I’ve unpinned this now but it might not be the end. It’s gone to sit on the studio wall while I let it stew and maybe give it some competition. The new piece will be bigger – four A3 sheets pasted to an A1 sheet instead of two on an A2. That’ll show it.

As you can see, there’s some bleaching by the camera (an iPhone 8+) in the close ups when they’re on black so the bottom picture gives a better idea of the whole. The bricks are troubling though – too distractingly flat and prosaic – so they needed to go.

This is them gone – cheers iPhone! – so I’ve imported the image into Paint Shop Pro to adjust and crop so the onscreen image is closer to my on-eye experience.

Not perfect but better. You might be able to see the additional highlights in orange oil crayon and a bit of yellow charcoal. Also the blue tints (more oil crayon) aimed at enhancing the impression of beaten metal.

This is very much mixed media – gesso, inks, fineliner, oil crayon and charcoal, with lots of reduction using both putty rubber and battery eraser, and scraping and scratching with a stylus and, erm, a tangleteezer hair brush!

And that frog exists. Big critter made of polished wood. If you came across that guarding someone’s city, you probably wouldn’t argue with it. Imagine of the length of that tongue!