There has always seemed to be a tendency when drawing pixies, or fairies, or witches, or wizards, still to draw them in medieval, or Elizabethan dress, with corresponding world views (filtered, of course, through a Victorian puritanism). Based in pseudo feudal worlds, still stuffed full of old ideas about Princes saving and Princesses saved, of suspiciously European looking good folk and suspiciously none - European villains. I grew up devouring this stuff (and still love it, if now with a raised eyebrow and healthy warning system), but I also found other views within the fantasy I read and art I poured over. Le Guin and Vance and  Gaiman, Pratchett, and  Pullman and Winn Jones suggested not only that the Princesses and supposedly orphaned girls were fine (and probably far better at the saving bit in the first place), but that witches and travellers, and the ancient wise beings under the bridges, not to mention peoples with differing skin colours, and cultures, and ideas, were as rich in custom and magics, if not more so than High Elves and Kings, White Wizards and Noble Princes.

I eat up and breathe out the idea of myths alive now, walking in our world. Of sorcerers changing train timetables to suite their needs and Witches calling down the moon to prevent a chemical spill in town. Alchemists trade elixirs on eBay whilst Shadow Spiders sit in the darkest corners of their World Wide Webs. My pixies are still based deep in the ancient woodlands, they just wear converse. My shamans are more likely to ride a skateboard, rather than a horse (and they ALL listen and dance and sing to The Levellers - be quite sure of that). 

The artists I adore see things a little… differently. Moebius and his cities full of life and diversity, Chris Riddell, whose monsters have more humanity within the gleam of their eye than any Questing Knight. Charles Vess, with fox folk peering into magic wells and seeing skyscrapers… The ancient and the modern swirling around each other, dancing the oldest of jigs whilst adding new steps of their own.

So, here are a few scribbles and curiosities, oddities that have fallen from out of my head. I didn’t invent them, not really. They walk our pavements, and sleep in the doorways across the street. They sit in penthouse apartments plotting the next bank job with local Trickster Gods and ride the clouds in Driftships, smuggling skymead to the next Aetherport. 

In truth (or one of them - the Brass Homunculi, sipping thick dark coffee on his boat on the canal, holds the Punch Card Tarot close, and deals out the Pathways most sparingly) I only draw what’s there. Just out of the corner of my eye. Between the standing stones and the number 4 bus stop. The Gods and the Unseelie, the Meadow Mages and Hedge Shamans walk amongst us.

Keep your eyes open....