Saturday 15 March 2014

What do You Get if You Cross a Frog with a Mouse?


You might think this question has something to do with the strange animal couplings from Jungle Grumble, but you'd be wrong. The answer to the riddle is... me, last week. 


Okay, hopefully I didn't bear any visual resemblance to either frogs or mice, but my voice certainly did. Yes, I know, again. Almost every year it seems to happen to me. I get a cold and end up with laryngitis. 

As usual for March, there have been so many visits booked in, I've just had to dose up on paracetamol and get stuck in. Normally I can blame the germy children I meet around World Book Day but, this year, I think I caught it off a friend the weekend before, because I got poorly on the very first Monday, 2 weeks ago. Groan.


By that Friday, the voice was seriously wobbly, but I was booked to do a talk first thing to a hall-full, at Sheffield High School. Luckily we got an emergency microphone rigged up so I could do the mouse-voice thing. Then, half-way through the subsequent illustration workshop, John suddenly appeared with emergency supplies: a big bottle of of TCP, so I could do some lunchtime gargling in the loos! What a hero. Unfortunately, I've been bathed in the delightful scent of TCP ever since. 


It does help though and is probably the reason why I've not gone completely silent this time round. I had only two days of visits last week, on Wednesday and Thursday. I had hoped that the few days of rest would sort it out, but no - still the same. Oh well. John is enjoying the luxury of getting a word in edge-ways. Also being told off at a far lesser volume than usual.


I hope you like this latest batch of train sketches. These are from the two days last week, done in my trusty Inktense watercolour pencils

I met some smashing children on both days and everyone has been very patient with my difficulties. It all seems to be going very well anyway, despite adversity. Maybe next week I will sound less like a squeaky frog...

3 comments:

Sylvia said...

Hi, I always love your train sketches and these ones seem especially colourful! What kind of paper do you use with your watercolour pencils? I find myself destroying regular sketchbooks, but watercolour ones are so expensive!

Thanks for this blog, it's a huge inspiration to me - especially since I've just started catching the train for 1.5hrs a day!

Lynne the Pencil said...

I know, watercolour sketchbooks are also hard to find. I have started making my own.

Having said that, mostly my train sketches (including these) are on very regular paper. As long as it's not too shiny or too thin, it's fine, just not as lovely as watercolour paper.

I'm so glad you are enjoying the blog and it's inspired you to think about sketching on your commute :-) Choose people who are working on laptops or playing on phones - they keep very still and are less likely to spot you!

Anonymous said...

Lovely drawings, as ever.