Octopanda Ink

My final illustration for the last week of my editorial project:

All Ears article week 4 Monday 1 February 2010

Outside a café I sat near a set of identical twins, women in their mid
sixties, dressed alike and gearing themselves up for a duet of
synchronized complaining that, had it been a piece of music, might have
been eligible for some sort of prize.

Twin 1 (surveying the mild autumn sky) “This is my kind of weather…”

Twin 2 (staring moodily at the waiting staff) “What’s wrong with these
people?”

Twin 1 “Did you ask for more jam?”

Twin 2 “Yes but she didn’t understand me.”

I looked at their table. They were eating scones and had what seemed to
me to be an adequate amount of jam to be going on with.

Twin 1 (stopping a waitress) “We need more jam!”

The waitress smiled and walked inside.

Twin 2 “She won’t speak English. It’s the same in Waitrose.”

Another waitress appeared and gave them more jam.

Twin 1 (looking angrily at the tiny jars) “These have the lids on!”

Twin 2 “The others had the lids off!”

Twin 1 “It’s the inconsistency…”

She stopped a waitress and held out a jar.

Twin 2 “Can you open this?”

Twin 1 “It’s no good. They can’t understand you.”

The waitress took the jam and opened it.

Twin 2 “This is different jam altogether.”

Twin 1 “It’s the wrong jam!”

They now had no scones and a surplus of jam. A problem they
surmounted by spooning it directly into the mouths while looking beadily
about for trouble, like human wasps.
Michael Holden

Week 4 of editorial project: roughs.

My final illustration for week 3 of the editorial project:

All Ears article week 3 Monday 25 January 2010

The ethics of professional nudity are one of the great default arguments that daytime television, talk radio, columnists and occasionally frontline politics will elect to shine their dubious lights upon when there’s nothing else to talk about. It came as no big surprise then to find myself adjacent to two drinkers discussing the art of what Tina Turner called “Private Dancing,” albeit from a somewhat subjective point of view.

Man 1 “She made eight hundred quid in her first week.”

Man 2 “Christ, so that’s her now then. No going back…how she’s getting on?”

Man 1 “Well she does get on with things-I admire that about her. She says the blokes are just-well you can imagine…”

Man 2 “What?”

Man 1 “Well, you know. They’ll show her a picture of a Ferrari on their iPhone and say, ‘That’s my car, I can take you away from all this, you’re too good for it.’ But, there they are…”

Man 2 “What does she say to all that?”

Man 1 “You have to play up to it. They told her, you can’t crack on that you’re clever. You have to act the part. You can read books if it’s quiet but you have to wrap up them up inside a copy of Heat or something.”

Man 2 “Yeah, I can see that.”

Man 1 “She had one lot of blokes come in that she said were alright. They said it was the first time they’d been and she told them it was her first night-which was true. They said they’d give her all the money she had, which was plenty, if, when she got on the stage, half way through the routine she started doing robotics.”

Man 2 (laughing) “Did she do it?”

Man 1 (laughing too) “No, she bottled it.”

Man 2 “I’d pay good money to see that.”

Man 1 “I’ll let her know.”

-Michael Holden

All Ears Week 3 Article Designs: Rough Versions!

Here’s my final illustration on week 2 of the All Ears Article project. The scene is as follows:

All Ears article week 2 Monday 18 January 2010

I was on a train, sat in front of a group of men who spent most of the
journey talking about cars. As this is a subject about which I know
little I didn’t pay too much attention but I couldn’t help but tune in
when one of them made an unusual comparison.
Man 1 (dismayed) “The whole car smelled like trees.”
Man 2 (sombre-as though he had suffered the same nightmare at some
point) “Really…”
Man 1 “Aye, someone had smashed the rear window and the damp had
gotten in. It smelled like my Audi.”
Man 2 “The one you got off your cousin?”
Man 1 (with bitterness) “Yeah, that one.”
Man 2 “How is he?”
Man 1 “Doing well for him self. You have to watch him with money
though. That Audi wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. And he’s pulled
some sort of stunt with his mortgage, God knows how, but he’s ended up
with a four-bedroom place.”
Man 2 “Whereabouts?”
Man 1 “Just around the corner from where he was. It’s still dodgy
though. For all his rooms he’s no garage. Someone had the wheels off
his car, they had the radio.”
Man 2 “What did he do?”
Man 1 “Set it on fire for the insurance. He’s got the new one now.”
Man 2 “What’s it like?”
Man 1 “Pretty smart, but it’s got to him though, the money. I went round
to look at the car and when I got to the house he asked me to take my
shoes off.”
Silence followed, heavy with judgment, as though such protocols were
sub human, and best not dignified with more discussion.
Michael Holden