The Spring Cleaning Spaniel

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It is only a few decades since the high point of the Spring Cleaning Spaniels career, when the dogs could be found throughout the UK,  Europe, and North America, leading a hand, or paw I should say, with the cleaning.

The main champion of the Spring Cleaning Spaniel breed was the the cleaning fan and obsessive Doris Bustle, legendary housekeeper to Industrialist and billionaire Dustin Mophead IV. Mophead had made a fortune in the manufacturer of cheese graters and even held several patents relating to the devices.


Bustle found that it was taking way too much time to take care of the one hundred and thirty nine and a half rooms of Mophead's mansion, and so sought to revive a breed once popular with stately homes throughout Europe. Bustle was successful, and soon the Spaniels started to spring up again.


The dogs were bred to help out with a variety of household chores, from doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, and taking out garbage amongst other things. The dogs became very adept at griping assorted tools in their mouths and were probably as skilled at is as any other breed.

The dogs would fling themselves about their task with much glee, it was obvious that this was a working breed that really enjoyed it's occupation.

 

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The British Museum even employed them at one point to help out with the task of keeping clean the extensive exhibition halls and corridors. This lasted up until the notorious Ming vase episode, which led to the premature closure of an exhibition, and the resulting diplomatic incident with China.

Ultimately the spaniel's sheer enthusiasm for the task at hand was it's undoing, for it tended to flood the kitchen while washing up, move the dust around rather than pick it up, and generally act like a miniature version of a bull in a china shop.

In hind sight it was probably not the greatest greatest decision ever to think that spaniels, known for their occasional daftness, would be the most suited to this role.

They can still be found, but it is advised that this good-natured, but somewhat scatty breed is perhaps best of working under direct supervision.

 

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Practicing Hatching

As part of the cartoon course I’ve been doing is about using hatching, I thought I post one of the exercises.

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Here’s a cartoon by Twohy. The task was to use Hatching to replace any grey areas in the cartoon.

 

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1. With single hatching

 

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2. With some double-hatching

I thought I’d continue practicing hatching on one of my own cartoons. 

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With this one I added a grey wash for the tarmac, as I thought it was too big an area to hatch consistently.

Colour versions of ‘Oi!’

I drew a cartoon yesterday in monochrome, which was a bit of a change for me, as my larger pictures I usually do in colour. While drawing it I wondered about doing a colour version, and so today I went back and did some colour versions.

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Pink

 

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Yellow

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Red

 

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Silver

 

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Drawing Oi!

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I’m going to go through the steps involved in creating this cartoon.

The car featured is a Jaguar E-type, I think it’s a series 1. 

The dog is a black Labrador. 

 

1. Here’s the initial rough sketch. As you can see, the basic idea was to have a dog doing what he had to do somewhere he shouldn’t.I had an E-type in mind, as I’ve drawn them a few times and have always liked them.

1. Here’s the initial rough sketch. As you can see, the basic idea was to have a dog doing what he had to do somewhere he shouldn’t.

I had an E-type in mind, as I’ve drawn them a few times and have always liked them.

2. Outline of the characters and background. I found a photo of a woman leaning on an E-type and based the above outline on it.

2. Outline of the characters and background. I found a photo of a woman leaning on an E-type and based the above outline on it.

 

 

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3. Adding washes to the background.  I thought that I’d keep the cartoon monochrome, so decided just to use grey washes.

 

 

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4.  Colouring in the dog and car.  I decided at this point to make it a Black Lab, as opposed to yellow or chocolate.

 

 

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5. Finished cartoon. 

 

 

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6. Alternate version.  I wanted to see how it would work with her yelling ‘Oi!’ as opposed to the caption being at the bottom of the page.

 

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