Keep trying.

I've had no time to post here lately. I got busy. I'm locked in my room, only going out for absolute essentials (tobacco and food and ice lollies!). I've been commissioned to produce graphics for a 2006 calendar. I prefer to work in total immersion. Switch off from the outside physical world, research and cram for ideas, then let whatever's there flow, working from dawn 'til the small hours, days running into weeks, until it's done. Great fun.

This is an image from last (this) year's calendar. The theme was old masters montaged and manipulated by computer. This one represents November in the UK. I started with the portrait of Donna Isaabel Cobos de Porcel by Francisco de Goya (royalty-free image), because she represented for me the dark mood of the month and time of year. Her pink hair is a thistle flower, representing Scotland (St Andrew's Day). The bare trees and lowering skies represent autumn; the fireworks, Guy Fawkes' night (that's the annual burning of an effigy of a man who tried to blow up parliament in 1605 - yes, 400 years ago: barbaric, isn't it?); the scorpion represents Scorpio; and the poppies and crying figure, Remembrance Sunday (remembering war dead). (The figure, Sorrow, is one corner of a statue in Arnhem War Cemetery, Holland.)