Last Of London - Part 2

A variation, including some well-known buildings. (And for me to draw buildings to any stretch is a rarity - certainly to be seen in this blog.)

The top initial scribble reminded me of the '90s children's programme 'Alphabet Castle' - or at least, the general idea of it - which explains the colouring silliness!

 I don't want my pages wasted... So if a heron from another day wants to join a doodle of the London Eye, then he very much can do.

Last Of London - Part 1

I'm no longer in London; so here's my last few sketches and scribbles of my time there. I somehow didn't really have so much time for this kind of thing this year, but it was nice to have the chance at all! Broken up in to two posts because I don't like too many clickable pictures in one post.

I visited Vauxhall City Farm, a diddy, but nice little area beside the park with a few different animals to be seen.

 *Scribble scribble*

Aslan and the Mouse

Drew and traditionally coloured the original earlier this year but never felt it was really complete enough for public viewing, yet had some potential (for being more of an attempt at realistic-ish again). So today, wanting to work on a picture that wouldn't take too long, I decided to 'paint' over the original, just strands of various browns with the awkward, jumpy mouse (heh) to bring it out a bit more. It was another of the speed paint type - but digital here, of course - so it's complete with some scruffiness and you can see some of the original drawing coming through. Finally I will let it have it's day, get seen by two or so people for the effort. Oh yeah, it's better at full view.

Skeletons and Specimens

I've been very busy lately and so I haven't even had much chance to sketch. I got some time to myself today, and quite a few weeks back I had an opportunity and so here are some of the sketch outcomes.

Hunterian Museum, interesting place of some strange stuff. Lots of jars of specimens and most bizarrely the skeleton of a very tall man. Didn't draw as much as I should have, but here's a few:

(Okay, so the lamp, plant thing and phone weren't at the museum and nor was the immediate below:)

Today I went to the Grant Museum of Zoology which was more skeletons, specimens and suchlike, but primarily animals past and present. Not that you'd know there were any humans as such from my Hunterian sketches (apart from in the first image).

So that's that. Hopefully I will get an opportunity for more sketching before I leave London.

Quick Animal Paintings

I am back in London and with that move I have not had much chance to post. Now's the opportunity to fill up some sketchbooks again...

Back in April and May I decided that some paints really needed to be used up before they crumbled so I decided to do some quick paintings with them (note, I was therefore quite limited for colours!) and make sure they weren't just a 'for the sake of it' rid. I started by finding some scrap sketch paper and painting random colours on each piece for a background which I would later paint whatever I felt like over. I don't paint enough as I should so I really used this mood to put some effort into each picture with thought into brush strokes for fur, etc. Well, some worked better than others. Here are a few; some are back at home and a few have yet to be photographed.

Thanks for looking.

Tyger, Tyger

Since I last posted I have made some advancements in both my traditional and digital work through some more experiments and just paying more attention to certain details really. I might post some other things I've been working on soon (although in a few days I will be back to London and will not have much computer access for a few weeks).

For now, I thought I'd post my tiger effort from a workshop I attended, hosted by another Frances - Frances Whitman - a very talented (recognised) traditional wildlife artist who fortunately lives quite locally. In this workshop we spent the equivalent of a working hour day, receiving helpful tips and guidance on creating realistic fur with particular Faber-Castell pencils on particular artists paper/card. Wow, getting shown how to properly make the art with proper materials was so invaluable; I was actually creating some art that for years I've wanted to, but never knew the best way, or had the right motivation, to start. Seriously, I will never attempt a decent arty picture on A4 printer paper again! (What was I ever thinking?) I am also working on a snow leopard and really hope to continue to make some more traditional realistic animals!

I fear I'm not articulating myself very well in this post as I've a lot to say, and have likely missed out a lot that I wanted, but to sum it up: workshop was well worth it, invaluable experience, enjoyable, I'm artistically on the right path at the moment.

Sorry; here's the tiger. It's not quite finished yet as there's a few pencils I'm lacking, but it's nearly there:

Happy England Day!

Here's my bit of acknowledgement for the day:

Chosen a white dragon because the dragon of England was/is traditionally white; a red shirt to go with white scales to be like the English flag; script, ink pot and de-quilled pen represent the country's history of notable writers; set in a somewhat peaceful English countryside setting (ironically a grim day today).

I attempted a bold painterly look of sorts and roughed the edges with a newly downloaded brush stroke in Photoshop to give it a different line. This was drawn straight onto the computer at some point last year and finally coloured this year.

Fun With Inks

I've definitely felt more inspired to create art through traditional mediums than digital lately (obviously the bulk of any digital piece has been hand drawn first, anyway). It's a tricky time at the moment to know what is best to progress with in terms of anything creative...

Which reminds me, those who take a look at my blog, could you please vote in my poll on the right-hand side? I want to do a bit of everything really, but I'd like to know what others think. Thank you.

Also, I've joined LinkedIn now.

Once in a while I remember what sorts of arts and crafts materials I have. I do like these random spurts of inspiration to draw and be more experimental; now if only I could get them more often! I've drawn lots of novel/book illustration styled pieces lately that shall be posted soon here or on another portfolio.

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Right now, here's some, for fun, quick ink pictures, inspired from some of my photographs.

I had intended to use black ink, but in truth I could not actually unscrew the lid off the pot. I think brown has done quite nicely as an alternative. The first is loosely Clifford's Tower in York; the second is, also loosely, one of my cats who seems to be wearing an eye-patch.

Looking at some aquarium photos of mine I decided to bring out the other colours. But not red for some reason. Nor blue, but that's just because that lid would not unscrew, either. 

The very common I'm sure 'I have one more sheet left from this pile and I've ran out of photographs in this particular album and my interest is beginning to wane' dilemma. But I managed to get something down without it looking really obviously a product of the aforementioned. This alligator is unimpressed with something or other.
 

I hope you (quite) liked seeing more traditional experiments (; because there will be more).

Life Drawing Final

That was certainly a beneficial life drawing course. It was good to be stretched to use artist materials I usually might shy away from to see what I can actually achieve with them. Also just to look closer at the model and think about ways to approach them that I hadn't touched upon so much before. I'm a bit reluctant to go back to sitting down, just drawing in a little sketchbook with pen and pencils now... but we'll see what I can find next.

Week 9 - Oil Pastels

I was sceptical of using these pastels after some rubbish attempts a few years back, but actually I didn't find them that bad to work in!

In this picture the page was halved and we could only draw half the model. We then turn the paper over to do the next half, meaning we had to try and remember where we drew the other parts (which could test how accurate we were being with measuring). Mine almost looks like she has two heads; she's certainly fatter here.







Week 10 - Moving and Wash

There's probably a bit of repetition with images in the next few images. The model walked around and we had to draw his poses fast.







Quick sitting down and getting up poses.







Finally, we used a pencil and ink brush that could be dipped in blackened water, as well as a wax crayon. The once black water dried quite a lot, unfortunately, so I'm left with the wrinkles!



I hope those who looked, found these artier life drawings of interest!

What shall I put up next? Watch this (blog) space.

Penultimate Life Drawing

For the current course, that is.

Oh look, I've been co.uk-ised.

<>

Week 7 - Watercolour

Three basic watercolours mixed to create tone, etc. A crayon was used to define certain parts. Rather enjoyable.

Week 8 - Pen and Conté

A simple blue pen used to draw the figure trying to draw only with straight lines.





Here I used Conté, possibly for the first time. Rather like charcoal but with more variation.

I'm Afraid So...

I joined a portfolio styled site as an add on so some of my work can be seen more easily than scrolling through the blog. As soon as I get more on that I will link it.

I've been trying to do some experimenting with Photoshop lately, including making a picture in a kind of 1930s Japanese Art Deco style (specific, I know), so if I am pleased enough with any of these attempts, I might plop some on here soon.

Anyway, along with the usual:

Week 5 - Inner Emotion

We had to shut our eyes and feel our face in order to create this drawing - tapping into our 'inner emotions'. I thought this image would go everywhere, considering I kept taking my charcoal off the paper, however it doesn't look too bad - albeit a bit scary.



I'm not so sure the idea of 'inner emotion' got past the first exercise, but it has something.



We drew a diddy version and split it into four to then draw these four sections separately, larger. We then pieced the parts together and I was pleased to see the sizing of each part wasn't awfully different.



Week 6 - Combined and Rubber

The first exercise was started a drawing, and then moving on to another easel to finish another. It was quite a fun exercise and interesting to draw over another person's art - and notice in a way, that it is easier to see errors when it is not your work. In this piece below I continued the one on the left and started the one on the left. So for these next few images I do not take all the credit!



This should be first; I started this one off.



I continued this one and found quite a bit I needed to change. So it does look quite scruffy, yet in a way it makes it quite alive.



Then we moved off that and made pictures by rubber on to charcoal. I probably didn't press well enough with the charcoal or rubber but the marks are quite interesting. Also it's hard not to notice an obvious cup ring came through on this easel from years gone by...



A section of the model, again with rubber on charcoal.