Kassie the Forest Faerie

This is a mini commission so to speak from a relative over in Ireland (say hi, Kassie) I took a photo from her, the log from the Eden Project and the wings of a swallows butterfly, put them all in a big bucket, sloshed them round a bit and then into the oven for a half an hour on gas mark 7 a came out with this.

I like to think of her as a teeny tiny fairy sitting on the horn of some long dead beast from the forest.

100th art post - a retrospective!

Ok so this is my 100th post so it had better be good.

I thought I would go for a very brief retrospective!

So I used to do this sort of thing - an oil reproduction of a Van Gogh

 This is all quite attractive, but they were never my experiences, just copies, but I did learn plenty from them along the way.

This was a live sketch of the dog we were looking after - can't believe it was 2 years ago.  I'd still be happy with this sketch now.

Oils take a long time to produce and this was one of my early pen and washes.  It's not good at all! I was using watercolour pencils which I though were great to begin with.  I should say a big thanks to the urban sketching community http://www.urbansketchers.org/ at this stage as I wouldn't have got started on this without them.

 It was when  did this one that I realised that me and watercolour pencils would never get on that well

 Looks like I slotted in a little oil on the way - in many respects this is one of my most significant pieces as it was the first one where I started to use 'triangles' of varying size etc in order to construct the image.  In this case it was relatively straightforward, but the principles still apply today when I do live sketching only the triangles only exist in the minds eye.

 My first watercolour with artists colours.  Not amazing, but without going to a massive amount of trouble I could see a lot of potential

,

 This is the first watercolour that I really liked - still with winsor and newton colours, but works all the same

 This was a medley of live scene sketches whilst the tide came in and a construction of images that I still quite enjoy, especially with the odd labelling in the middle

 Realy fond of this one. By this time I was onto white night watercolours as it was impossible to mix skin colours with the 12 colours I had available to me with the winsor box.  It was also good because the sketch took about 2 minutes and needed all the techniques developed with the triangles and so on.

Not the greatest of photographs, but this was another lightning quick sketch which seems to say plenty, including the fact that winter is coming (although not in the Game of Thrones sense)

This was the first 'statue brought to life' picture.  I really like the whole idea of it.

 Some proper urban sketching - 2 minute of sketching, but says a lot

Another statue brought to life.  This was very strange as I wasn't amazingly pleased with it immediately, but grew to like it (before giving it away)

The next one really says to me that although I previously looked down on watercolour it is great to have a medium that however detailed the microscope the image remains complex.  I also like middle earth!

I wouldn't call this new art form in any way, but it's very much a means of expressing a time and a place - the essence of all urban sketching.  It's quite good to get people to sign their pictures, they are usually better than mine anyway.

Finally, something a bit different - a medley of images brought together - it's starting to feel like real art

Please like it share it and all that - it does keep me going!  Oh an don't suggest I go back to oils - they are a bit messy and take ages :D

over and out

Arts4Every1 open mic

Friday night at the open Mic. Great performances and there should be loads more people going!  Photo before I ruin it with colour...

Lodgings required - Bolg

This is Bolg, he's recently returned from Middle a Earth and is in search of lodgings in the High Wycombe, UK area.  Having had a successful career as a military leader Bolg is now looking to make a move to his true love - the theatre. He's a non-smoking ex Orc leader. Blind in one eye he is of course registered disabled. At 160 years of age he's also a pensioner, but he won't have any trouble on the stairs.  

This painting was taken from a scene in the hobbit - desolation of smaug.  Just after the dwarves have made their escape in the barrels. 

Beth 2

Now in colour. I'm not sure what to make of this.  Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Down the pub

They don't always work, esp as first sketch of the day, but I quite like this one.   Back to the day job in 5.

Maenad Dancers - Dionysus followers

Maenad Dancers - now in colour.

These were taken from the sculptures by Tim Shaw and are located in the Mediterranean section of the Eden Project.

The idea with this was to see how much the statues could be brought to life firstly by sketching them and secondly by adding a bit of colour to finish them off.  

The dancers are followers of the Dionysus, God of the vines and have clearly been on the red stuff!

Rooney - England v Scotland 18/11/2014

Score on the night was Scotland 1 England 3.  I painted this because it felt great to watch the second goal go in.

Quite pleased with the execution. It was supposed to be a prep sketch but in the end I just went for it. I quite like the background colours - I went with blue initially but should really have gone with England red.   The date on his boot is neat as it looks a bit like laces.   

Bellevue listener

From one of the open Mic sessions

Medusa - Lanhydrock house

Sketch of a bust that turned out to be that of Medusa - she looks a bit sad if you ask me, I don't know what she's complaining about at least she has hair and gets to turn people to stone...