Motorbike Request

Birthday present for a family friend whom had, a few months prior, requested a painting of one of his old motorbikes (will edit with motorbike type, once reminded). My first 'serious' painting on a (about A5 size) canvassed board in quite a while, I believe. Also to mention that I haven't exactly drawn many a motorbike in my life -- so a bit different for me to work on. I worked from a small photograph and changed the background a tad to add more light and colour. Going by paints which hadn't hardened yet (!), I used a mix of watercolour and acrylic, with a touch up of coloured pencil, and even felt tip in some places to help bring it out some more. It was good practice. I know I keep saying things like this, but it has helped encourage me that I can attempt to create 'proper' paintings and will improve; so I will make sure more are created this year.

Took photos with my camera, and just by these two there is a change in the light, so the colours won't be exact to the actual painting (as is always the way).

Whilst it's by no means perfect, I still worked a lot on this little piece, and fortunately, the recipient seemed to be pleased enough with it!

Fantastic Beasts

After finally going to see Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, I felt inspired enough to draw my own interpretation for a bit of fun. Cutting a long story short, I decided it would work more for me and what I wanted from it to keep the sketchy pencil lines. I later had a look at some Art Deco posters to get a teeny '20s feel in to it with background colour. I couldn't find any Obscura pictures online, so my version of the raging thingybob in the right-hand corner seems to have taken a kind of Joan Miro (or similar) approach.

Irrelevant to Fantastic Beasts, but nevertheless tagged on to this blog post, anyway, to avoid clogging, is a picture I completed just before this one. Again, this was an idea I suddenly to do, and forced myself to go and get on with it whilst still fresh in my mind. Fully traditional with 'ordinary' coloured pencils, the scanner ruined the colours a tad and then I attempted to make the balance better in Photoshop. No true version of this picture here, unfortunately. I might try taking a photograph and switching it. Otherwise, you get the idea!

Thanks for looking. More being worked on.

Musketeer For The New Year

I hear you cheer...

A picture I'd slowly been making progress on the past few weeks due to busyness. January the 1st I resolved to finish it, to have a nice piece of achievement for the New Year. Inspired by watching BBC's The Musketeers, and also, clearly, the '80s cartoon, Dogtanian, where I chose to draw my own interpretation of the canine musketeer. More to come from that. Drawn straight onto the computer with inspiration for the background from a photograph I had taken a few years ago of the garden area at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. Lastly added a texture which really made the final result for me; giving a kind of watercolour appearance. Dogtanian lightly pokes a fellow 'muskehound' for perhaps momentarily being a little bit lazy on the job.

I hope to continue to submit a decent amount of my art to this blog; hopefully more than last year!