It's a girl... as she has eyelashes...

I think I've got into tea quite a bit now during my detox. Which is a good job since I was hit with my bar tab today. The slap in the face was pretty hefty, but the funny thing was that it didn't floor me. Perhaps with the amount of shake ups, craziness and horror I've encountered within my adequate cushy western life it takes more to shake me up now. Is this growing up?

Shit. Then again, Peter Pan was an annoying little bugger so perhaps this is for the best. Plus not want to grow up can have dire effects as you can see to my right.

Another thing of note is my dear friend, Mr Pete Kennedy of Puppetual Motion has started a blog. I've known Pete for years due to his quite awesome puppet show, the guy used to perform new material at each and everyone of my cabaret nights so you have to give credit to the chap. Swing over and have a peek.

So, sipping my tea getting mentally prepared for tonights gig my mind and pen wandered. I thought about a conversation I had a few days ago with a girl who was peeking at me doodling in my notebook. She pointed at one of the faces I had drawn and asked "Who's he?"

"No-one, I just make up faces. It's a girl by the way"

"But where's the eyelashes?"

Now, it wasn't a very good drawing, but at the same time this is one of my biggest drawing pet hates. Eyelashes. Because of cartoons like the Beano and whatnot we have it ingrained into us like a code that a female cartoon should have those terrible lines stretching from it's face. I say code because that's what it is. Look at this picture:

Ok... I wrote this before I looked for the damn picture and I can't find it ANYWHERE. It's a cubism picture entitled "Mother and child". I even went through the entire online catalogue of the Picasso museum in Barcelona where I saw it. So, suspended your disbelief, pretend you saw it and carry on reading. As I can't be bothered re-writing any of this now.

What do you see? Ok, once you have decided click at this link for the description.

Did you get it right? You probably did, and the beautiful thing about it is that it looks nothing like what it is intended to be apart from the basic aspects. I adore this very basic parameters that our brain can engage in to make sense of a picture. However, this eyelash foolery I say no. These are silly, daft techniques just drummed into us.

Did the disbelief work? No, go away.

Ok, well rant over. I have a gig to sort out and I think I have a blind date soon so I have to do some research in new, inexplicable ways I can screw it up. Oh, and another cup of tea I think.

Alot of tea, caricatures and Minecraftery

So today was Drink 'N' Draw, and fool be me I had promised to host the thing due to the organiser's absence.

Not that this requires much work, as it's more a drop in society meeting than a workshop, but it meant I had to move and interrupt my detox from Friday's events.

About twelve-ish people swung in whilst I smiled over my tea (you will not believe how many cups of tea I've had). They all seemed to get along so a busied myself with a (un)friendly challenge a friend set me.

I hate doing caricatures, and he knows this. Son of a bitch. There are several reasons I hate them:

• My drawings are grotesque, monsters even. And whether I want to or not I always end up taming my drawings of people I know because of this. I didn't always, infact I still have a picture of a girl from university that she has NEVER seen. I think it's fine, but people who know her say she'd be quite upset. Personally I think there's nothing wrong with sharing the same features and personality as a horse. it can in some ways be... elegant?

• It's really hard. If you are making up something no-one has anything to compare it to so even if you make a mistake (and I like making mistakes) no-ones going to be going "Muh, muh, muh... that's wrong". With a caricature there is a right and wrong.

• They take me a long time to do, well in comparison to my stickmen and monsters.

But he challenged me, sending me a blog of an illustrator who does drawings of his friends on facebook. And you know what? That fellow's work was pretty basic. So I took up the challenge. Like an idiot.




And yeah... even though I'm crap at it I did a couple more. In all honesty I think I will do a few more, practice and what not. Perhaps it'll go somewhere.

I sat there drinking my pot of slightly warm tea quite happily for a while, the Friday flashbacks finally subsiding. A woman offered to bring some bread in for me next week (fancy bread too) and I played flirt yo-yo heads with a girl sat by herself so all in all it wasn't a bad Drink N Draw for me.

More tea. Internettering. Lame apologies. Good music. I am now rested. Until I decide to try and play Minecraft, a skeleton breaks into my mud hut while I'm sleeping and kills me.


I tried to get back in my crappy mud hut but all I had to fend myself with was a piece of dirt. I hate you skeleton. Until next time.

The State Of Play

What a horrible day. Can't really blame anyone except myself. Zeus damn it, drinking Irish Car Bombs with scientists was not a wise idea. Neither was asking the same girl out 5 times a good one either.

At the same time I had quite a few ideas for stickman strips. Some a bit naff but there were a couple of gems. A couple of which will be good for my book. As I sat in the bar sipping a lemonade that tasted of air, I wondered about a couple of concerns.

First, why do I only think of stickman strips in the face of struggle, misery and strife? It's a common thing amongst many people who create... erm... we'll say "things" which encompasses everything say... and it's not really a question I dwell upon. But with that in mind, my second ponder disturbed me.

The context of my book is that of relationships. Now, with my current sketch books there's alot of focus upon this aspect to my life. Either that of contemplation of past events or daft things occurring now, and one thing that seems evident is I seem to be in more of those curious situations more and more to the point I wonder whether I'm purposely putting myself there for more material.

Which brings me back to me mainly create work in times of strife and misery... if I'm purposely putting myself into these scenarios am I looking for situations (or creating situations) which are negative for the sake of being prolific?

I think I need to get this book done quickly.

Time to get things rolling...

So, hello I guess. I'm Dom Harbot. I draw things and do other things sometimes. I drink and walk around Manchester. Sometimes I draw properly, sometimes I draw stickmen of stupid things that happen.

I've been failing to get a website for a number of years and this will have to do for now, I guess. I'll be posting here and there about developments in a couple of projects, the main one being "I don't fancy you, I don't want to sleep with you" - a stickman book about love, sex, relationships and rejection. Some of it may be funny.

Anyhow, I am incredibly hung over with flakes of guilt and shame all over me. So until next time, go away.