Colouring In

17 degenerates

I blogged a couple of days ago about the work I started at the Creative Bubble monthly event where I began some full-length portraits of fellow artists in preparation for an upcoming exhibition (here). I went back on Saturday to carry on. Progress was slow because it was very busy in the artspace and also I did a portrait head drawing (read about it here). Here’s how much I’ve done so far.

I worked over the willow charcoal line with a small round hoghair brush and acrylic System 3 paint in a dark grey. Willow charcoal is very unstable and the lines wouldn’t have lasted long. Once the paint was dry, I used my fingers and rags to squidge solid blocks of System 3 colours. The paint is mixed about 60:40 with acrylic pigment so it’s translucent. It’s not like anything I normally do, it’s like colouring-in. Very relaxing.

Blue Face

16 natieModel, artist and mate Natie popped into Creative Bubble on Saturday and posed for me so I could practice drawing a portrait. I’ve never been a formal portraitist, life drawing is about anatomy for me, not about getting a likeness of the model’s face. But I’m working on an idea for my next biggish exhibition and I need to get better at capturing likenesses. It’s better to practice with a professional model and / or fellow artists because you can come up with all sorts of weird stuff while trying to get to a likeness, and non-professionals can end up getting very insulted.

In this I’m trying to get the components of the face in the right place and familiarise myself with all the bits, so I’m not that bothered about subtlety and finesse. Luckily, Natie didn’t seem to mind. I used chalk and compressed charcoal onto a discarded cyanotype on Bockingford paper that I found in the bin at the print workshop. It’s about 20cm square. It will feed into a larger piece eventually.

 

The Yellow Shoes

1392327334327

 

It’s been a very long day and I’ve only just got home at nearly midnight. Good day though, but I need to do a quickie blog and get some sleep. Here’s the second drawing I did at Thursday’s life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop, using my Samsung Galaxy tablet with the free Marker app. I like working with older models because their bodies are so interesting, so lived in. This model travels a lot and picked up these lovely yellow leather pointy-toed shoes on one of her trips.

The Wall Of Lurve

patme

Day 1 of another of 15 Hundred Lives‘ monthly public art event in Creative Bubble in Swansea. We invite other artists to join us in the artspace to work alongside; it’s very stimulating to have so many artists in one place all focussed and making art. We also invite the public to join us and make their own artworks.

love wall

This month we have a Wall Of Lurve for the public pop-up work as it’s Valentine’s Day.

portraits 2I started two almost-life-size drawings of fellow artists, Melanie Ezra and Patricia McKenna Jones. I’m working on rolls of primed canvas with willow charcoal.I am working from photographs to start with, using a grid to scale up the images.

portraits 1

This is how far I got today. I like the style, it’s quite comic book. Tomorrow I’ll start to work in some colour. Not sure yet whether I’ll use oil bars with linseed oil and rags or acrylic System 3 inks mixed with acrylic medium and applied with rags. I don’t do brushes.

Pink Kimono And Tatts

1392322141843

Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. I made a spiced carrot cake for our tea break; I warmed it in the microwave for a few seconds before serving it. This is an older model who has some amazing tattoos; lizards chasing flies and spiders into carnivorous plants all over her body. She has a gorgeous pink, patterned kimono-style robe. This is a twenty-minute pose that I drew on my Samsung Galaxy tablet using the Markers free app. It’s dead handy for colour work because I’m a bit lazy and don’t really want to set up my watercolours or inks. It’s pretty packed out so there’s not much room anyway.

AND IT’S MY 900th POST!

Raphael’s Quickie

1392242014333

I’m continuing to practice from my book of Renaissance drawings using my Samsung Galaxy tablet. This is after a sketch by Raphael. The original was obviously done quickly and it’s very free. I haven’t tried to copy it exactly, line for line, because that would make it rather stiff. I started off by installing a mottled background because paper in Renaissance times tended to be a bit rough and pure white paper would be rare and expensive. The baby is very stylised and typical of the period. I think that these days, he’d probably be considered a bit too chubby.

 

Early V-Day Love

This marvellous blog shows how people are working together to improve the quality of their lives and employment prospects in a part of Pakistan that has been terribly affected by terrorism. Terrific hope for the future.

pakimom's avatarBirth Pangs of a Startup

In Pakistan there is a big debate every year over whether we should celebrate Valentine’s Day or not. The debauch liberals are all in favor. The enlightened moderate ones (ah Musharraf … you made the term famous) say sure, but only with your spouses. The flag-bearers of our morality, the ones who have sworn to save their brethren from hell-fire are strictly against. Either way, here is 2014’s V-Day just a few days away. And this brings me to my new love.

Basecamp is a co-working space in … wait for it … PESHAWAR! Yeah ok so 2 weird things there. The name, Basecamp, itself. Isn’t that an online project management website? Then second even CRAZIER thing. It’s in Peshawar!!! Isn’t that the crazy city at the Afghan border hit by the worse strain of terrorism of any urban area in Pakistan?

Hang on. Let me get to each…

View original post 346 more words

Male Nude With Splodges

11 Ben

I use top quality art paper in my work and I like to recycle my own and other people’s cast offs. Here’s a piece of Somerset I found in the waste bin at the print studio. It had been prepared with cyanotype chemicals but not used. It’s been hanging around in a draw for a couple of years, waiting for a subject to present itself. I had it in my bag at life drawing last week and it suited this 10 minute pose. The model was reflected in the mirror and the vertical drawings fit the large upright blocks of dark blue. I used black Indian ink with a traditional dip pen which is smudgy and blotchy, like the cyanotype.

After Piero di Cosimo

1392067044017

It’s day 10 of the Facebook February daily drawing challenge and I’m posting this. I’ve just drawn it on my Samsung Galaxy Tablet using the free Markers app. I started out by laying down a background colour – if you don’t it goes weird when you save it and does a funny sort of negative thing. Then I added splodges and spots of texture with the translucent tool in greys and white. The background texturing is similar to the abstract patterns in many examples of European Paleolithic cave art.

The drawing is a study made after Piero di Cosimo from my book of Renaissance drawing. I’ve been wanting to do a bit of academic practice lately and the drawing challenge is a good way of spending a few minutes a day studying some of the greats. I’ve enjoyed drawing this fragment of landscape. I’m not a big fan of landscape drawing but this is giving me a handle on it. So thanks, Piero.

Looking At Leonardo

09 da vinci

It’s been a busy weekend with our two 9 year old nephews staying over and a lengthy business meeting ths afternoon. Yes it’s a Sunday but I’m freelance so I don’t work regular hours. But I try to do a drawing a day for practice and discipline and I’ve been dipping into my Renaissance drawing book by Hugo Chapman and Marzia Faietti. I spent a few minutes with my Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size F and my A5 clothbound sketchbook working from this da Vinci sketch.

It’s interesting to draw from another artist because you can appreciate their technique. While I was sketching this, I realised how sparse the linework is; how much is filled in by the viewer. I also realised, although I’d looked at the original many times, that he drew the head slightly too large. I don’t know if that was deliberate or perhaps the model was like that. Apparently, film stars with slightly larger heads look better on the big screen than those with ‘normal’ heads.