'And So The Long Evening Wears On'

Another Sophie and Mara image. The more I used this pair, the more I started to build separate personalities for them in my head. And also the more they started to become my 'ideal women', in the sense of reacting to situations in the way I believe everyone should. Here, trapped by a pub bore. Mara, receiving the lecture, doesn't bother hiding her boredom; Sophie giggles wildly to herself. Perfect women. It's probably a blessing in disguise that I lost them when my last computer crashed. I wasn't really heading down a very healthy path.

'Access Denied'

There's a downside to taking your inspiration directly from the world around you. I do most of my thinking while I'm walking; most of all when I'm walking to and from my parents' house on a Saturday night. So I get inspired to create a lot of dark, shabby surburban streets. This one was worth doing, however. It's about the startling effect of walking past a house with the lights on and the curtains drawn; the clarity of the rooms inside compared to the uncertain darkness all around. The eyes are drawn to even the most mundane of houses. I wrap it up in some vague social message here by making the room rather posh and the wayfarer scruffy. Really, though, it's about light and darkness comparisons. It took an eternity of messing around with spotlights to get right. But an eternity, I think, that was worth it. I also tried a di Vinci-esque trick of drawing a straight line between the sole of the woman's outstretched foot and the top of her head. I don't know why. Why did di Vinci do that sort of thing anyway?