sketchypages

I was excited when I found out about Murray Lancashire's colour constructor tool. Much, if not all, of my understanding of colour is based on a light based approach (additive mixing) and performing an initial render of three dimensional spheres based the local colour of the object before painting the complicated shape - a technique I learnt from Sam Nielson. I wanted to understand more about the tool and about light in general by taking a photograph placing it in an entirely different lighting scenario. I had taken this photograph a long time ago. It was chosen because I believe (perhaps erroneously!) that it wasn't too overexposed and take

Here is the final part of the reviews. Please find part one here, and part two over here. 35. The House on the Borderland: The original influence on Lovecraft and other weird fiction writers amongst many others, William Hope Hodgson is a towering figure in horror, fantasy and science fiction which he intertwined so effortlessly, especially in this book. He was a poet, a bodybuilder, a stunt biker, a personal trainer, notably applied rough restraints to Houdini before serving as a Lieutenant in World War I, during which he was unfortunately killed. This story served as a departure from the Gothic fiction of his time, and creates a more reali

Here part two of the reviews. Please find part one here. 16. Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West: This book is based on historical events that took place in the 1850s, on the Texan Mexican border, surrounding the Glanton gang and its depravities as they massacred their way across the west. A fourteen year old  known as "Kid" stumbles upon this nightmare, the violence is gratuitous, relentless and eventually exhausting as it breaks the reader's spirit (not in a bad way), as Cormac McCarthy wrings one out to dry in the bleak bleak west. It is a marvellous subversion of the western in that it strips it completely of the romantici