I can’t stop developing new projects for an online Domestika course that I signed up for ages ago. I clearly have a psychological problem with this and should probably give it up. These courses are essentially a series of videos and exercises, with forums to share your work, so there’s no time pressure. Once you purchase the course you can access it forever.

I have returned to an exercise where we were encouraged to create a playlist of songs to inspire narratives and images, and I came up with a story based on these songs, about a child who wakes in a strange and sinister city, and after a period of being lost is befriended by an elephant who recruits the child into his accordion band which is actually a group of thieves planning to steal the Secret of Happiness from a wealthy neighbour while they’re hosting a fancy party. It’s a sort of mix of the City of Lost Children, the Ladykillers, the Third Policeman, Leonora Carrington and Chirico, and maybe a little bit of the Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

Here are some really rough sketches of moments in the story. The exercise I have to do for the class is pick one and work it up into a more finished illustration.