Cover 2 Cover 2017 - sketchbook three - The Unexpected

The next book was unexpected. No, it really was The Unexpected: Sue Crook's theme, for which she had been given, uexpectedly, an old Private Eye annual.

I went straight to the popular culture for my inspiration, starting with Roald Dahl's Tales of The Unexpected (a 1970s TV programme that was surely far too scary for me to have watched as a child, yet nonetheless, watch it I did, with my parents).

I discovered that Indian Ink sticks to glossy pages. Mysterious splodges of vaguely flame-like acrylic ink on top of it to indicate the flickering titles of the TV show...

I remembered a roulette wheel in the titles, too. The casino idea reminded me of some vector drawings of playing cards that I had made a while back, so I recycled them and glued the printed images in to the book. Mysteriously, the green baize of the casino made me think of table football, and the almost-checquerboard pattern of the roulette wheel caused a chess piece to join the game...

Jack the lad turns the queen's head...

... and, unexpectedly, the King falls to pieces. This is what happens when you centre a vector drawing without grouping its components properly. I didn't expect that! And this sub-theme ends with a life drawing standing in for the dancing nude who graced the TV show's slightly risqué and thoroughly non-politically correct titles.

And on to a local theme. When I first walked on Greenham Common, I knew its history as an RAF and, later, an American Air Force base. The old control tower was obvious, as were the remnants of the runways (and the cruise missile bunkers), but I was still surprised to find this in a corner of the common:

I've always been fascinated by the rusty fire plane, destined never to leave the ground. I wanted to make it fly... this is the first pop-up I have ever made. It is a clumsy flier, but that might be expected of a monument.

Also on Greenham Common, I was initially surprised to come across a yellow fire hydrant:

Molotow One4All Marker

And finally, noone expects ...

 the Spanish Inquisition.

(Should that be "inkyswition"?)