It's been far too long since I posted anything! Here are some very rough and ready glimpses into what I'm working on next. After a great week spent in Paris earlier this month I've been pushing some ideas around the old sketchbook.
If you are ever in Paris and want something off the standard tourist trail I can most heartily recommend the musee des arts et metiers, the museum of science and invention. Unlike many attractions in Paris it is free to get in and free of any crowds, and what is more it offers numerous large, comfortable leather sofas and free drinking water to the weary tourist! Amongst the many, many truely amazing exhibits is a beautiful chapel housing a magnificently presented collection of various forms of transportation (plus Bartholdi's original plaster model for the Statue of Liberty and Foucault's Pendulum). Hanging from the ceiling they have Louis Bleriot's original monoplane used to fly the English Channel for the first time. I've always been a big nut when it come to aeroplanes and seeing it got me thinking that I'd like to illustrate up the first aerial channel crossing.
These posts are some initial sketches with some very quick tone added just to check I'm headed in the right direction. For fun the background sepia on these posts is a modified section from a photo I took of Bleriot's plane wing. I'd like to make use of this texture for the final pieces in some way if I can.
