new drawings

Time for some basics
Back to the drawing board as they say! Did exactly and started with some eyes and a good old fashion pencil or two or three.

Then I had to add some carbon and charcoal because the pencil doesn't go dark enough, with the help of a putty rubber to lift out some lights and  job done!

Cant beat time spent drawing, a therapy in its self especially if you use your imagination anything can happen on the paper.

This is unfinished at in this photo I will upload the finished version when I get a decent photo of it!

3 Months later!

I cant believe it's 3 months since I blogged, and what have I achieved in this time? when i sit down and look at the work I've done I see a massive growth in my ability to deal with commissions. I have to question the way in which I interpret these commissions, but one of them is quite tight on what they specify. Although this is challenging it can be very restrictive when your trying to visualize something from some Else's imagination. Which in my case has lead to me spending hours and hours working on pieces just to be told I've got it something wrong. Then its back to the drawing board !!
February the family go to Antigua loaded with my art gear, and managed to do almost no painting, took 1700 photos instead. While I was there I came up with a plan to paint the people and living accommodation of the island, with a view to having a solo exhibition the following year. Haven't started yet - got home armed with a to do list that would require me to hand my notice in for one of my jobs so that I can concentrate more on the commissions and get some time for the exhibition work. But hows this -the week we  come home the phones ringing and I've picked up another commission, yet another from the world of fantasy! Love these kinds of things. 12 of them to be exact. With the other long term commission still running and all the titles for it needing painting I've had to work flat out to create 12 little people with wings and with only a month to do them in. It was my fault that it was only a month- i had  some stupid idea that I could just knock them up from imagination and that would be that. FOOL!! When I'd started drawing them, some appeared on the paper quite naturally but the majority of them required some development, the characters hadn't really come out in them in the first few sketches and more time was needed to get them come to life. Thank god I didn't have to do them in oil I'd never got them dry in time, as it was I didn't complete all of them on time and need an extension.
Add to that I have agreed to demonstrate at a craft fair on the 9th of April, so I need to work like stink to make enough work to take with me to sell and decide on a topic to paint while there. Check out http://www.thecreativefair.com/ come have a look, lots of demonstrators  and stalls full of wares.  Perhaps I should stick with the fantasy art as i don't own a lot of my art of that genre. Thanks for reading! feel free to comment on any of the content.

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!!

Hi everyone!
Today I wanted to take look at process - the process that many professional Artists go through to accomplish a commission. It sounds relatively simple but it's one that has you loving and hating your own ability.
To begin with the idea that taking on commissions will provide you with an exciting prospect of doing what you love is only a half truth. Nobody can prepare you for the frustration that will ensue.
Imagine if you will you want to create a career painting/drawing/anything else creative, so you start by doing your stuff, things you like, things that excite you.
Soon someone calls you and asks you create something for them, this maybe a friend, family or client. Just as you think your going to get more of your work out there, your client says I would like you to do this, this and this and it must have this oh and can you do this? this is where the frustration starts.

It's pretty much what you'd expect from your family because you know they have no idea what their looking at, they just like it, but your client will!!! and they will want total control over what your doing, and as they are paying for the privilege so you must let them.

As fabulous as it is to have loads of clients wanting you, you will find that during the process of dealing with them you will lose a lot of sleep over the projects and wonder why your doing this.
This is mainly due to the fact that your client came with a prefixed idea in their head and they can see the finished result before you've done it.

So for a start make sure you meet your client face to face, write down all the keywords they use and make sure that you are understanding how they interpret those words, you'll be surprised at how much work it will save you in the long run if you just get them to doodle a sketch of what they mean. Although we communicate in words I have found them to be the biggest cause of mis-interpretation and the biggest cause of having to re-do work. In short what you call a spade might be some Else's shovel.

Once you have a brief please, please make sure you do sketches and don't proceed with anything until they are happy with the sketch. The other thing to watch out for is format not all clients understand our Art formats so you need to show them the exact support your going to be working on.
Next comes the tonal pic, work out if this is actually going to work once it's rendered, another thing to be crucially aware of is your composition - as said before you need to stick to what your client wants but if this does not lend it's self to a good composition, you will have to consult your client and possible start from scratch again. A bad composition and focal point will totally destroy your work and remember it's going to have your name on it!

You may find as I have, the only way to get things right so everyone is happy is keep starting again and re drawing and producing a small colour version. Keep your client working with you by involving all the way and that includes the colour scheme, as i said at the beginning they already had a prefixed idea and will still be wondering why they cant have exactly what they asked for!
You know as an artist that certain things just don't work in reality when it comes to painting so for instance keeping everything sharp and focused- in painting a real no no, but not to your client.
There are so many things that are going to get your goat, but as your go through the process more and more you'll learn to be much more methodical about how you arrive at your clients preconceived idea.
You will I guarantee you, there will be times when the customers is definitely wrong and want to give up, because you know that if they just left you to do your interpretation they'd be so much happier!! and process would be relatively painless
I'll touch on this subject again in the future, I hope do a video of a commission from the beginning going through the whole process to the finished result.
Don't let any of this put you off you have so much to learn about yourself from this.
That's all for today - thanks for taking the time to drop by.
Kat

I wanted to share this with you, I was reminded today about the stages of learning I went through during my early years - I'd just like to thank Matthew Archambalt for some of his podcast that I found on Itunes the other day. It reminded me that learning to draw is the most crucial part of any art, especially for those of us who want to achieve realistic results.
Learning Atelier style drawing/painting takes a mass amount of effort and practice, and if your going to in daily practice then progress will be slow.

I spent many hours as a youngster drawing especially on the covers of my school books, only to be reprimanded. But I believe it was that constant doodling that made all the difference.
The painting to your left is actually a class demonstration that I did with a large class of approx 16 students over a 5/6 week period. We looked at Vermeer's work process and equipment, the oil paints available and the painting itself.
The painting is now 340 odd years old but still one of the most loved paintings of the public.
I challenged my class to work in the original stages that Vermeer had, and to only use the same palette that he would have used. I made them draw from scratch, the girl without any aids and only minimal help from me.
I should mention that some of my students were beginners and had never used oil paints before and very few could draw to the same standard as Vermeer.
Once the drawings were complete I showed them how to lay in the first layer concentrating only on the tonal value of the whole painting, using only white(flake) and umber. They got the hang of this after the second layer, I made them refine the whole painting using these 2 paints building form and interest.
This was then followed by the first layers of any colour all applied thinly and blended using soft haired brushes. You notice from mine that I omitted the fringing on her back and the intials in top left background just so theres no confusion.
The whole purpose of this, was enlighten my students the way of the Atelier style learning they embarking on and how this would have been to work for more hours than usual on the same painting.
I revisit this method of painting in another session, but for now I just wanted to highlight the need for practice everyday. I tell everyone if you cant set aside some time everyday then set aside 5-10 minutes everyday while you drink your tea/coffee in the morning and draw only what you actually see. If we look at Leonardo De Vinci or any other great master and try to work out how many hours they would have drawn for in a year you could looking at thousands of hours, so why would any of you think that to that good you could get away with anything less than a few minutes a day.
try it!! it will improve your ability in just a few short weeks and give you the motivation to do more.
only what you actually see! remember
til next time - Kat