• My latest Drawing School offering, follows a request from Tom Greenfield, who I met at Blundell’s School recently. I have drawn Rhinos before both in the Just So Story, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin and also in my Millie and Bombassa books (one of which is being prepared for the iphone – more of this later).

    It’s hard to decide what the drawing should look like. I suppose the cop out would be to promote Millie and Bombassa – maybe I’ll do that drawing lesson when the iphone app comes out.

    Being asked to show how to draw something like a rhino makes me go and look at rhinos again. I think I often draw what I think a Rhino looks like, but when I really go into it, I realise what extraordinary things they are. Drawing a rhino as a rhino, i.e. without clothes on, makes me follow the lines and really understand that their heads are huge and that parts of their faces are not in the places that you might think they are.

    There is nothing like observing and drawing to get to really understand how something works, otherwise we half look and make assumptions.

    Sometimes I think I’m only now getting to grips with drawing. I suppose I’ll still be thinking that when I’m ninety two.

  • Is it just me or is the sound on the X Factor rubbish? The music is far too loud so that we can’t hear the singers.

    When Dermot is introducing the programme the backing music is so loud and he is so far back in the mix that it is hard to hear what he’s saying.

    Often, one of the acts does a duff performance and the judges think it’s brilliant. There is something going on in the studio that does not come across on the TV.

    Stacey was so far back in the mix this week, I thought she was out of tunen most of the way through – I don’t think she was though.

  • Pumpkin
    Pumpkin 2009
    I tried a bit of Pumpkin carving yesterday. I’ve always done a pretty similar face each year before so I tried a different face this time.

    The classic Pumpkin has eyes and teeth cut right through to the inside. But by carving shallow cuts into the flesh, more complicated patterns can be made. I did this with my little pocket Swiss army knife. I had to cut each swirl twice, a cut on each side of the line. Next year, I might see if I can get a better carving tool. and be a bit more adventurous.

    The kind of pumpkin is important. Some have very thick skins and tough flesh inside. This one was nice – it had quite a soft skin and nice dark colour to contrast the light inside.