Artwork in progress

Two sketches in oil pastels from my life drawing class at the...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:30:00 +0000

Two sketches in oil pastels from my life drawing class at the city gallery.

They’re not great, but they were quick sketches and it was good to get some practice in.

Michael, smoking This is the acrylics version of the sketch i...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:57:00 +0000

Michael, smoking

This is the acrylics version of the sketch i did of Michael, for my sketchbook. It was based on a photo that my sister-in-law Debbie took. I just simplified it into areas of light and shade and kept the colours simple.

ChiChi, in inks This is a quick sketch I did last night, to try...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:53:00 +0000

ChiChi, in inks

This is a quick sketch I did last night, to try out my new inks (thanks Chrissie!). I used them on a kind of heavy, newsprint-type paper, which seemed to work quite well. I’m happy with how this turned out, even though I had to work quickly.

I just have to try and think of what to do next - I’m thinking of trying to do that purple iris in the inks.

ChiChi in oil pastels I love this drawing. I did it in oil...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:18:00 +0000

ChiChi in oil pastels

I love this drawing. I did it in oil pastels on brown paper and I think the white comes out really well against it.

Even though this was just a sketch for my sketchbook, I think I might end up framing it.

Large scale colour study of a red pepper. Oil Pastels

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:15:00 +0000

Large scale colour study of a red pepper.

Oil Pastels

Life Drawing The drawing above is a quick oil pastel drawing of...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:14:00 +0000

Life Drawing

The drawing above is a quick oil pastel drawing of Michael, working at his laptop - I’m quite happy with it, considering it took about 15 minutes.

The other two drawings were chalk pastel drawings done, of the tutor, in last week’s class - I don’t really like the first one, but I think I started to improve on the second. I think I’ll stick with the oil pastels in future, though.

Another Pop Art exercise that I did in my sketchbook - I did...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:08:00 +0000

Another Pop Art exercise that I did in my sketchbook - I did this, using a photo of Michael, lighting a cigarette, which I traced and drew lines wherever there was shadows, to simplify the drawing, then coloured it in with pencils.

I’m really happy with this picture and might do a proper painted version.

My two Pop Art paintings, as they will be shown in my portfolio...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:36:00 +0000

My two Pop Art paintings, as they will be shown in my portfolio (and a Lichtenstein painting for comparison). I’m not that happy with the green and red one - the pink is probably a bit strong, but I don’t mind that. If you compare it to the Lichtenstein, he uses a strong pink for the skin tones. He uses a stronger outline too - so the darker green might be better for the lines.

Two oil pastel drawings that I did last night at a free life...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:29:00 +0000

Two oil pastel drawings that I did last night at a free life drawing session in the City Gallery. They’re doing another two over the next few months, so I’ll be going along again. And they are hoping to have a bit of an exhibition of some of the drawings at some stage, so I left these two drawings with them.

Painting no.1 of my two ‘Andy Warhol’ style...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 08:13:57 +0000

Painting no.1 of my two ‘Andy Warhol’ style paintings. I’m quite happy with it. The next one will probably be a red and green version, for a bit of a contrast - the two together should be more effective.

Pop Art For this week’s class, we’ll be doing Andy...

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:12:47 +0000

Pop Art

For this week’s class, we’ll be doing Andy Warhol inspired self portraits - like his screen prints of Marilyn Monroe. We will be painting, rather than screen printing, and Declan suggested that we use a photo and carbon paper to copy our image onto canvas board - because the exercise is more about the painting than the drawing.

Anyway, this is the result - I really like it, I must say! I’m hoping that the painted version will come out well - if it does, I’ll be doing a ‘Michael’ one too, to be framed along with this. I probably shouldn’t get ahead of myself - we’ll wait until Tuesday night!

Photo Montage This was a project we did on photo montage,...

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:07:24 +0000

Photo Montage

This was a project we did on photo montage, inspired by the work of David Hockney. We had to take a few photos of ourselves, slice them up and create another picture from it. Because this is the colour module, we had to add colour to B&W photocopies, so I used my watercolour pencils - the only problem is that the sections where I added water, the paper buckled slightly, so I left it as pencil only for most of the picture.

When I went out to get colouring pencils the other day, I found...

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 10:27:28 +0000

When I went out to get colouring pencils the other day, I found watercolour pencils, so I decided to give them a go. This is the iris; above with pencils, and below, with added water.

For the ‘painting’ part of the course, we have to do...

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 10:21:56 +0000

For the ‘painting’ part of the course, we have to do a mechanical object in a few different media, so I’ve done this shovel in chalk and oil pastels - I’ll be doing an acrylics version too.

Cubism This was an exercise, where we drew a simple line drawing...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:17:27 +0000

Cubism

This was an exercise, where we drew a simple line drawing still life, then repeated it, so that it overlapped a couple of times. Then we glued coloured paper into each shape, to create this cubist-style picture.

Organic Object - colour study For the painting module of my...

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 15:03:00 +0000

Chalk pastels

Oil pastels

Organic Object - colour study

For the painting module of my course, we’ve to do colour studies of our organic object, but I’ve traded the white orchid for an indigo iris. This are chalk and oil pastel drawings; I’ll be doing an acrylic painting at some stage too.

Wouldn’t you know it’s the New Year - I stocked up...

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:23:36 +0000

Wouldn’t you know it’s the New Year - I stocked up on healthy veggies yesterday, and when I was taking them out of the shopping bag, they looked like they’d make a nice still life!

Self Portrait A sketch to add into the Life Drawing section of...

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:22:12 +0000

Self Portrait

A sketch to add into the Life Drawing section of my sketchbook.

Two sketches of ChiChi, taken from photos. No too bad, if I say...

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:21:14 +0000

Two sketches of ChiChi, taken from photos. No too bad, if I say so myself! I might try another oil pastel sketch and maybe an oil painting, next.

A life drawing sketch in pen and Indian ink. If anyone is...

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:16:24 +0000

A life drawing sketch in pen and Indian ink.

If anyone is looking for a good life drawing website, this one (below) is great for generating different poses. You can set it to any length of time, and decide whether you want male or female models and whether nude or clothed;

http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/