Charlie Bone et le château des Miroirs

Copies arrived in the post today of this, the French edition of Jenny Nimmo’s Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors, with cover and 21 interior line illustrations by yours truly. Available at Amazon France.

For all Charlie Bone posts, click here.

Paper

Lilies

Phantom horse

Where will it end?

I’m back to working on Charlie Bone. This is an interior illustration for the French edition of book four.

Add a few seagulls . . .

 . . . nearly done now.

Earlier.

The Castle of Mirrors

Still sketching the sea monster - in the meantime here’s another Charlie Bone cover underway for Gallimard Jeunesse.

The Red Tree

Tancrède et l’arbre (Tancred and the tree), from Charlie Bone et la bille magique (Charlie Bone and the Time Twister), 2007.

Charlie Bone 3

The third of the French Charlie Bone books arrived today. As ever it’s available from Amazon France. Above is the cover, and below the original art without text.

Relief!

The last of the art for the third Charlie Bone book has been finished and sent to Paris. Phew! Coming soon, some mermaids I’ve been painting.

Charlie Bone 2

The new French edition of the second Charlie Bone book, Charlie Bone et la bille magique, is now available. Above, my cover painting.

Volvo Amazon

Laid low

After having spent most of his life hiding in his room, Uncle Paton ventured out one early morning to do battle with the forces of evil. Unsurprisingly they were better prepared for a fight than he was, and now he lies there, back in that room, hollowed out, powerless.

Illustration for an upcoming French edition of the third Charlie Bone book.

Charlie Bone and the Time Twister

Finally delivered all art for the French edition of Jenny Nimmo’s Charlie Bone and the Time Twister last week. It turned out to be much more of a struggle than the first one. I’ll post the cover as soon as it arrives back from the printers, but in the meantime here’s an interior drawing that was surplus to requirements.

UK edition of the book here, with cover art by David Wyatt.

Cast off

We know where we’re going . . .

While I’m away, The New Centrist has two new posts up, on Lithuania and the Jewish partisans of the Second World War, and on Czecholosovakia 68. Amongst other things he links to an interview with Alexandr Dubček’s son Pavol on Aktuálne.cz which in turn links to lots more. Also via TNC, this BBC News account includes Josef Koudelka’s photos.

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I find a fair amount to disagree with in some of what Sultan Knish writes, but here’s a post I recommend wholeheartedly, Back in the USSR: You have to be crazy to believe in the truth. In light of Russian rhetoric casting doubt on the mental health of the Georgian president, rhetoric some Western commentators have been happy to play along with, Sultan K. gives a short account of Russia’s dark history of using psychiatry as an instrument of political oppression.

A lesser example of using psychiatry for political purposes was seen in the UK recently. When the former presenter of BBC Radio 4’s All In The Mind Dr Raj Persaud was up before the General Medical Council accused of plagiarism, one of the voices that spoke in his defence was David Owen.

Raj Persaud’s period on All in the Mind reached a particular low point last year when he interviewed David Owen on his book The Hubris Syndrome. In the interview Owen portrayed various politicians as being somehow mentally ill.

Owen seemed unable to talk about any of his targets, I mean subjects, without mentioning his own relationship with them, and so the curious point that emerged was that those he portrayed as less than sane were people who had failed to heed his good advice, while those who seemed to have taken his words of wisdom to heart were all well balanced individuals.

The interview was completely unchallenging. No serious questions were raised as to the supposed psychological basis for Owen’s argument. Emphasis was placed on Owen’s past career as a neurologist as if this also qualified him as a psychiatrist. It was a mix of politics and personal vendetta masquerading as science, and Raj Persaud gave him a free ride.

UPDATE: Medicalising Politics by Blacktriangle blog, 21 January 2009, on David Owen and other partisan pathologisers.

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Over in the department of big theories and big maps, there’s a post on Information Dissemination about the strategic implications of Russia’s invasion of Georgia. It’s a long and interesting post, and something I’d planned on writing more on. For the moment I’ll just mention the assertion contained in the post that “Georgia, which has a relationship with the United States is being consumed by Russia, and ultimately will be regardless of what the United States does.” I disagree strongly, and I point to the history of West Berlin. Looking at it on the map it seems wholly unreasonable that the city survived Stalin’s attempts to swallow it. The effort expended on saving it also seem unreasonable in cold ‘realist’ terms. Yet in the end the Berlin Wall proved to be the keystone whose removal led to the whole iron curtain coming crashing down.

More when I return, see you in September!

The Berlin air corridors image is a detail from a 1965 US Air Force map.

What big eyes you have, Grandma

The new French edition of Charlie Bone that I've illustrated includes twenty-one line drawings as well as the cover painting. Here is a twenty-second drawing that was surplus to requirements, showing nasty Aunt Lucretia and mean old Grandma Bone.

Charlie Bone

Above, just arrived from the printers, my cover for the new French edition of Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo, published by Gallimard Jeunesse. The book is available from Amazon France.

Below, process, process, process.

Rough sketch, acrylic on paper.

Character studies, pencil on paper.

Beginning final art, pencil and Daler Rowney liquid acrylic on Fabriano 300g HP watercolour paper.

From drawing to painting, Liquitex heavy body acrylic.

Nearly . . .

. . . done!

Lots of line drawings inside too.

Hello Sailor

Home from a week at the seaside, and back to painting, painting, painting.