New paintings and regular art updates.
An app I don’t use very often, but sometimes I remember it and then hve a play with it. This was just a doodle of a face. There is a metallic and non metallic pen and different sizes of them, plus a dry brush, an everlasting oils brush, and two others. The colours change depending on how metallic you set it. I think I could learn to control it better if I used a stylus instead of my finger to draw.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was Sea. I tried to draw waves on a sea with felt pens but I didn’t like it so I’ve played with it digitally to add texture in some places and blur other areas. I’m not sure about it, but not all drawings are successful. I think it looks like a photo from a camera with smudges on its lens.
Warning contains nudity.
A ten minute and fifteen minute sketch I recently completed at a life drawing group a few weeks ago. Looking at them now I can see that the details are not correct, but not too bad. The leg lengths on the second sketch are definitely too short. You can see how I tried to extend them a bit. When you draw a figure it’s a good idea to work out where to place the head. If you are too low on the page you run the risk of losing the lower half of the figure as in the first, ten minute sketch. But these were swift sketches, drawn on pale brown Ingres paper which is suitable for the mid tones then drawn in black ink fine line pen and shaded with pencil crayons.
One thing I hate with life studies is when artists leave the head off. Especially when it’s a female study. To me, they may not be able to draw facial features, but by leaving the head off it makes the figure look more like a slab of meat, disturbing and disrespectful of the female model.
Over the next three weeks the Tour de France is taking place. Its an annual bike race like the Giro D’Italia or the Vuelta d’Espania and on a slightly smaller scale the Tour of Britain.
These bike races challenge cyclists of the world to race their way round mountains and plains, to fight their way through crowds and over gruelling roads. In heavy rain, even snow, or sweltering heat.
So many well known names in the cycling world have held the Malliot Jeun (yellow Jersey) such as Eddie Mercxx, Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome for example. I hope I’ve spelled their names properly. It’s certainly a spectacular sports event. There is a lot of expensive equipment and amazing feats of endurance (plus some drug scandals). I’m looking forward to the final day on the Champs Elyssais In Paris (pardon my spelling).
I’m not going to share my whole story, but I thought I would show you a couple of pages of my Swimming Dragon book now I’ve passed my MA in illustration. I wanted to do a children’s book with the story pages looking like black and white lino cut prints and the opposite pages in full colour patterns that could represent dragon scales or other ideas. The idea was to give children a look at abstract, complex art and pattern, together with an adventurous storyline that would lead them through the book. I want to try and get a spark of creativity released through the book. I hope this makes sense. I hope I can work out a way of publishing it.
I’m going to do some cards using this linocut for a craft fair I’m thinking of doing. I wonder if this is to quirky and should I try different colours. Perhaps gold or bronze instead. If I also get envelopes it might make an interesting card. I hoe cat lovers will like them.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was Lake. This is a drawing of Westport Lake from a photo I took on Tuesday.. The sky was quite dark and overcast so it gave it a very atmospheric feeling. The silhouetted tries look good reflected in the water. This is a felt pen sketch of it.
A doodle based on the previous post about the environment. They say allergies are caused by being bought up in conditions that are too clean so the body does not learn how to react normally to its surroundings.
Feeling stressed
Thinking of nature
But suffering hay-fever!
Eyes water
When I try and commune
With the outside world
The pollen
So tiny
Can keep me trapped.
Sneezing
Enclosed
Removed from nature!
Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was Sky. I tried to draw the clouds I had seen at the weekend as they bubbled up. Shower clouds not quite thunderstorms. There was heavy rain but not hail. Felt pen drawing. I couldn’t replicate the colours in the sky that day.
Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt was wide. I could have drawn a wide mouth, a wide vista, a wide stretch of water. Instead I decided to draw a wide eye! It’s just a quick black and white ink sketch. Nothing much to explain other than that.
Mallaband-Brown