A couple of small paintings I did about three years ago, acrylics on canvas, sorry the colours are off. I liked trying to get the perspective on the window, and the splash of the fountain and the ripples in the water.
Old paintings
Tag: Pictures
Drawing portraits
This is from a few years ago. I think it was just someone in a cafe or a pub. I don’t remember asking permission to draw him. But this is about twenty years old, so there is no reason why I would. What I like to do is draw carefully. I don’t pick my pencil up to measure, but I do look carefully. I try and get the proportions right. I look at the length of the nose, the width of the lips. The length of the hair and the shape of the person’s face. Portrait drawing and painting can be nerve wracking. But I enjoy doing it. I’m addicted to art.
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Portfolio submitted
It’s taken me three or four days to put my college portfolio together. Lots of images in a word document. I had 51 pages in the end. I presented it as a landscape document. Word is a pain. Every time I tried to fit images to a page it jumped. So that meant I had to delete lines and insert lines. I tried putting numbers to pages, but because it was automatically numbering pages my document started with number 11! I had to work out how to delete 1.
Then I decided to put frames round each image, but the one I chose overlapped the edges of some of the drawings so I had to choose something with a slimmer frame.
Then I had to convert it to a PDF. When I looked all the images were too small. I had to resize most of them. So frustrating….
I hope I learn to do things better. I need advice in using Word, and everything else.
And back to cats, patterns and photo editing
Sometimes when you ‘tidy things up’ with photo editors, you lose some of the character of your art work. Yes it may look more interesting in one way but you can lose colours or small details that you might have struggled to get into the image in the first place. I guess it’s a matter of choice. The first photo here has been enhanced slightly with filters in Instagram. That’s because the drawing I did originally is about twenty years old and hangs on our stairs. The inks I used to draw it have faded so i had to try and restore it slightly back to how it was. The second is another one that I’ve adjusted in Photodirector.
It’s down to personal opinion if you like them or not?
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Too many photos
Yet again my photo content is too high. It’s around 79% and I’m going to have to delete photos off my older posts to make room for new ones.
I like illustrating my posts with my own images and not using many of anyone else’s pictures. But that means I fill up my pages with my work and lose memory. That means I can’t post photos until I remove around 100 images. I did upgrade my plan to give me more space, but I can’t afford to keep doing that. I think once you’ve got the blogging bug it’s hard to break free from it.
See you later.
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Introducing an illustrator
As part of my illustration course I’m meeting fellow artists and more about their lives.
I thought I’d share a lady called Zoe Ainsworth-Grigg’s website so you can see what one of the other students do.
http://www.zoeainsworthgriggbooks.com
She’s a children’s author and illustrator, you can see some of things she’s involved with on her site.
I might share more about my new friends as the course goes on.
Enjoy x
Art…
The Sunday Times newspaper has run an article which compares essential and non essential workers.
Their survey had a list of images, essential has doctors I think at the top, and artists at the top of non essential jobs. So it says artists are the least essential workers?
I feel this argument should be challenged.
So no one ever designs things using their artistic skills, or paints scenery, or designs art for their walls, or cars, or wallpaper, or covers for books, or diagrams for science books, or medical textbooks. Or designs for online gaming art, or creating beautiful jewellery, or clothes or shoes. Or patterns on China and pottery. No art is used in news papers to show images of essential or non essential workers, how could anyone be employed to illustrate anything? No one ever read a cartoon or a children’s book! Obviously……! No one ever drew rainbows for the NHS. Children don’t need art to learn how to understand biology or architecture or any other complex concept. Richard Feynmann and Steven Hawking never used pictures to explain their theories of quantum mechanics. What about technical drawing? But… statues are now grey boxes, Leonardo is a turtle…. And he was never drawn!
Dorothy Clive Garden.
This was my drawing of the Dorothy Clive Garden on 6.5.18. It’s recently reopened but with a booking system so you have to book morning or afternoon slots to visit. There is a self service system at the cafe. I hope we can go one day next week if the weather improves, after a month or more of sunshine we have been having rain for the last few days. Good for all gardens including the Dorothy Clive.
It will be lovely to see different landscapes, beautiful flowers, and peaceful water features.
When you draw a place you are interpreting the world in a different way to simple photographs. That’s why I enjoy it. Trying to tame nature and describe it.
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Local drawing
As I was busy yesterday I missed doing a drawing of something local that was the prompt from stoke urban sketchers. I wanted to do a picture of somewhere a bit further away as my local pottery is not the most exciting image and I’ve already drawn it.
This is Penkhull Church at the top of our hill. It was built in the Victorian era and it is a lovely piece of architecture and centre of the community. It needs some restoration, which has partly been done but as with everything old work needs to continue on it.
If you ever feel like donating I’m sure there is some sort of fund that donations can go to. I don’t know exactly where.
Lots of activities are held there, from services, music festivals and the yearly mystery plays. The local theatre group has held musical evenings there too.
Anyway I might do the next challenge tomorrow. I’m not sure what it will be. Looking forward to it.
Got some new canvases.
Excited to have got some new canvases. I hope to get out in the garden and paint from real life. The weather is not really good enough for it at the moment. We are having heavy showers so I would need cover to keep dry. If the weather improves I will try….
One day I might be able to exhibit my art again and I would like to have some new work ready for that.
I’d say ‘watch this space’ , but it might be better to say ‘don’t hold your breath!’
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Mallaband-Brown 