IMPORTANT. I AM NOT CRAIG HOOD THE ARTIST FROM MAINE USA.

I used to be into drawing and art and stuff up to maybe my 20s.

I will add some scans of stuff I've drawn here.

(The copyright of all drawings remains with the artist. Prints cannot be taken of any work without my written consent).

Graveyard 0.1mm rapidograph pen

I did this in 1992 after watching a UK TV documentary about Mike Wilks who did much bigger drawings

in a similar way using cross hatching with a 0.1mm pen that took him up to 6 months to complete.

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The drawing took about 3 months, using a rotring rapidograph 0.1mm.

Mostly cross hatching, but the grass was done by making a sort of left to right figure of 8 shape

(within a few millimetres) that I kept moving slightly.

I had to go over the grass 2 or 3 times using the same technique till I got the correct overall shade (detail below).

I scaled up (roughly 1:4) a black and white photo that I took myself using squares on tracing

paper over the photo, and light pencil squares drawn on the paper.

All of the ground elements were drawn on an A4 sheet of cartridge paper.

I then trimmed along the horizon using a scalpel blade and glued it to the background.

The background is a piece of white mount board, the sky was airbrushed using quink black ink

(though it ended up looking more like brown).

The clouds were first masked with masking fluid then shadows added with a black coloured pencil.

The overall dimensions are about 21 x 50cm.

I had quite a few comments from people entering my living room for the first time like

"Why have you got a photo of a graveyard on your living room wall?".

I would say "look closer", they would be amazed when they realised it was a drawing.

The next comment would be "Isn't it a bit morbid putting your own name on a gravestone?"

I would say "look closer".

I temporarily moved house a couple of years after finishing this drawing.

So I moved some basic possessions via a roughly 4 mile car journey.

About 2 miles down the road while passing a couple of teenagers next to a golf course there was a loud smash.

I thought one of them must have thrown a bottle at the car.

Shortly after arriving at my destination I was suddenly engulfed with doom when I realised what had just happened.

Before leaving, I had carefully placed the drawing (which had glass fitted to it with clips) on the roof of the car while putting other stuff on the back seat.

I drove the 2 miles back to the golf course at just slightly over the speed limit (officer)

and just slightly smashed the front wheel rim against a kerb while going round a roundabout.

The drawing was still there lying face down on the road, the glass had smashed into small pieces

and luckily there was just a few small scratches and marks on the surface.

Foxy

I did this in 1996 during my dinner break when I worked in a machine shop in a factory.

I don't know what it is as I just made it up, but it looks like a fox and a jackal.

Actual size is about 10 x 10cm. I used this as the cover for my Nothing Music.album

I know it's not anatomically correct as the jaw wouldn't shut, but who cares anyway?

I occasionally painted a few cars and bikes around the early 80s including some murals with my airbrush.

Below is my Dad's Austin healy sprite before and after painting.

The hose on the spray gun had lots of holes in it that were taped up so mostly the paint just fell out the gun onto the car.

This left a bad finish so I had to sand then polish the whole car by hand which took ages but I ended up with a good finish.

I copied a Roger Dean image from his "Views" book that I absolutely loved at that time and looked through countless times and showed to loads of people. Looking at the mural now, it doesn't fit in with the rest of the car.

I did the murals on this scooter which had already been painted black and red. After these images I added "go feet" all over and the names of the girl owner and her boyfriend "Maxeen and Hammy" if I remember correctly.

I did this mural for my Mum in our living room. I don't know what I was thinking about with the suns "rays" and my Mum wasn't keen on that bit. I seem to remember my Mum changing it herself later and did a good job by fitting a large piece of wallpaper over the centre of the image and doing the sun and bamboo parts again so it all matched the original, but it could have been me. I think I added the chinese writing later having no idea what it means.

I started this large mural (around 4 x 3 feet) but never finished it. I started adding a road and traffic lights intending to add tyre smoke (the cars rear tyres are spinning and both cars are tilted backwards to show they are accelerating).

Some drawings from a sketchpad from maybe the early 80s.

I came up with this idea imagining a chrome ball silently floating along a road. I did a mural of this on a friends wall maybe in the mid 80s and it is still on his wall in 2023.

I did these drawings while working as an architectural technician maybe 1982. I had done proper drawings of this building for alterations or construction work etc. but those were normal plans and elevations with no perspective.

My Dad only told me maybe around 2017 that he remembered speaking to the experienced architect who worked there in the 80s and he said he was very impressed by these drawings.

I did this drawing spontaneously of a guy I worked beside in the dockyard. It was an exact likeness and he kept asking me to show it to more and more people. I remember my gaffer saying I shouldn't be working there if I can do things like that.

And also while working there I drew this on my thigh on my overalls while stting down so it was upside down when I stood up. I wanted to keep it so, before handing my overalls into the laundry which we did regularly, I cut it out with scissors so I handed in overalls with a massive hole in them.

I named it Culot (god knows how) and a guy I worked beside made up the latin name "Longnekitus bigfootikus".

This was a T shirt design for a band I was in maybe late 80s. I did a more complete version for printing on T shirts, but that was lost.

I had this idea of a nightmare.

Also drawn in 1986. Rose McDowall from Strawberry switchblade. I would never have guessed almost 30 years later I would work on an album with Jill Bryson from Strawberry switchblade.

More info and music in The Shapists page.

This was just copied from a book, but it is very close to the original and was done first in pencil then in ball point pen and coloured pencils.

This was during a caravan holiday in the 90s.

This was copied from a photo I took in Hyde park London in the 90s.

I used my airbrush with normal pen ink and felt pens.

This was also copied from a photo I took while staying in London in the 90s.

This was copied from a photo of Roy Burke's bike. I did this as a trade for welding work he did on my KX.

The bike was drawn on paper then I very carefully cut the bike out with a scalpel and stuck it onto card. I like my idea of cutting out the chrome part of the air filters.

So that part of the air filters is basically not there and you are seeing through to the road surface which was drawn on the backing card before sticking the bike on, but it still looks like a reflection of the road.

It was airbrush and pens.

This was based on a photo of my KX that was taken not long after I bought it.

Also airbrush and pens.

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