Four of my World Book Day Classic Paperbacks covers. I'll post the full series as soon as I've finished them. They're printing on a white plastic in three colours. The illustrations and lettering are hand cut from origami paper and newsprint.
Design and illustrations © David Mackintosh
I had some postcards printed the same day the post office raised their stamp prices. I really want to post them, but I don't like paying the postage. I should have thought of this before. MuMu looks quite good in small format, printed digitally. I am devoted to litho printing, but this looks good to me too. My favourite postcard has a picture of a Mexican couple relaxing by a well. It looks like it was printed in the nineteen fifties. There's nothing quite like finding an authentic old postcard still on sale in a shop as a postcard, and not as an antique. I once bought two old postcards from Shoreditch Market for £5 each. Maybe sixty pence to post one of my postcards isn't so bad after all.
Only some of the first class pineapple-based correspondence I've received this week.
After months of not using pen and ink, I have been struggling to draw with it. I keep being distracted by what I also like about drawing with pen and ink, and that's the equipment.
Read MoreThe studio has a new typewriter that is 65 years old. It works like a charm, except for the apostrophe key which is like a broken boomerang, and the Z key which makes a satisfying twang when it's struck, then stops halfway between it's starting point and the paper.
It's noisy too, so music must be turned up or I can't hear it.
The Empire Aristocrat, c.1949.
I am illustrating an edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula with black and white drawings. I won't be showing the Count in the final illustrations, he's so vividly described in the text. But in the process I couldn't resist having a try. There will be boxes of dirt with rope handles and garlic flowers.
Sneaking preview: what big incisors you have.
The paperback of LUCKY is published by HarperCollins. It's flexible and handy, good for carrying about and for insulation in the cold weather we're having in the northern hemisphere. The story will warm you up too. Buy some emergency copies, hunker down and hope for the best.
Because I arranged them like that. More letters in wonderful 3D for a change.
A commissioned portrait of Grammy Award winning eighth blackbird flutes player Tim Munro. I noticed on their website a picture of him struggling to tie a necktie. I'd stick with the black polo-necks, they're much easier.
I have illustrated a version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, which will be published in 2015. There are 34 chapters and I did a black and white picture for each one. They're no match for the NC Wyeth illustrations in his 1911 Scribner edition, but then he didn't even have a blog.
