This week has seen me tackling some oils and pastels in my classes.
I'd almost forgotten how much fun pastels can be. They're so spontaneous and mucky!!
It's probably the one media that you can get very realistic effects without much effort. Using these can make sketching much quicker and as there is no drying time involved, you can produce a number of finished pieces in less time.
this month i have managed to finish one large flower painting, which my daughters have absconded with to their bedroom. I'm still working on my commissions, the project is slow as every glaze on every character has to dry before the next. For those who know me, know I don't do very small paintings and these paintings have a lot of small details on them, which also slows my progress down, but the end is in sight. Just one and 1/2 characters to go and a little tweaking here and there and I'm done.
I hope that this next year will see me produce more of my own work and maybe I'll get more of the work out there. I'd like to produce another book next year that's based on the process of creating art rather than the finished article. I noted even while working commissions that if I neglect to follow the process I make some monumental mistakes, that require a part or all of the painting to be repainted.
I have made some of the most stupidest mistakes, through not concentrating properly on my process/procedure.
There have been mistakes which I really have no excuses for - moral of story! have a plan, make sure it works and stick to it.
A plan like, research first, sketches and exploration next, colour studies and tonal thumbnails, followed by a quicker full colour small version, in a quicker drying media, then make any corrections cogitate on it for a while or let the client if there is one do the cogitating. Although many artists have their own way of working they will eventually introduce their own way of working that keeps their work at it s best.
Whats yours??
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Friday, 22 October 2010
update on web building
i cant believe that is nearly November and i still haven't finished my website more to the point I haven't even finished one single painting I've started.
As I'm still working on some commissions its been nion impossible to get any other work done or for that matter started!
Needless to say I haven't started the Christmas cards for this year, and time is running out. Last years cards were negative space paintings which turned out rather well. This year will be touch and go whether I get any done in at all. The original plan was to paint some small Victorian vignettes, in monochrome with just a splash of colour somewhere.
My commission work is coming on well but is slow going as there is a lot of small detail on two of the paintings. And as I don't have all day everyday to work on them, due to teaching, they will have to take precedence over other things.
Recently some of my students have asked do some fantasy art with me, which is quite refreshing as this is where i started and where most of my commission work is. I drew a fairy with some pitcher plants and painted part of them in watercolour. Some of the best fantasy art I've seen has been those which include something from reality, whether this be an object or building etc added to the composition. I like the idea of using siomthing that we are familiar with in there so there something more beilevable to begin with, it makes the job a little easier. check out some of the artist on the http://www.imaginefx.com/ you'll find some of the best in the world here and you can access some workshops while your about it!
happy painting!!
As I'm still working on some commissions its been nion impossible to get any other work done or for that matter started!
Needless to say I haven't started the Christmas cards for this year, and time is running out. Last years cards were negative space paintings which turned out rather well. This year will be touch and go whether I get any done in at all. The original plan was to paint some small Victorian vignettes, in monochrome with just a splash of colour somewhere.
My commission work is coming on well but is slow going as there is a lot of small detail on two of the paintings. And as I don't have all day everyday to work on them, due to teaching, they will have to take precedence over other things.
Recently some of my students have asked do some fantasy art with me, which is quite refreshing as this is where i started and where most of my commission work is. I drew a fairy with some pitcher plants and painted part of them in watercolour. Some of the best fantasy art I've seen has been those which include something from reality, whether this be an object or building etc added to the composition. I like the idea of using siomthing that we are familiar with in there so there something more beilevable to begin with, it makes the job a little easier. check out some of the artist on the http://www.imaginefx.com/ you'll find some of the best in the world here and you can access some workshops while your about it!
happy painting!!
Monday, 20 September 2010
getting ready
Another season of teaching has begun this week, For of those who are new to my classes a very big welcome, and I hope you will enjoy the journey. You are amoung friends! For those of you who been with me for a number of years welcome back and hope you've done your homework!!
This season I want people to really find their own style and their expression, while still learning the techniques the professionals employ.
I have been working on another set sketches for the original commission I've been working on for 2 years now, so i have decided to write a complete full colour leaflet on working just one commission from scratch. Which I hope will illustrate in more detail the problems that occur just at thee sketching stage and how the interaction between client and artist works. This is one area of industry where the 'customer is always right' this is because this industry is hugely over subscribed and if you cant give the client, what the client wants then they will go else where. Which brings me to my next point if this industry is that over populated then doesn't that go some way to proving that anyone can do it?
The point is that 70% of what we do is about observation, observation, observation, knowing a little about your brain functions will help you understand why sometimes your work isn't right. That wonderful on board computer of yours takes in everything it sees in minute detail and stores it from when you are born, but as you get older and things are given labels the brain will assimilate almost everything it sees into basic shapes and colours, smells, taste etc this means as we mature our awareness of detail is lost somewhere in our brain never to be heard of again.
As we practice our drawing you will notice more and more the frustration of not getting it right but, with no idea how to put it right - this is because your brain doing the drawing all by it's self but it's telling you, you don't need to know exactly whats there to be able to understand the form. Not true! as you'll find out ...
concentrating on questions such as what do I actually see will help, you see a little clearer. How many of you draw without really seeing? all of you?
Try drawing only what your eyes actually see - it will open the door to a whole new world.
This season I want people to really find their own style and their expression, while still learning the techniques the professionals employ.
I have been working on another set sketches for the original commission I've been working on for 2 years now, so i have decided to write a complete full colour leaflet on working just one commission from scratch. Which I hope will illustrate in more detail the problems that occur just at thee sketching stage and how the interaction between client and artist works. This is one area of industry where the 'customer is always right' this is because this industry is hugely over subscribed and if you cant give the client, what the client wants then they will go else where. Which brings me to my next point if this industry is that over populated then doesn't that go some way to proving that anyone can do it?
The point is that 70% of what we do is about observation, observation, observation, knowing a little about your brain functions will help you understand why sometimes your work isn't right. That wonderful on board computer of yours takes in everything it sees in minute detail and stores it from when you are born, but as you get older and things are given labels the brain will assimilate almost everything it sees into basic shapes and colours, smells, taste etc this means as we mature our awareness of detail is lost somewhere in our brain never to be heard of again.
As we practice our drawing you will notice more and more the frustration of not getting it right but, with no idea how to put it right - this is because your brain doing the drawing all by it's self but it's telling you, you don't need to know exactly whats there to be able to understand the form. Not true! as you'll find out ...
concentrating on questions such as what do I actually see will help, you see a little clearer. How many of you draw without really seeing? all of you?
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| not finished yet! |
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| can you guess what this is??? |
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.
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
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| Leonardo Da vinci |
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| 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?
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???
Monday, 19 July 2010
oh the wounders of technology!!
Hi All
The title should say it all, but of course it doesn't, i hope what happened to me doesn't happen to any of you.
This week while working on my new website I managed to delete everything from my computer by accident!
That is everything from my photos to my new web pages which I'd spent months working on. I know your all asking how do you manage that - well it's like this you see - i run vista on my laptop which has this stupid hover mode on it, so the cursor when moved over anything will automatically take you to or do what it hovers over. So this means as I type this I don't need to use the cursor so it's left somewhere at the edge of the work, but in my case my cursor will jump to where it's left and continue typing where it jumped to.
With most things I'm usually very careful because i know this can happen but what happened on this particular occasion took me by surprise. I was trying to delete a file and left my mouse right at the top of the page sort of on the address bar. I was using the nav keys to go through the files and delete the ones I don't want, while doing this I get a dialogue box come up asking me if i want to delete this file, which of course I do because that's what i working on - only i didn't realise that the next box says are you sure you want to delete files? I hit the enter button to confirm but still hadn't read the whole sentence which must have said permanent delete on it.
Well i could have died when I realised what was happening - the cursor which was now hovering over the very top bar which read C:/computer/pictures and was hurriedly deleting all my files PERMANENTLY!!
Shock horror nothing i can do, but try to find a piece of software that will retrieve them.
I find one but it wont restore them in one piece their fragmented so I still cant use them.
Losing 4 months of website building was bad enough but when i realise that some of my photos of paintings I'd done had gone I was mortified. Many of these don't belong to me anymore and we have no idea who purchased them.
Don't you just love computers!!!
Guess what I'll be doing all summer ha ha
Moral of story make sure you back up everything somewhere else!!
Back to the drawing board.
The title should say it all, but of course it doesn't, i hope what happened to me doesn't happen to any of you.
This week while working on my new website I managed to delete everything from my computer by accident!
That is everything from my photos to my new web pages which I'd spent months working on. I know your all asking how do you manage that - well it's like this you see - i run vista on my laptop which has this stupid hover mode on it, so the cursor when moved over anything will automatically take you to or do what it hovers over. So this means as I type this I don't need to use the cursor so it's left somewhere at the edge of the work, but in my case my cursor will jump to where it's left and continue typing where it jumped to.
With most things I'm usually very careful because i know this can happen but what happened on this particular occasion took me by surprise. I was trying to delete a file and left my mouse right at the top of the page sort of on the address bar. I was using the nav keys to go through the files and delete the ones I don't want, while doing this I get a dialogue box come up asking me if i want to delete this file, which of course I do because that's what i working on - only i didn't realise that the next box says are you sure you want to delete files? I hit the enter button to confirm but still hadn't read the whole sentence which must have said permanent delete on it.
Well i could have died when I realised what was happening - the cursor which was now hovering over the very top bar which read C:/computer/pictures and was hurriedly deleting all my files PERMANENTLY!!
Shock horror nothing i can do, but try to find a piece of software that will retrieve them.
I find one but it wont restore them in one piece their fragmented so I still cant use them.
Losing 4 months of website building was bad enough but when i realise that some of my photos of paintings I'd done had gone I was mortified. Many of these don't belong to me anymore and we have no idea who purchased them.
Don't you just love computers!!!
Guess what I'll be doing all summer ha ha
Moral of story make sure you back up everything somewhere else!!
Back to the drawing board.
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