This one goes a fair while back - I think I drew this somewhere in 2005 with the intention of it being a whole series which starts with Gnook drawing a square on the ground and mysteriously extrapolating it into the third dimension, after which myriad adventures follow. Four years later there’s not that many more, but in a ’start the way you mean to carry on’ sort-of-way, here’s the first one.
Gnook works particularly well on cards, I find. Here he is having his nose dusted with snow from a cloud-like balloon. Or a balloon-like cloud. Very seasonal.
Another birthday card, another appearance for Gnook. This time he’s gathering dry wood in what seems a cold, windy and autumny forest. I am really enjoying this black and white line-and-raster feel, pitched as it feels between limitation (in being starkly black and white) and potential for atmosphere within those limits.
The title is a ‘cut-and-shut’ of the Dutch ’sprokkelhout’ (dry wood collected for making fires with) and ‘woud’ (which is Dutch for ‘wood’ or ‘forest’).
Anyway, another ‘happy birthday’.
Quietly making his entrance on a birthday card I would like to introduce Gnook, whom I hope will come out again soon. He first started popping up in my sketchbooks about three and a half years ago and has been a frequent visitor since, though I have never quite found a place for him.
Here he receives a present, sat in the warm comfort of his home. I like to imagine the crackly sound of a fire, and maybe the distant sound of rain on a roof. Happy birthday, Ingrid!