Thursday 26 August 2010

Next stage of commission

Hi All
For all those who know me you'll probably remember that I've been working for over 2 years on a commission for a group who work in the gaming industry. Well last week I have been given some more work to complete the project. Although I cant tell you whats it's about nor can  I show any of the drawings I've done, due to copyright, I can discuss the process with you!
As mentioned before you will all find your own process by which to work by, but I find with most professional artist's - we all start in our sketch books..
So in mine there is now experiments with the formats for the final pieces as well as the first sketches of creatures that require some dynamic gestures. As you can imagine if you don't understand anything about anatomy then your going to struggle with doing any believable figures whether they be animals, humans, android's, aliens and beasts or what ever you think of . 
While doing my first few sketches which should have been relatively easy, turned out to be more time consuming than expected, why? because i didn't have a firm grasp of quadrupeds and their anatomy.
Moral of story?? study the basics first! - bones and muscle are probably the most you'll need know as an artist. This will give you some aspects of perspective to.There a number of good artist anatomy books out there, find one and take your time to draw each section, and another thing don't just draw these parts just once it's not enough to help you learn properly nor is it helpful in using what you have just learnt in other pictures. So utilising what you have learnt wont be evident in your later works!

Michelangelo


Leonardo Da vinci 

Leonardo da vinci
They did, so can you.
New challenge fill those sketch books with anatomy!!

Tuesday 10 August 2010

hows it going?

Hi All
Has anyone started their story yet? anyone started doing sketches in their sketch books?
Well I have I started with some ideas that are based on the key elements of the story I remember. This is opposed to reading the story again just yet, because I wanted to let a little more imagination take place.
And as memories play tricks on us I thought it would interesting to see what I come up with.

As you know I chose Alice in Wonderland, while I was thinking about the things I remembered from the story - I realised that I could separate certain elements from "Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass".
So I have decided to continue with this for a little while longer until I feel it necessary to get the stories straight. I also thought about the original author and how he had come to write it. It was quite interesting to find out who Lewis Carroll was and what kind of life he would have had, and who was Alice? Alice Liddell that who she was, with this in mind I want to now do some drawings in ink of the real Alice - who by the way had short black bobbed hair. There's alot to play with in the history of the story so I'm going add some of the real life stuff into the drawings, such as the tiny door - which was the canon's garden gate at the cathederal where Alice and sibblings where not allowed to play, but could only look through the gate. The rabbit hole referred to the quick passage the deacon took to get home from the Cathederal to his home.

 Ooo theres so much to play with, this could take a great deal longer than I had antisipated, so I decided to start with little pen drawings which I have been doing on trading cards and postcards. This was in the hope it would take quite so long!!! Wrong...... it's just as long as I dont generally do things too small.
The next problem is where do you keep all these little cards so they dont get mucked up?

In a scrapbook! thats where - I had to construct this from board that you can buy from making little scrapbooks. I'm not sure which is taking more time?

Your turn!!! try combining some of the crafts you do with your drawing/painting and see what happens.
I've been using trading and postcards in watercolour paper all available from the SAA (society for all artists) which means I can add colour if I want to, at a later stage. remember you can have more fun in your sketch books where you can experiment with lots of different looks.

Sunday 1 August 2010

New Website

Hi All
I had a thought this morning, that I should probably be spending most of my time working on my new website, but as it,s the summer hols I've spent most of time with my youngest trying to sort out their bedroom. Who would have thought that it would have taken 8 hours a day to go through all their stuff and rearrange the place. While we were doing this we came across some old art work stuffed behind the beds and wardrobes -belonging to my youngest, who immediately said "throw that" didn't even think twice. Only one did she keep! her Viking boat. Perhaps we should all take a leaf from a child's book, children don't seem to view their art the same way adults do. Children don't think about these pieces as works of art that are precious, they just see them for what they really are -  something I did but can do AGAIN!!! only this time better.
While I was there I found sketch books from my eldest who is a little more proficient in her drawing and I don't think there was a clean page in it, the corners where all turned up, fingerprints, smudges, doodles at the side of a drawing that have no relation to the piece, and tears through the some of the pages. Again no fear - of the white page and no fear of getting it wrong. And when it isn't right they have no fear of starting again!
So how many of you can say the same?
Which brings on to my point about about the website - after having lost the original work of the web site, I started again from scratch, only do the same thing again, by that I mean, I worked for hours on a page then forgot to save it properly. so when I went back to it the next day I could find it and had to start again - for the third time. Now going back to the child book thing above, having lost the work for a second time I decided that I was going to re-illustrate a child's book that would then become the website and now have a theme to it. I chose Alice in Wonderland, always one of my favourites and if you do the research in to it's author it's even more interesting.
So you know that sketch book challenge I gave you - why don't you try taking a book and creating the illustration s to it???