On my desk - it's poptastic!

Well, Robyn asked, so here it is! Not very exciting really, but this is how I keep my coloured pencils at the moment. (And as soon as I took the photo, I spotted some oranges that needed re-housing!) I think it was Andrea's drawing here, that prompted me to get organised. I know someone will look at this photo and marvel at how clean and tidy the desk is, but it's only like this after I've finished a drawing. All sorts of things end up on the desk over the course of a drawing and the act of clearing it all away puts a line under it, so to speak, and clears the head to think about the next one.

I bought the perspex pots (except the one on the left) from Ordning & Reda - I have an assortment of pots and tins and boxes full of pencils around my room sorted into degrees of usefulness. I think I'll replace most of them with clear pots eventually as it makes everything easier to find. The small clear pencil case in the foreground is from the same shop and is now the one I keep in my bag. I found metal pencil top protectors a couple of weeks ago that weigh nothing, so that has lightened my bag even more - I'm always looking for ways to cut weight down.

Anyway, from left, a small basket containing Karismacolor pencils bought in Kuwait. They seem to have a nice 'chalky' feel but I know these have been discontinued so there is not much point in getting into them. Next to that, a perspex pot of assorted pencils, mechanical pencils, leads, watercolour leads and tortillons. And the colour pencils - there appears to be far fewer since I organised them! As they grew I'll be dividing the reds and purples. I added a few greys during the last drawing. Next, a wooden pot with my brush and magnifying glass - the brush I use all the time, the magnifying glass occassionally as my eyesight is getting worse!

Front left - sanding paper, a tortillon and that black pen is actually an eraser stick called'Tuff Stuff' - it's great for erasing colour pencil. Two sharpeners, talked about before and finally, on the right, my Bose remote control. Sometimes I draw to music and sometimes I don't but I never listen to the radio. Well, that was until about a couple of months ago and I tuned into one of the local stations. Boy, that music selection it worth a post of it's own - if I hear Kate Nash's 'Fondations' one more time I think I'll scream! And I thought radio stations playing Hall and Oats ('Maneater') and Fine Young Cannibals ('She Drives Me Crazy') over and over had become extinct in the 90's. I'm surprised they don't chuck Bachman Turner Overdrive's 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' into the mix for good measure! What is it with 'Come On Eileen' - I hated it then and I hate it now! It seems local radio stations have never changed, even all these years later. I'm sure there must be an international law against them playing a song only once a day. Didn't DJ's learn anything from Smashy and Nicey?

Why have I gone off on a tangent about it? Well, music is so much a part of the process isn't it? Sometimes a song evokes a time and place but for me, sometimes a drawing evokes memories of the music I was listening to or heard on the radio at the time. In the mid 70's I used to listen to Nicky Horne, and Kenny Everett on Capital Radio (a London station) and tuned in again in the mid 80's to listen to Charlie Gillett's world music programme - all top quality stuff, so maybe it spoiled me. I think it would be fun if I had written a note, on the back of the drawings, of the songs I was listening too along with the dates (I didn't think to do it at the time), I've forgotten so much of it now. Last week I switched off the radio and the monotonous rap songs and rediscovered Sting's Ten Summoners Tales. It may be getting long in the tooth but it's easier on the ears!