mystic sea-bear…

swimming through the deep…

In which Rothgar, the sea bear, swims on through the depths and Songs of Albion comes to a conclusion.

I have been having some very similar thoughts to those of my writing partner Tom Radcliffe on finishing the last image for this project. We have been at this in one form or another since December 2008. I didn’t believe it until I checked my earliest drawing file. Wow. That’s quite a sustained effort. Of course it was mostly over the last year and a half that I was producing the actual images that we used during this past year – summer solstice 2011 to summer solstice 2012. The image above will be the last one. It’s due to be posted on Friday this week. I don’t exactly think it’s a spoiler – any guesses as to what’s going on?? Good luck! lol

As Tom mentioned when he was finishing up the written part, it’s a bitter-sweet moment… we enjoyed the work, learned a lot and yet it didn’t take off in even a minor way. 😦  Perhaps this was the wrong forum for our genre (something between a graphic novel and an illustrated story). Maybe it will grow wings as an e-book. Maybe it sucks. (We don’t think so – but hey, we’re biased!)

Anyway, for the next while I will be going back to random doodles until I figure out what is next…

à bientôt

UPDATE: Lovely poem from Tom for Rothgar the sea-bear

Rothgar swimming through the deep
where the darkness lurks and peeps
from out behind the quantum veil
hiding Fae who hang a tale
on English wanderers who lost
and won again, now tempest-tost
they set out on the Ocean Stream
to find a world not what it seems!

(c) 2012 Tom Radcliffe

image (cc) 2012 Hilary Farmer

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Rothgar!

rarrhh!

Is that how you spell rarrhh?? hmmm
I have been doing a lot of drawing for Songs of Albion so when I decided to do a quick random doodle for the blog, it turned out to be an Albion character – Rothgar the seabear and oracle! We are trying to keep a reasonable buffer so what I am currently drawing won’t be seen on Albion for a couple months – we’ll see how long we can keep this up! All that to say, you may have to wait a bit for more scenes with Rothgar…

UPDATE:I love this new poem from Tom! Check out the original TS Eliot – The Hollow Men – out if you’re not familiar. I especially like Rothgar’s take on the final line! (and it answers the question of the spelling – there’s just one h in rarrh lol)

I am the hollow bear
Whispering of secrets
Waves without waving
Force without motion

My voice alone speaks
Deep the world’s singing
In the name of the wind

This is the living sea
This is the green water
Here the wave’s portraits
Self-painted on sand
Are raised, here they recede
Under the shining sun
I walk alone
Through evening dew and morning mist
Across the sand, across the stone

This is the vision
This healing balm of mystery
What cannot be riven
The knowledge from the knower

Between the act
and the fact
Between the wolf
and the pack
Falls the Shadow
This is the way the world begins
This is the way the world begins
This is the way the world begins
Not with a Bang but a RARRH!

(c) Tom Radcliffe

image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer

Sea bear – close-up!

raaaahr...um delicious!

Sorry, I am not posting very often this summer. As I mentioned before, a lot of my spare time is going into Songs of Albion and random doodles are happening less often. So today I decided to post one of my recent favourites from the images that have gone up with the story so far… and here is the poem that accompanies it there by Tom Radcliffe – a whimsical take on a famous T.S. Eliot poetic segment.

Rothgar the Seabear, a fortnight famished
Forgot the cry of gulls and the deep sea swell
and the penguins and the whales.
A current under the ship
Swept her along in silence. As she rose and fell
She rubbed her back upon the barnacles of Hull
Entering the vortices.
Human or bear
O you who grip the rudder and gnaw the stern-post,
Consider Rothgar, who thinks it tastes like chicken.

(c) 2011 Tom Radcliffe

image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer

UPDATE: Here’s a link to the original poem segment by TS Eliot Death by Water from The Wasteland. As suggested in the comments, it is even more amusing to read them one after the other!

sea bear!

great big bear, great big sea...

I missed posting last week as I was out of town for a bit and have been very busy preparing the “next big thing” I’ve been working on with Tom Radcliffe – Songs of Albion!! click the link and get a sneak peak into what’s coming… there will be Tom’s prose and poetry along with my images combined into an original story that we hope will enchant… It’s got everything – monsters, fencing, true love… no wait that’s “The Princess Bride”… anyway, there’s everything you could be looking for and lots that you likely haven’t even thought of looking for!! Stay tuned for midsummer…

UPDATE: Tom’s poem for this image! – evocative without giving too much away!

Let us go now, you and I
while the sea is spread beneath the sky
like an enormous body of saline water;
Let us go, through half-remembered sweeps
of currents where the tides run deep
across the bones of sunken wrecks
where ragged claws in scuttling pairs
are heard to whisper, “Do I dare? O do I dare?”

(c) T J Radcliffe 2011

image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer