Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

http://www.shauntan.net/

Feeding my amazon addiction, cruising books, sneaky-peeking into whatever takes my fancy, I found this book by Shaun Tan. I was looking for The Red Tree and I ended up buying this as well. It turned out Rick had already bought us The Lost Thing a few weeks ago and I'd read it to Eddy, thinking it beautifully strange.

It's a collection of stories, illustrated in various styles but all with his weird charm and deep feeling. The story called Undertow just broke my heart.

Shaun Tan - Illustration from Undertow from Tales from Outer Suburbia
His illustrations are featured in another favourite book of mine, Playpen: New Children's Book Illustration by Martin Salisbury.

Danny Gregory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odpf_PcXJZo

Have a look at the book, and check out his website and his blog.


http://dannygregory.com/

http://dannygregory.wordpress.com/

My music

http://www.myspace.com/lyellemusic

Journal

I started this journal after discovering Danny Gregory's book 'An Illustrated Life' and reading an article by Oliver Burkeman about what makes people happy. These things came together at a similar time, and just when I needed them.


I've read Bridget Jones and have a natural inclination to shrug off anything that smacks of 'self-help' or cheesy American pop-psychology. I've cruelly taunted my partner for reading books about how to get what you want, and been called 'the weed in his garden', accurately I suppose, for attempting to discredit the worth of these kind of life guides. Yet reading that happy people practise being happy, that they act happy, and that if you act happy perhaps you can be happy, felt right to me. 


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/15/oliver-burkeman-happy


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/15/expert-advice-happy



I especially liked the idea of getting into a 'state of flow', or just doing things I found engaged my mind without really being aware of it - like driving, cooking, playing in the park with the kids, singing and playing my guitar, teaching, drawing and painting - just the act of living without perpetual reflection or analysis, living in the moment, doing and being at the same time. 





So I decided to try it out and spend more time in this state, while 'expressing gratitude' for the things that made my life good and nice. I started recording good things and good times and good sights and things that made me happy by drawing them in a book and being grateful for these elements of my life. I just decided to practise being positive and appreciate the small things.

It took me a while to find my own style, especially because the pages in Danny Gregory's book were filled with the amazing art of very talented illustrators and designers. Also, I still had my inbuilt reluctance to being wanky, but I gradually realised it didn't matter as the pay-off for me was worth it. I'd always drawn in little books - mainly things for the kids, records of food they liked or words they learned or drawings of the fantastic stories Rick made-up and told them - so I knew it would suit me. After about six weeks, I started to like my pages.

Sometimes they are more 'diary', sometimes more 'arty'. I like to try and make odd pages that don't fit the pattern so they don't all look the same. I never tear out a page I don't like - I just leave it and move on. These are some of my favourites.

A friend commented how he'd like there to be negative stuff in the book too. He's a proper artist, and has always kept sketchbooks where anything goes. I think I can't put really negative things in the book because I started it as a means of recording good things, and it feels wrong to include rowing with Rick or being sad or angry about things that happen in the book. It's what I'm grateful for, and not a true reflection of all the parts of my life. Now and then, something sneaks in, and recently I drew a page about kids at school that would probably get me the sack, but generally these are exclusively the things that make me happy.

I have two other books on the go - a sketchbook that I use out and about - and a 'dark book' that no-one sees but me. Maybe I still wanted to draw things when I couldn't think of anything to be grateful for, or maybe I felt it was unbalanced to only record the good stuff. 


There's not that much in it.