She never had enough space to run around when we lived in London
I’m currently involved in a challenge with a fellow cartoonist to work on our backgrounds.
We chose a five-week timeframe, with a different topic each week.
Here is the breakdown of the challenge:
Five weeks, four sketches per week:
Week 1. Outside the house (may vary different sizes and/or types of homes)
Week 2. Inside the house (can be in the same or different rooms)
Week 3. In the city
Week 4. Park or countryside
Week 5. Wilderness or jungle
Each week focuses on different approaches to the location such as:
-high view
-low view
-close up
-wide angle
The goal is pushing ourselves to get out of our default approach to backgrounds that we draw, and to sketch a whole bunch of different backgrounds.
Thanks to David Greene for joining in the challenge.
High View
I fancied drawing some sort of scene featuring a bird or two flying by, so I thought this fit the bill.
I’m a big fan of pelicans, and as they’re such enigmatic birds, thought I’d have them flap into the scene.
Caption Practice
Seeing as I created the cartoon, it seemed ike a good opportunity to do some caption practice as well.
I hope the village has restocked the pond since we were last here.
The problem with goldfish is that they’re just not filling.
Koi carp may look pretty, but they don’t taste so good.
“Hey Ron, remember social distancing!” “It’s okay Doris, there’s plenty of air circulating up here”
“That’s a coincidence, I’m called Percy too!”
“Have you ever thought about a change of careers?” “Nah, fishing has grown on me over the years”
“They even use a rod and line to try to catch fish” “Ah, bless!”
“Let‘s out the aquarium in the next town”
“They do eat fish, but they coat it in batter and deep-fry it first” “How ghastly!”
“And after they’ve spent all day catching a fish, they throw it back...” “Strange...”
Wide Angle
For the wide angle I wanted a view looking across a lawn. Of course having sketched such a billiard-table smooth surface, I wondered what might pop up to make it a bit more interesting…
…moles naturally fit the bill!
Caption Practice
What a great canvas to work with.
“This lawn is very flat and boring” “We’ll soon fix that!”
“This won last year’s lawn of the year award”
“Frank’s had a few near-misses with the dog” “Yes, he’s definitely living on burrowed time”
“You know he spent twenty years perfecting this lawn” “That’s very kind of him”
“I’m railing against the system - lawns are a symbol of a bourgeois life - deliberately choosing to spend time and resources on using up land that could be put to better uses” “Really? I just like digging holes”
Race you to the other side!
Always good to tunnel a couple of meters before breakfast.
“Worms for breakfast” “Again?”
Uncle Frank was notorious for ruining the lawn at Blenheim Palace.