A few life drawings.

Here are a few different styles of life drawing - I'm not entirely convinced by my life drawing skills thus far but we shall see.

We'll Ride Them Someday

The results of another photography test day.

This time I was in Wicken Fen and most of my photos are of the semi-wild horses that can be found here.

Here's the link the the gallery (the first 6 are from this shoot) - http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/myshot/gallery/363200#/gallery/1233793/

Here's my favourite photo of the day - it wasn't the best composition wise but I loved the horses unusual body position too much.

First go at life drawing!

Here's a couple of the quick sketches I did during my first life drawing session.

Continuous line drawing :

Sketch of the class: 

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.

When I watch X-men . . .

A quick little sketch I did this evening inspired by, as the title suggests, my visit to see X-Men First Class :)

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:

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.