Rothkoca-cola

A friend asked for a painting based on a silly poem I wrote and I thought it might be interesting to record the process.

I wrote the poem because we were at a play rehearsal and someone asked us if we could get them a can of coke seeing we had a break. Naturally, we couldn't be bothered so I said I'd write a poem about a can of coke to give to them instead; as this would not involve moving.

Ode to a Can of Coke - Apologies for the poor opening rhyme, me and my friend both picked a word/phrase we wanted in the poem prior to writing it; why I chose "vending" I do not know! I thought her choice of "ring pull" was inspired.

Thirst. I feel your clutch impending.
Could you, machine, some sweet release be vending?
I await you, from your prison tumbling.
Soon shall I be at your ring pull,
Fumbling. 

Betrayal!
You knew, I was a naive and eager fool.
Alas!
Here stand I shamed; and in a foaming, fizzing pool. 

Too soon I yearned for your refreshment.
Why did I not let you stand?

A spiteful lesson learned - oh victor,
No more you'll see me falter.
Next time I'll choose a truer friend,
Pure and loyal,
Water. 

I thought I'd have a look at an artist for some inspiration and settled on Rothko - in particular some of pieces he did around 1948.

Other reference images:

Evolution of a Painting 1: Miller's Crossing

After watching Miller's Crossing I was struck by how well composed the shots were and was not surprised to find out that the cinematographer came to working in film though stills photography. 

Therefore, I thought I'd try painting one of my favourite shots which would be challenging for me because I don't paint realistically very often. 

I thought this would also be a good time to experiment with showing the evolution of a piece through gifs.

Let me know what you think!

Gif: Final:

Stormtroopers. I like the one which bangs his head in Episode 4 :)

Requeeeesst!!!

My brief was: A stormtrooper, maybe the imperial symbol too. I like vibrant colours - especially blue.

How do you think I did??

It already up in their house so I'm guessing my effort wasn't too shabby!

I went to Spain!

I've been on holiday, yay! And I took my paints and pencils, naturally. So, here's a couple of the quick paintings I did while I was there of things I saw.

The first is fairly obvious what it is and how it relates to Spain:

The second, is what the many old spanish men looked like to me as they sat around having a bake in the sun; seemingly indefinitely. 

Going back to my finger painting roots.

At a bit of loose end today so thought I'd have a childish art moment and finger paint!

Here's my favourite of the few quick ones I did which kind of evolved into a face.

Belated Fathers Day

First post-project art piece!

Unfortunately, both me and my dad were busy on Fathers Day so I have only just had time to ask what theme he would like his Fathers Day art piece to be and he chose: cycling!

If anyone knows my dad this will have been fairly predictable as he is Captain cycling/Tour De France/Lycra/Racing Bike man.

Here's the best piece which was his present:

Reject piece of the Tour de France:

Neigh.

Day Twenty Nine: Painting a life size Acrylic horse!

Sooooorry for the long absence - I've doing intermittent little bits of art but nothing post worthy due to lack of time.

But here's some art! Recently, I've spent a lot of time working as part of the group of artists in the 'Horse About Newmarket' project; each artist had to design as completely their design on an acrylic horse.

It was great fun and my horse is called: Mystiko and on it you can see all sorts of mystical themed symbols including tarot cards, palmistry, phrenology and a constellation.

Here's it when I'd just finished painting it (with acrylic paints).

With some of the other horses about to get sprayed with car body spray . .

The finished article at the Guineas!

Getting my abstract on.

Day Twenty Eight: Painting a feeling/idea.

So today I decided to keep things spontaneous as I had the idea of painting a feeling and about 15 minutes later the painting was done - trying not to let myself over-think it.

I think it might be interesting to not say what feeling I painted and see what other people get from it. Let me know!

Don't lie to me about the cake again.

Day Twenty Seven: Portal 2 Triptic

Another request - my blog is going a bit 'game art'. This is a triptic inspired by Portal/Portal 2 and I was asked to explore the idea of computers ruling out lives and the fragility of the human mind.

I like how this one looks and I don't think it matters whether you are familiar with Portal or not.

halo spARTan . . . see what I did there?

Day Twenty Four: Picasso/Kandinsky Inspired Painting

A request! A friend of mine asked for a Halo Spartan drawing. Knowing that this friend thinks little of abstract art I decided to broaden his mind/really piss him off by doing exactly what he didn't want: an abstract Halo Spartan.

As a slight consolation prize I have included my 'absract-isation' sketches below where he can enjoy a rough yet accurate Spartan. 

Plan -

He's there, the Phantom of the Opera . .

Day 23 - Acrylic painting.

So, after a long break - art returns!

It did not take me long to settle on a subject after having seen The Phantom of the Opera twice in the past week (unnecessary, yes, but awesome? YES).  I found the character of the Phantom so captivating I wanted to capture the wonderfully melodramatic image of him beneath the opera house with his music.

This Phantom is based on the performance by Scott Davies though I had the pleasure of seeing both him and John Owen Jones in the role.

Because if you're portraying an epic story you have to have a naked lady.

Day Eighteen: A portrayal of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Pastel, Pen and Watercolour

This was really tough!!! Trying to capture the epic nature of the story in one image was hard but I hope I've done it some justice.

Garrr, this didn't photograph very well but I'm still pleased with it. A friend of mine requested my interpretation of roughly these verses of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

'Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.'


I must admit I sacrificed being completely accurate for appearance when it came to 'skin as white as leprosy' as the piece was lacking some colour contrast to the cold colours - I'm sure I could have made it work but alas, time constraints!


I am really pleased with my night sky and giving Death a cow's head - I didn't want to do the archetypal image of death yet still wanted him to recognisable so I tried a few different skulls. 


And if you haven't read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and don't really understand what's going here there's a boob for you.