Storytelling; Furry secrets

A storytelling concept- I’ve included my work so far.....which is a prep sketch. No further utterings on paper just yet, simply a visual which had to be scribbled down before it fled from the fleeting ‘odd but I like it’ catalogue I have flicking through my brain all day long. There is a girl and there is a pine marten. And there is a deep secret eating away at their joint soul.....

I had become enamoured by the long body and mischievous snout of the weasel this week, and felt a real urge to draw one. In my search for references, I discovered nature’s most adorable assassin, the pine marten. The idea of something so charming, prancing about the British woodlands, the cutest frolic to lure in the naive and roaming child, rather like a piskie having fun at the expense of a drunken rambler out on a misty moor. The cat-sized creature casts a spell and the young earth cub sleeps. And then, whilst under the influence of hedgerow herbs, receives a strange and magical deposit.........I like this as a short illustrated horror story. Undecided on direction colour-wise, really enjoying muted shades, wondering about a grey/blue/sage palette or perhaps simply all in black and white.....

I’ve been trying out many ideas for short stories based on memoiresque, folk horror and fairytales. Adult picture book sort of thing.....but not as exciting as a jazz mag, unless clothed taxidermied squirrels get you all excited. I suppose these brain snippets fester in the realm of graphic novel but less graphicsy and more painted scenes of zoomorphism with some rhyming couplet streams of consciousness, or something. A bit like if you imagine Dr Seuss watched the movie Alien whilst having a cuppa with Mole from Wind in the Willows and then, without the inclusion of cancel culture material, plegmed up some art out across a page.

Somewhere in the world, a lonely mad person needs these storybooks in their life. That’s what I’m telling myself......

I’m enjoying the figuring out of concepts and the making of strange stuffs. Nowt to lose but my sanity, and that’s overrated.

Creepy sounds by me.