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HI guys. I couldn't help but draw Hamlet for this week's IF. Hope you like it! Cheers.

Hello.

Well, here we are. April. The end of this month will mark one year of this new journey. I am very happy to say I have been able to survive as a freelancer for a whole year. Much has changed, and at times I am still uncertain of what to do. There is still much to learn and much to be done. But I do think I'm off to a good start!

To mark this anniversary of sorts, I took it upon myself to re-design chris-whetzel.com(being uploaded tonight). Lately, I had been really unhappy with the website layout so I read up on some coding issues I was having with the site, and fixed it up to look a little better on any size screen. Also, I decided to use clearer thumbnails and add some features to make things easier for art directors after viewing joshuamiddleton.com. Thanks to Scott and Irene for bringing this website and its positive qualities to my attention. Also, thanks to Josh Middleton for amazing art on a well-designed site. I am really happy with the re-design, and I feel it may be around for a while. Of course the artwork will be updated as close to monthly as I can manage!

The time since my last post has been filled with work, thankfully. All are pending publication, so they will eventually be featured here. I have been very lucky to have some children's work to supplement my income! I am considering featuring the kids work on this blog as well as setting up a site for it. Also just completed was artwork for a client I was very excited to work with! Sadly, this artwork will not be released until June, and I can't wait to add it to the portfolio!

Its been a weird period. I have found myself to be very artistically driven as of late. I just added three new self-initiated pieces to the portfolio (which was a project in itself), planned more portfolio work, and provided artwork for three commissions. The odd part is that while being very busy with this work, I have had this yearning to be reading more. These past two weeks I read Robinson Crusoe and Lord of the Flies; I am currently working my way through Walden again. Walden is a very important book for me; a much of the book reflects how I attempt to live my own life (with some allowances :) Anyway, I have found that this rekindling of the desire to read has really inspired my creative side. What a pleasant surprise.

Now shut yer trap, Chris! Its time for the artwork!

This blog post features three new self-initiated pieces based upon Shakespeare's works. I took these on as a vehicle to experiment within my own artistic methods: playing with color, cropping, and composition as concept:

I am pretty happy with these, and I hope to get more work along these lines. If not, I'll just keep making them for myself, experimenting along the way!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

They started up experiments with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN this week (deep under the Swiss/French border in the Alps). Radio 4 commemorated this amazing experiment with a day of radio programmes, including a one-off radio episode of Torchwood - the more "adult" Doctor Who spin-off, Lost Souls written by Joseph Lidster. It was a mixture of pseudo-science (this IS the Whoniverse after all!) and philosophical musings on life-after-death, but the story ended with two of the characters quoting lines from a poem by Alfred Tennyson (this is what I love about the Whoniverse - the wild mixture of serious and silly, and of "low" and "high" culture).


All Things Will Die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing

Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing

Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating

Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d—we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
The old earth
Had a birth,
As all men know,
Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.


The lines used were worked into the play in a very natural manner, rather than being shoe-horned in, and were a genuinely moving conclusion to the story.

This week's Poetry Friday round-up is over at Biblio File.


(Somehow it doesn't seem like a week since I was sitting at Oxford station, waiting to get the train to Stratford and the most memorable evening of my life so far!)

Ok, I know we're almost halfway through October, but here, finally, is the October Drawing.


If you've already entered to win this month, you're all set. If you haven't? Well, let's see some enthusiasm! Click here and see how it's done!

Your bud,
Maxwell

JOSEPH B. FRAZIER, a Writer for the Associated Press, reviews Filthy Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Most Outrageous Sexual Puns for SFGate.com. Author Pauline Kiernan points to puns and double-entendre that modern readers don't understand. She presents a number of original passages that she translates into modern English. The book is being released today.

Hamlet declares that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. "Rotten," according to Kiernan refers to venereal disease, a word that Shakespeare's audience would have understood. Various forms of the "f-word" can be found by readers in the know and the number of words for genitalia exceed 400. Kiernan describes some of Shakespeare's passages as "exuberant displays of sparkling coded sexy dialogue."

"Get thee to a nunnery" takes on a whole new meaning when one understands that "dancing school" and "nunnery" meant a brothel.

Who knew English class could be so interesting?

These were the final sketch versions of Pinky with legs, sent to my editor, Cecile, for approval before starting in on BEST BUDS.