Wonky Pictures of Newcastle

I haven't yet strung these together into any kind of narrative, but I am nonetheless enjoying drawing simple pictures of Newcastle shops, roofs etc.. from the toon's various coffee-houses.

Peg Powler

Peg Powler is a face of the Tees river spirit. It is also the name used by Rebecca Little & AJ Garrett for the excellent DIY paper-based creativity that they promote on Teesside. I travelled back down to the beloved Tees on Saturday for selfish reasons: cos they've included some of my diary comic entries in their latest 'Words' exhibition at Stockton ARC.

I never got round to making the quiz that I'd meant to go with my diary, but I liked how they displayed it : it's nice to see your badly drawn thoughts in frames! And I included my original notebook diary hung on a string there so you can read through my diary as it actually is.

Being a diary, there are various personal episodes and thoughts covered in the pages. Some of them involve my ex girlfriend, which I hadn't shown her. So as it turned out, she accompanied me down to Teesside on this occasion, and read about some of mythoughts of our break-up in my diary ...

Picture Letters this week.

I am making an effort to draw picture-filled letters this week, with replies to some lovely people so far sent off to Teesside, Cambridge, and Buryatia (Siberia). They are to people I miss, people who I think are ace, and people who I will enjoy having a papery relationship with. I have been thinking a lot today about how many of my best friends are books; about how the friend I speak most to is a piece of paper; and about how this is actually okay.

There are many other things I SHOULD be doing. Mostly on computer and online. But after the day is done, it is good to put away the electronic things and find a piece of paper to talk to.