Dorset: A new image

A SCORCHING DORSET BEACH. REFLECTION OPTIONAL!

I'd love to do a seaside poster. I love the sea and I love posters of the sea.

Oh no. Just been to the Dorset tourist Board website. Nobody conspicuous by name or phone number. Just one of those application fields that give you access to  an office I suppose. When I fill in that little box with my hopeful message saying something along the lines of, "My name's Johnny Bull, I make spectacular images of locations and events, celebrating the people in all their ..etc"  I can  then add a link to this striking image, which although modern and created and executed in the digital way, has a sort of echo of the posters of another time, when you could go from London all the way to Weymouth, or Corfe Castle by train. Makes you want to weep.

I made a similarly striking image of the Dorset Steam Fair, which I fed into a similar, depressing little aperture in one of their sponsor's websites. That was five years ago, and I never heard a dickie bird... When I saw what they were using to grab the attention of the steam brigade, I didn't bother to chase them. But with the Dorset Tourist Board, things could be different. I'll keep you posted.

Estrella. A study in evil

Sketches of Spain #4
Giclée print

Image Size: 228mm x 183mm

Paper Size: 328 x 293mm

£82.61 Signed edition of 99

Estrella, the cat that put the talon in Catalonia (after Cat) is enjoying another one of his day-long siestas, in the baking sun on the balcony of this little house in Masquefa, where I'm house-sitting for friends.

Oh yes, he looks comfy enough, catching a few rays while he's pretending to sleep. He's thinking of course of his food; the dark gelatinous reeking sludge that comes from one of the 50 or so tins stacked up in the kitchen. He's also thinking that if I make the slightest move, he'll be up screeching and hissing in a fairly convincing display of a cat who's had a comprehensive grounding in jugular veins.

We're together on the balcony; I think I might make a move for the station, when I've done this little drawing; done his sweet little baked bean feet and his shiny fur. What I'm thinking is, I'll lull him into a false sense of security and then run out of the house the back way. But then I drop the tiniest of brushes; a miniscule job that I used for the whiskers. And he's nastily wide awake. So now I have to paint the chair, until he's asleep; the comfy chair he uses while I get cramp on this hard kitchen stool. It's a shame, Barcelona would be so nice today.