Glasgow rooftop

My little effort late September in a rooftop restaurant in Glasgow.  Sketch was done on site and the watercolour done at my leisure later on.  The meal wasn't bad too.

Small beginnings

Live sketch down at West Wycombe.  My first effort using the Winsor and Newton travel watercolours.  With the colour range available it will be difficult to go back to the watercolour pencils.

Down at the Pedestal

Here goes...it's been a really long time since my last post and it's fair to say I've not done a lot since then.  This is my latest project, Ben's son Charlie playing football at the new home of Downley Dynamos, outside the pavilion that we are attempting to restore.

This has taken quite a while to put together and I moved well away from the sketchy style of recent times, though i intend to get back to it. The plan with this was to create something where it wasn't really clear how the tones had been created, which is more true for the Charlie than the background, which was deliberately light in tone.

Portsmouth harbour

This is a little something I knocked up whilst waiting for our ferry to leave from Portsmouth harbour. The harbour is full of navy vessels and I think this one had Bristol down the side of it. It looked like a group of sea cadets went on board as we left port.

La Boutinardiere, Pornic, France - Fishing hut

Did this little painting/sketch whilst on my holidays in Loire Atlantique. They have a peculiar way of fishing and all along the coastline the have these large huts on stilts with massive nets that they lower into the sea when the tide comes in. There are huge rocks down at the beach and I took he childrens life in my hands by trying to scale them - very exciting!

Tastertainment May 2013

I think the group brought their A game today. Lots of memorable performances and I did my thing near the front. I'm starting to get the hang of skin tones, but they a still very difficult with the watercolour pencils.

I've left one of the pictures unpainted with watercolour.

Oh, and come and find me on twitter @rorysketch I'll start publishing my updates there.

Secret Dancer

This is what I've been working on lately. It's a dancer which is based on a painting taken from the Internet plus a photo of my niece in a similar pose. It was never intended to be a direct copy, in any case I think that the original was painted with some kind of permanent rose which isn't part of my collection of paints.

I started with a practice sketch which was some kind of combination of the 2 with some errors along the way, which probably helped later on.

The main painting is fairly small, roughly 10 inches by 10 inches and the results a pleasing with lots of borrowing of blues and reds/oranges in the skin tones.

I listened to this song whilst painting it a few times and I think it links quite well to the painting as my neice looks similar (long hair basically) and plays the piano very well. See below for the links:-

http://open.spotify.com/track/4kjiVK4IZWYADcPQR8kzsh

http://youtu.be/Z2gUYEhtBKg

Oh, and come and find me on twitter @rorysketch I'll start publishing my updates there.

Subrosa5

Was invited out to band practice with a friends band Subrosa5.  Had a great time, sketching the guys and haven't been in a studio like this before - carpeted walls, the lot.  My ears are still ringing from the last 2 songs!

Please have a listen to them - I can personally recommend 'Malevolence'.

http://www.last.fm/music/Subrosa5

or if you're feeling generous download here...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Hellfire-Raves/dp/B0032IQ8CG/ref=dm_cd_album_lnk

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/subrosa5/id338368831

Dancer

This is a prep sketch for a painting of a dancer I'm working on. It's served it's purpose as the oil sketch fell a little odd and this is a useful guide for correcting it.

Portrait with 2 doves

This is a reproduction of an original by Jamil Naqsh, a Pakistani painter. I quite enjoyed doing this one and had to let the painting dry full on a number of occasions to get the right effect.

Theo

This is a portrait of a friend's child. I couldn't resist doing a portrait, the first one I've attempted, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. It started off with a cracking photo that was taken during a drinks break in the football match we were playing, with light falling perfectly on to the child. It was the first nice day of the year following a prolonged period of cold and it was great to get out.

I first tackled getting the image as best I could right by constructing a framework using the top part of the nose as the reference point for everything else. Initially I got the background wrong, but it wasn't a big problem as lightening the painting was relatively straightforward. I've seen people do portraits in 2.5 hours that are great, but this was closer to 10.

Please refer to the blog entry on portraiture if you're interested.

Hope you enjoy it.

Old St John's Church

I guess this is a pen and watercolour sketch of St Johns Church. This building has now been taken over by the Arts4every1 group that I'm a member of.

Dolphin chaser

This was taken from an award winning photograph, so I can't take much credit for the composition. If I had my time again I would have gotten the dolphin to break through to the sky area.

Portraiture Inspiration

Hi,

A couple of youtube videos on oil painting/sketching that I though were worth keeping for future reference.  One day I'll have a blog that actually looks cool!

Robert Liberace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMv_nOHO_9g


Andrew James R.P.
http://youtu.be/zaSy-cwz9VQ

Mr Elephant

This one was done about 2 years. Nowadays I do much less copying from photos, unless they are ones I've taken myself.

Tired, but happy

A twenty minute sketch of my daughter during a game of football with me and her brother on a wintry day. Had to clear the snow from the basketball court before we could kick a ball!

Saturday chat

Taken from the Arts4every1 session. I arrived late and this was a relatively quick sketch.

Tastertainment March 2013

This is an on location sketch of a performer at what I believe was the second Tastertainment session run by Arts4every1 in high Wycombe. It was very well run and the home made chicken and mushroom soup went down a treat!

Outside Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford

This sketch was done with a permanent sketching pen from a photo taken when we were on our Harry Potter trail around Oxford. I just liked the look of the lantern.

Dynamos

This was a oil sketch of a friends child playing football. I never really intended for it to achieve any level of completion but it was pleasing to the eye so I blocked in the pitch and it made it easier to see the two players in action. The green was pretty hard to achieve as I didn't want this to blend in with the great of the grass. Just about got away with it.

Derry Sounds

This is a painting based on a black and white photo taken from the childhood of Mervyn Cooke, a poet based in High Wycombe. Mervyn wrote this poem based around the photo and his childhood memories of life of a farm in Derry.

Check out his blog at :-
http://poetryinpubs.blogspot.co.uk/

The poem is as follows:-

Derry Sounds

The burn would run all night and morning
Gurgling seductively outside my bedroom window
Golden brown and bubbling over the peat-moss moors
Sounds of scratching fowls and swishing cows
Cud-chewing to the milking parlour

A sow screamed at the runt of the litter
And I with one eye opened, feel the gentle Derry air
Lift the lace curtain and blow in a ‘good morning’
With its sickly smell of sweet manure
Freshly squeezed milk from bloated udders

A clang of creamery cans
A ‘get-out-of-here’ cry to cats
That craved fresh cream
And I awake on my uncle’s farm
Oh sweet, sweet memory

Mothers Day

Hi Mum,

This one is for you - this was fro the time that you were playing with Charlotte and the strange dangly wonden flying thing. Sorry if she looks older than you! Have a great day.

Rory

Sunset

Going through the back catalogue here. This was a straight copy of a sunset when I had first got back into doing oils. It works quite well as a painting, nice colours, acceptable composition but doesn't pass the sincerity test as it's just a copy of a photograph of a scene at which I was not present. Still, it did make me feel like could achieve something in paint.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien

I initially decided to paint Keith O'Brien as the circumstances around him leaving office were quite current, particularly in the context of the Pope deciding to stand down. What struck me as I painted this was that if these Cardinals have power now, then imagine what it might have been like in the Middle Ages when I suspect the cardinals would still have been dressed in the same way and the populace around the would not have been nearly so educated as they are now and the mystique around the written word would have been very powerful. These Cardinals would have been a powerful bunch supported by the might of the church (alluded to in the background) and, of course God!

I struggled with the face on this one, a slightly jokerish outcome, but still humanoid.

Lost Footballer

This is an oil painting of my son on holiday.  He's wearing his madrid kit and I know everyone says their children are football mad, but he only wears football kit, apart from when he is at school.  He has contrived to argue that he should be able to wear football kit to school on world book day on the basis of the fact that we bought a programme for a football match, that is a sort of booklet and therefore world book day applies.  I think he may be a bit obsessive like me....

Oscar Pistorius watercolour painting

This is my portrait of the now infamous Oscar Pistorious in court during his bail hearing.  Initially this subject was chosen because he has recognisable features that I felt I could reproduce.  However, the massive media coverage of the case meant it took on a new meaning.  The portrait is not dissimilar to the original photo, and I've kept with the half light half dark background as a way of pointing to his inner turmoil.

On a purely artistic front this was done with watercolour pencils, and I'm now learning that you really only have one shot at getting the colours right, which is particularly difficult on skin tones.

Treasure Hunt

This was from last summer holiday when we were going geocaching ( kind of treasure hunting). We were getting very close to the target so my daughter took the GPS from me and started running.

Hands

This is a 10 minute standing sketch of a sculpture of whitewall galleries by April Shepherd.  It was rendered in a black material and caught the light very well.  Maybe I'll do it in pencil next time....

Tastertainment

Here are a few sketches I complete whilst attending the arts4every1 tastertainment session on 9/2/13 at the Arts4every1 centre in Desborough, High Wycombe.  The concert/lunch features poets and musicians showcasing their own material and they were good enough to let me sketch them as they performed.  Well done one and all.



The Red Lion

This is one of the Red Lion in High Wycombe on market day.  It's always been painted with glossy red paint and catches the light in all sorts of unusual ways.  I don't know if anyone else notices it as they go about there business, but it always catches my eye.

Rehearsal

This was taken from a rehearsal for a singer songwriter lunchtime concert taking place the following Feb 9th in the arts4every1 centre in High Wycombe. I didn't manage to capture the whole scene, there was a drum kit and so on in the background and it was a little tricky to execute as the artist had a frog in his throat and had to get up a few times, but I'm sure he'll be fine for the big day.


http://www.arts4every1.com/events/arts-saturday-quiet-lunch-cafe-tastertainment?xg_source=activity

Winter walk

A strangely satisfying sketch on a winters walk. I remember my brother came out at late notice and squelched round with us with his white trainers on while we had proper winter boots. The strange blob is supposed to be a dog.

Exterminate!

Actually, this isn't a real dalek it's only half of one as its a very elaborate holder for our Dr Who Uno card game. Watch out for the stairs.....

Ballerina

This was a copy of a painting by Ramon Kelly, a fantastic artist. I still can't believe I produced it, even if it is plagiarism, then again I don't know an awful lot of ballerinas. Don't worry Ramon, it's in my kitchen.

Van Gogh - Cafe a la terasse

I thoroughly enjoyed doing this one and learned plenty along the way. Check out how the canopy is held up! I never noticed until I started doing my copy. The painting now resides at a friend's house. I'm allowed to look at it through their window. ;)

Jamie

This is one of Jamie, a hearing dog we've been looking after. I enjoyed this as it was good to do a live subject, even if it was a dog!

Griphook

This is a sketch of Griphook, the goblin that goes into the vaults of Gringotts with Harry Potter. I took a photo of a cast of his face whilst at the Warner Bros studios and it wasn't till later that I did the sketch.

First post

Hi everyone this is my first post of what I've been doing art-wise lately. I'll try to keep it up to date, but you never can tell.

This first picture is an oil painting I did of my daughter - she was geocaching at the time and we were getting close to the treasure!