on your very own website.

Icons included in the set

• RSS feed
• Email
• Twitter
• Google +
• Google
• Picassa
• YouTube
• StumbleUpon
• LinkedIn
• Flickr
• Flickr alternative
• Blogger
• Bebo
• Facebook
• Digg
• Digg alternative
• Delicious
• Spotify
• Skype
• My Space(!)

Each icon has a fully editable ai vector file and a transparent png. For now these are optimised to work at 32×32 pixels but I will be adding other sizes soon. I’ve strived to get company colours as accurate and vectors as precise as I can. However, some of these have been slightly adjusted to fit pixels for the sake of clarity.

What can you do with them?

Anything you like, apart from sell them! These are totally free to use wherever you want. I’ll always welcome a mention or a link, but don’t feel like you have to.

I intend to add to this set in the future and I welcome any requests, use the comments if there’s a specific icon you want. Anyway, that’s enough waffle. What are you waiting for?

Voters, Parties and Leaders by Jean Blondel, 1965 print; Penguin Survey of Business and Industry 1966, 1966 print; The Economic History of the World Population by Carlo M. Cipolla, 1974 print

I liked these three purely because of the covers, particularly the brilliantly witty use of hats to depict the various class divisions in Britain in the sixties on Voters, Parties and Leaders.

So, to further the collection I scoured eBay for more. After narrowly missing out on The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle which I wanted for it’s brilliant cover, I did manage to get hold of a May 1939 reprint of One Man Against Europe, interesting as it was one of the Penguin Specials published just before the start of the Second World War.

One Man Against Europe by Konrad Heiden, 1939

The latest additions to the collection were found in one of the many bookshops along Charing Cross Road. The first I bought for it’s sinister cover illustration, The Speciality of the House, a collection of short stories by Stanley Ellin.

The Speciality of the House and other stories by Stanley Ellin, 1968

The last two consisted of both volumes of the amusingly dated and only slightly patronising titled The Intelligent Woman’s Guide To Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Facsim by George Bernard Shaw.

The Intelligent Woman's Guide To Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Facism (1) by Bernard Shaw, 1937

So, this represents the beginings of my collection. I’ll keep adding to it, choosing books for their sexy covers, intriguing subject matter or their interesting background. If anything, this will help anyone stuck for birthday present ideas!

Here’s a little peek at something I’m currently working on…

So I got a version of Corel Painter Sketchpad (presumably a cut down version of Corel Painter) with the new graphics tablet which I’ve been piddling about with for the last hour or so.

The result is nothing special—I couldn’t even be arsed to bash out a convincing London skyline for a start!—but it was just a quickie to see what you can do with the program.

Honestly, I know there’s two “hoodie” drawings up here now, but I definitely do not have a fixation with them!

I was about two thirds of the way through the compulsory Standards of Business Conduct online training when I found a way to make it more fun.

The idea was to quickly sketch the assortment of grinning models-in-office-gear before the voice over finishes.

Here are the results, of varying quality, arranged on a “things to do today” pad.

Not that I wasn’t paying attention of course!