Something a bit different

If you've been following for a while, or browsed through some of my older stuff on here, you might have noticed I used to do a lot more of what I call illustration work.  It's good fun to leave reality behind and draw things straight out of your head every now and then and it's something I'd like to get much better at doing.  This pic here was done for an ArtOrder challenge and even though there weren't any prizes involved, I was up against some pretty tough competition.

I know my interpretation of the quote was a little bit literal (and well trod, it seems) but I kind of got the idea stuck in to my head and felt I had to  follow it to completion.  Towards the end, I really started to hate this piece though.  I know that a lot of the circles aren't quite right in perspective, the forearm bugs me a fair bit, the bodies in the middle ground are only partially defined, the texture of the piece is rough and amateurish and the range of colors and tones isn't great at all, but I'm still glad I made an attempt at this and sent it off.  

I used a bunch of new techniques for this one.  A few preliminary sketches, posing for reference via PhotoBooth (lots of fun : ) and switching back and forth between pencil/paper and photoshop via Zanny's A3 scanner/printer.  There's even some alchemy in there, though actually I kind of wish I'd left that layer out in the end...

I still have major difficulties in working digitally.  Making the right mark in the right place just seems really difficult, especially if you are trying to create a non-digital-looking effect.  In that vein, I'm doing some master studies to try and improve my photoshop brush handling as it does seem to be a pretty awesome tool in the hands of the pros.

Colored pencil, chalk and photoshop

Me again

Wasn't really happy with that previous self portrait, so had another
go painting over it. Still not sure I'd want to use this one for a
business card (which was the original plan) but I do think it's
better...
Also, no idea what to do with the background. Next time, I really need
to work on the whole painting at once, from composition onwards.
Did have fun doing an underpainting first for this one, actually
helped a lot with keeping the light source really strong.

Oil on canvas board.

Ida's Valley

So, this is another painting I worked on out in Ida's Valley. This was one of the many beautiful gardens surrounding Major Erskine's house. This was actually the first propper painting I started while I was out there. Quite looking forward to framing this one as I think it'll really make it look rather nice.

Anyway, if I'm updating my blog, I'm clearly not painting, so I better get back to it :D

Oils on wood.

Say cheese!

So the studio is going really well. Zanny's great to share with, and I feel like I'm actually being rather productive having somewhere to go to just work. Of course, not every day goes according to plan, but it makes a huge difference. Still working away on that landscape, having some issues with the foreground, though hopefully I'll work it out sooner or later. Meanwhile, it's time to be moving on with other things.

I've stared planning out another painting which I don't expect to be finished for quite some time, but have a scene, some pose ideas and have even persuaded my house mate to pose for it. Yes she'll be fully clothed. Crikey, what are you like? Anyway, that'll be some way off yet.

Meanwhile, it's about time I started sorting out business cards as it seems like such a wasted opportunity when you meet people and they ask for one but you have nothing to give. Well, I think I still have some MX ones lying around, but it doesn't seem entirely appropriate to use those...

So, I'm working on a self portrait that I can shrink down and print out on expensive card with my name and phone number on the back. It's been ages since I painted a self portrait. It's very difficult to get a convincing expression on the face, I think I need to practice drawing expressions. Might be time to get that good old face book out again. Anyway, I'm not yet fully convinced by this, but it'll have to do for now.

Critiques even more welcome than usual on this one, I could really do with some tips on making this a bit more convincing!

Oil on canvas board

South Africa and new studio!

Yo! So South Africa was cool. Stayed with a Major Phillip Erskine in a lovely Cape Dutch homestead in Ida's Valley. You wouldn't believe how beautiful it was, with an enormous garden to boot. While there, I painted a fair bit, and brought back four paintings I was relatively happy with, although I'll be the first to admit that they each need more work!

In other news, I've also moved in to a new studio in the gassworks in Fulham, which is awesome. I now have space to make a mess and get back in to painting "propper".

First up, I thought I'd work on one of those South Africa painings. This was done looking over the wall (and through the barbed wire) at a mountain next door. I kind of like the colors in this one, though my lovely studio-mate Zanny has rightfully pointed out that I need to at least push the sky back to pop out the mountain and the foreground. Still not finished, but figured I need to show something to give you guys an idea of what I'm up to : )

So... yeah... seriously expensive oil paints on wood:

(edit: have uploaded a more recent version of this painting!)

LARA

Hey again! Past four weeks I've been studying at LARA, working on my drawing. Tiring, but oh so worth it. Definitely feel that this is the right track to be on. Below are the 6 pieces I did in that time, 3 cast drawings, 1 cast painting and two long pose life drawings. Really wish I'd had more time for the painting and I'm not as happy with the early casts now as I was when I started them, but apparently that's a good sign you're understanding more as an artist : )

Anyway, less talk, more art. HB pencil, various charcoals and even some oil paints on a couple of types of paper and a stretched canvas.







Am off to South Africa this week, really looking forward to seeing some sunshine and getting some landscape painting done. Will be staying with Major Phillip Erskine, who is quite the painter himself, so should be quite the trip! Woohoo!

After Rembrandt

So much change since my last update, where to start? I'm now a full time semi-independant art student again, so have started putting a lot more energy into self training than I was able to than when I was working 9-6 at MX.

For those I haven't spoken to recently, my plan is to pursue three seperate careers, though each will be rooted in creating images. The first is simply 'representational fine art', so oil paintings, portraits, still lives, landscapes, that sort of thing. The second is more lighthearted illustration for magazines, books, newspapers. I'd love to get in to political cartooning, but I'm not sure anyone would understand my kind of humour. Lastly, I really want to get in to storyboarding. Working for films, adverts, or even just writers needing a little visual punch to get funding for their ideas. So lots and lots of different skills I'm going to need, but also a few core ones relevant to all three.

First step was to create a personal curriculum of the many many things I know that I need to improve on. This ultimately ends up with a series of activities to do each day, ranging from quick posemaniacs warm up drawings to anatomy studies, master studies, reading up on history of art or drawing theory and so on and so on.

I'm not going to show everything that comes out of these exercises as it would quickly become tedious (a bit like that deluge of life drawings that I've been putting up over the past few months, eh?) However, I will of course put up the occasional teaser. I quite liked the way the below image came out. It was a pretty quick study of a famous Rembrandt (probably my all time favourite artist at the moment) but in a more lighthearted style. I wanted to try and capture the variety of characters and expressions that he's so good at describing. Also, while I've cropped the overall composition, I love his distinctive way of combining light and dark shapes to really draw you in...

Tombow brush/nib pens on standard printer paper stuff.



Stay tuned for news of LARA and my first finished cast drawing soon!

V&A Statues

So, there's a group of guys from conceptart.org who meet up regularly on Fridays at the V&A to draw the statues. Man they're good. Like seriously sharp drawings. And not just the statues, but their sketchbooks are full of great stuff. I'm incredibly jealous. Anyway, I pop by occassionally. While I missed them the other night, it's still a great place to go and draw. The best thing about statues is not just that they don't move, but you can sort of trace the artistic thought process that goes in to making them. It's like a living lecture. You hear all these guys talking about artistic anatomy, rib cage blocks, defining planes and masses and all that stuff, but with these statues, you're seeing all of that through another persons hands and eyes. In the case of the V&A, it's also the hands and eyes of someone that really knows their shit, too.

Anyway, I quite like the way these two came out. I actually went back over them for another 10-20 minutes after I stopped looking at the piece itself to try and strengthen the image independantly and I do think it helped. So often (especially with life drawing) you're working to a time limit and don't take the time to go back over an image and do that.

Anyway, not the most exciting update ever. I really need to branch out again, eh?

Also, apologies for not taking great pictures (gah, that shadow!) of these two or tidying up the colors at all. Just wanted to get them up here.

Charcoal and graphit pencil respectively on good sketchbook paper.

Soho Burlesque

I really love how many opportunities there are in London to go and draw. Last night went to Zebrano's on Greek Street in Soho. Basically a cocktail bar, but Tony organises a regular burlesque drawing session there. There's some seriously good artists and graphic designers that go there too. Was very impressed by one guy next to me who made an awesome poster-style drawing and another who was doing really tight drawings in a sketchbook with bright coloured markers. Hey, maybe next time I go I'll actually learn people's names : )

Tatiana also cam along, which was cool and turned out some seriously cool work in between chatting to a mutual friend in New York on her blackberry...

While fun, I don't feel that very much of the work I got done was all that great, partly due to stupid stuff like not leaving enough space on the paper and not using a sharp enough pencil. I blame the antibiotics.

I liked the below one though which was a 5 min sketch and a longer pose from similar angles on the same page.

Dark brown pencil on paper

Lavender 2

These are from my second session at the Lavender Hill Studios sketch club. Really nice bunch of people. Quite tempted to do a few days of proper studying with them, apparently they put a huge emphasis on fundamentals, which I could probably do with.

I was actually quite happy with all of these. I used the tombow pens for the 2 min gesture drawings and while not great, they look good, I think. The rest are good old trusty brown pencil and had mixed results. They seem to have suffered a little in digitising. At the moment I'm just using my phone to take a picture of each drawing, emailing it to myself, then using gimp to crop and adjust the levels to something that isn't really really dark. I could probably find a better way of doing this. In particular, it would be nice to have more even lighting so I don't have to be so drastic on the levels and ruin the shading so much. But hey, it works (ish)!

EDIT have taken down a couple of the weaker drawings as they were somewhat dominating the blog...

Tombow pens or brown pencil on nice thick sketchbook paper.