Colouring in - how hard can it be?

My son has just started an art project at school, where he has to focus on a particular artist.

He's a pretty good artist himself - he prefers to draw very detailed miniatures in black and white - hence his choice of artist: the wonderfully talented Chris Riddell, who illustrated the amazing Edge Chronicles, Coraline, the Grayeyard Book, Platypus and loads of other titles of his own and others authorship. (And his blog is amazing - lots and lots of sketchbook pics!)

T was really excited, thought it would be a great project. Based on what his sister had had to do two years ago, we knew you had to reproduce pieces of the artist's work, which, given that Mr Riddell works mainly in black-and-white, T thought it would be right up his street.

Until this week.

For homework, T had to use coloured pencils on his chosen image. Not a problem, we thought - all Chris's book covers are in colour.

There's just one teeny-weensy problem.

T hates adding colour to his drawings. (Unless it's great big, bold blocks of it on robots and fantastic creatures.) He feels that it ruins all the hard work and detail he's put into the basic pencil drawing, and he is never, ever satisfied with the end result - because he hasn't chosen to use colour often enough on detailed pictures to get good at it.

So then we start to slide down a vicious spiral...

'My colouring in is rubbish, so I won't do it...which means I'm not getting better at it...which means my pictures look rubbish...so I'm not going to colour anything and why does the teacher want colour anyway? I don't like colour - I like pencil! Why can't I just do it in pencil?'

I like drawing and colouring - heck, I even had some designs made into rubber stamps a few years back - and I'm trying to help and encourage as much as I can. Ultimately though, it's up to T, and whether he can accept that school art is there to broaden his experience, allowing him to use different artistic media.

But it did set me wondering. Do I do the same in my writing sometimes? Stick to what I'm comfortable with, refusing to push the boundaries of my creativity and refusing to persist with something 'cos it seems too hard?

Well, blog reader, you'll have to be the judge of that. Every even-numbered day through October, I'm posting 'a little piece of flash', here on Squidge's Scribbles. I consider them my 'practise pieces' when I'm trying something different - you'll have to let me know whether my 'colouring in' is OK?

Or do I have to practise a bit more?

Note - added later by viewer request...one of T's pencil drawings and THE coloured-in one that sparked this post...

A little bit of flash - 17 Nouns

This story had to be woven around 17 nouns, taken from the 17 entries to a previous comp. The nouns are in bold...


Because of the invitation, I faced an agony of indecision. Did I dare bridge the yawning gap between us?

I only saw him yesterday.

Before the temperature had risen too high, I’d gone to the beach. I’d danced along the shingle, laughing like a child, revelling in my aloneness.

But someone had laughed with me; a man, standing on the balcony of the old colonial mansion which overlooked the river. “What’s your name?” he’d called.

Should I have answered? I wasn’t supposed to, but there was something about his smile…so I did.

Today, while I feed endless lengths of material towards the darting needle of the sewing machine, all my thoughts are of him. Of his pale skin and hair, and of the eyes which I am certain will be as blue as the sky above my head. Such a contrast to my own dark colouring.

He is a free spirit…I am tied.

“Get stitchin’!”

Marla punctuates her order with a slap, so I stitch carefully around the cuff, hiding my terror of her. My pitiful salary is hers to command…the sun seems to shine less brightly as I remember that.

So now, I am back at the river house. I am no fool; this is no courtship. I am merely an amusement, a fact confirmed when a glass is raised in a mocking toast at my approach.

Strangely, my thoughts turn to Marla. I can earn more in one night here than in a month with her.

When the man smiles, his teeth shine in the candlelight.


Picture credit: Delia Tournay Godfrey

Don't forget, blog reader, that you have a chance to 'Challenge Me'; give me 3 unrelated items which, if chosen by my family, will be woven into a unique piece of flash and posted on the 31st. Leave them here if you fancy having a go...

Squidge's rainbow life.

I love all things rainbow.

Here's my daughter modelling a rainbow jumper that I knitted when I was a student. She wore it for a 1980's themed charity day at school earlier this year. Most of the time, it sits in my wardrobe, as mohair isn't exactly fashionable any more. But I keep it 'cos I made it, and if it's as cold at the Festival of Writing next year as it was this, I might have to dig it out again. (J looks a lot better in it than I ever did...)

When I got married, the cake had tiny rainbows on it. It also had a cluster of rainbow-coloured flowers on the top layer. (Should have been red and orange, to go with green and yellow on the middle and blue and purple on the bottom, but the decorator misunderstood my instructions.)

I bought a rainbow cross to hang in my window. Only problem is, I can't remember where I've put it. Somewhere safe, no doubt, and I'll find it when I'm not looking for it.

I stitched a Noah's Ark sampler a while back. I had to source new threads for the rainbow because those provided just weren't 'right'.

My avatar on the Word Cloud is always a rainbow - my favourite is a button collage, but I'm currently an origami construction. I even put 'Squidge - Rainbow Writer' on my cards for York. And I've written a rainbow book - about Granny Rainbow. (Even if I did lump indigo and violet together in the 'purple' chapter.)

I don't let this fascination control me - I don't have rainbow rooms for example. That would be just too weird.

Why am I so taken by rainbows, I hear you ask.

Honestly? I have no idea.

I have a faith, so the rainbow is important to me because it represents a certain promise, but I think in the main it's something to do with purity. Rainbow colours (for me) have to be 'true' and in the right order. (Woe betide one that has pink or turquoise in it, red at the bottom, or two shades of blue instead of purple.) It's all about my love of colour, and how it makes me feel.

I reckon the world would be pretty dull if I only saw it in shades of grey.

A little bit of flash - Secrets.

I do my best to keep up appearances. And I think you noticed; you said your heart skipped a beat when you saw me at the bar.

When I saw you…mine didn’t.

You see, the mechanical pump they implanted into my chest is guaranteed for fifty years. Tha-dum, tha-dum, every two seconds, for fifty years. The old organic one leaked like a sieve.

You like my hair? Yes, I’m currently a redhead, but who knows…this time next week, I could be brunette or blonde. I have a fantastic hairdresser who styles my wigs, because I have to disguise the metal plate in my skull somehow. There wasn’t enough skin left to cover it, I’m afraid.

The unusual colour of my eyes…well, I was lucky, they matched the shade perfectly. The days of glass orbs are long gone; nowadays, they grow organic replacements. Imagine, hundreds of eyeballs, waiting in glass jars for victims like me. Thanks to modern technology, they can even mimic the movements of the remaining eye.

You compliment my dress, but think it strange to wear long-sleeves in the height of summer. I have no choice. You really wouldn’t like to see where my bionic arm joins the stump. The prosthetic is temperature regulated, covered in the latest flexi-skin, and capable of reacting to the few remaining nerves I have left to make it more realistic. And thank goodness for false nails…because the ones on my left hand will never grow again.

But if you looked at me, you’d never know.

You can’t see what he did to me.

Ani's story...the beginning of a new WIP

Yesterday, I sat for two hours and wrote.

Non-stop.

On a new project that I think might actually have a lot going for it.

It's not unusual for me to write for that long in one stint, but the hours I spend 'writing' are more often than not spent tweaking and rewriting, so I end up overwriting and losing the spark that was there initially. I talked about that with respect to Rurik, recently.

This time, I decided to do things a bit differently.

I just let rip; let my - left brain or right brain? Can't remember - the twirly, creative half of the grey matter anyway, kick into gear. And I went with it. I found myself writing in snapshots of dialogue and scenes and emotions. I didn't bother checking up on what I've called a character - I just wrote 'sister' or cousin if I couldn't remember. If I couldn't 'see' how something would work in the plot just yet, I made a few notes, skipped it and moved on to the next piece of dialogue/action that got things moving again. 

It was like verbal diarrhoea, running from my brain directly into the keyboard; I could see all the nebulous thoughts I'd had about Ani's story solidifying and settling into the rough shape of what it will become. There's still a lot of work to do - I have no doubt of that. But I've started, and I'm not going to stop. 

Neither will I let myself look back over what I've written until I've got to the end of the 's****y first draft'.

Wish me luck. x

A little bit of flash - Role Reversal

I kneel beside the cage. Reaching between the bars, I stroke the hair of the slumbering form within. She stirs, but does not wake.

“A shame to destroy such a beautiful creature,” Father says.

“But I have no need of her, now that you have found me the perfect mate,” I answer.

My hand is taken; a thumb is smoothed across the tattoo on the inside of my wrist…checking.

“Very well. I shall make the necessary arrangements.”

A dry kiss is planted on my forehead and I remind myself it is one of the few more I must endure. Soon, there will be passionate kisses from my beloved. Andreth. From the first moment I saw him, I was determined to have him.

In the cage, the creature’s eyes have opened. I see my reflection in them and smile. I cannot resent her now, knowing what is to come for both of us.

She had lived for twenty privileged years before I was created - it was her father’s genius which gave me life. Twenty years of growth, purely physical, experienced in just a few short months. My sole purpose: to allow the father to assess potential mates for his daughter without compromising either her virtue or value.

But dear Father had not reckoned on me finding love.

It is his own flesh and blood, her natural birthmark camouflaged, who lies drugged within the cage…not, as he believes, the result of his cloning experiment. 

The clone is outside…where I will remain.


Don't forget to 'Challenge me!' with three items by the 15th October...post them here.

Uni days.

I live in a university town.

There are times I hate it - like when one of the students next-door-but-one came home in the early hours after a night out and literally smashed the front door in 'cos he forgot his keys...or the piles of vomit in the town centre which mark the progress of a pub crawl...or the piles of rubbish which are dumped outside front doors at the end of the academic year.

There are times when I think it's great - as a guider I often benefited from new leaders, courtesy of ScoGui...when I'm watching the rag parade in October...and the sheer energy and variety of young people discovering real life and the town's market for the first time.

This year, I know several young folk who are Freshers - Laura (my illustrator), Ed, my nephew, Suze - and there are quite a few more who are looking to go to uni next year.

It made me reminisce about my own first year at uni - well, polytechnic as it was then - and I decided to write a few memories, in the style of Joe Brainard (used by Andrew Wille in the four elements of Creativity). Hope you don't mind me indulging...

I remember '2B or not 2B - that is the kitchen.'
I remember four piglets.
I remember my first pint of cloudy, flat Scrumpy at The Feathers.
I remember being scared of the football fans pouring through the underpass to get to the Molineux Stadium and watching them from the kitchen window.
I remember not thinking at all about how Mum and Dad must've felt, leaving me there.
I remember the black, red and yellow patchowrk duvet cover that I'd not long finished making being put on the bed: to make it feel like home.
I remember going to the Rocky Horror Show at the Grand Theatre and having to buy suspenders and stockings for the lads.
I remember being paranoid about avoiding an overdraft.
I remember thinking 'I don't need to buy all these text books'...until my first module's results came through.
I remember sobbing when my Grandpa died.
I remember making friends who are still friends.
I remember making friends with folk I've lost touch with and wondering now what they're up to.
I remember some friends who are no longer with us.
I remember eating steak and kidney pie with rice, because I was too lazy to peel potatoes.
I remember Norma, our wonderful Brummy cleaner.
I remember the wolf on my t-shirt for Wolves Poly.
I remember the four seasons postcards I picked up from a poster sale.
I remember singing along to the Eurythmics, with each of us taking a different harmony line.
I remember looking forward to a visitor from Newcastle every three weeks.
I remember...

Feel free to add your own 'I remembers'...