Time-saving and/or multi-tasking

Often I find myself (as do most people with other jobs, kids and responsibilities) working on sketches whenever possible. This could mean while you wait for the bus or are sat on the train, in a pub or just simply waiting for the washing machine to finish. I haven't quite got to the point of leaving a sketchbook by the toilet but I keep one in my faithful rucksack so it's always handy.

A case in point would these roughs I worked up stood at the counter of an art shop. I wasn't a customer waiting patiently in line, instead I was on the other side taking advantage of a lull in people buying peel off stickers. Without the time to do a million and one thumbnails I stuck with my first idea which is more often than not the better.

Stay tuned for the final artwork in the next edition of 'Don't tell the boss I draw during work time!'

Happy New Year!

Phewy! Now that the festive season is over we can all go back to normality except normality for me includes a mortgage. Wohoo! (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm actually pleased)

Heres what I was working on coming up to Christmas 2010:

They are portraits for a regular debate feature- the 'Roundtable' in Management Today Magazine. The style is in keeping with a previous Roundtable illos. However I stuck to using watercolour with pen and ink because it's often best to use a familiar medium when doing portraits, a single mistake can throw a likeness completely.

Ainulindale Finished

The painting is now finished, I transferred the 'singing heads' then thinly added highlights with Titanium White. I await the final verdict (scary stuff)...

P.s Happy Birthday Emily :-)

'Not On The Rocks' Illustrations

I'm certainly not old enough to remember the highly detailed black & white illustrations that used to be printed in newspapers. I once was lucky enough to visit a designer who started his professional life inking furniture drawings for a local rag, he showed me some of his old work and we both lamented the disappearance of that old style.  Imagine my excitement when an offer of work came through asking me to pastichean old Whisky advert but include a few modern elements.

The article was about the Morrison Bowmore distilleries being a uniquely British affair that had customers all over the world. The main illustration and spot were to show the tradition of Scotch making and the modern machinery involved in the process.

Above is the main illustration which has some of the modern elements in the decoration (dials, meters, arrow diagrams and LEDs).

Below are the all the bits I did for the article printed in the final magazine.

Not your average Bonfire Night

As the large firework displays were just beginning over Swindon, Suzanne and I went up to Barbury Castle to get a spectacular and rather chilly panoramic. Barbury is what's left of a large Iron Age hill fort the impressive ground works are still there which includes a perimeter ditch roughly 25ft deep so making our way round that was a bit hairy in the dark however our trusty torch and flask saved the day - or rather the night.

Apologies for my poor photography. Left is a blurry view of the bonfire in the next field, Right is an even more blurry Swindon void of fireworks because I've never managed to time a photograph well. Unfortunately you can't see the smoke accumulating from the many fires lying low over the town which is a shame because it gave an ethereal quality to the view.

The blueprint for an heroic leader.

 

Above is a single page illustration I completed for Management Today that was published last month. The concept was reasonably straightforward but even so my small bit of training in technical drawing helped immensely, without it who knows how the piece would have turned out?

I was also asked to supply a couple of spot illustrations based on two well known business leaders. Fortunately for Tony Hayward his annotations didn't come from my pen. I don't think the feature would have made the print otherwise ;-)

  As they are meant to be seen.

Soon I'm hoping to put up the most recent bit of work I did for the same magazine. Mostly black and white and ridiculously detailed - my eyes are still trying to re-adjust.

Ainulindale in colour

I've been adding oil colour to the under-painting of 'Ainulindale' in-between other work, despite the slow progress it's finally coming together. Tomorrow I shall move onto the foliage highlights and then the faces can be added when the paint is touch dry.

Rockwell originals at the Dulwich Gallery!

This is incredible! For the first time in the UK you will be able to see in the flesh original Saturday Evening Post covers, advertisements and illustrations by Norman Rockwell. If you don't know who Rockwell is visit google images now.

The exhibition is being held at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London between 15th December - 27 March 2011, for more information click here.

Further development on 'Ainulindale'

 
For the moment I've had to put this on the back burner but that doesn't stop me from blogging about it. Above you can see my final drawing for 'Ainulindale' (see previous post) which gives me more information to work with when I pull out my brushes. I have however decided to leave out the singing heads until the background is painted, then I can overlay them which will hopefully add to their transparency.

The top image is a few hours in advance from the final drawing. Here I have added burnt sienna and ultramarine acrylic to give me an under-painting that has warm and cool areas.

After the paint dried I diluted a marvin acrylic medium into a milky consistency and began priming paper with a soft hake brush, sanding in-between four coats just to be on the safe side. When everything dried completely I ran some magic tape around the edges to keep them clean.

Recently I have actually been trawling the internet for information on mounting and priming paper for oils. There are useful tips and videos out there but so far I haven't found anything on stretching paper with gum tape and then priming it - the advantage being the finished oil would just be on a sheet of watercolour paper without any heavy board attached. That means they are easy to store and very lightweight even with a frame because you don't need the glass! It would be strange to think nobody else has tried this before but who knows maybe I've just invented a new priming technique although I seriously doubt it.

Scrap that reverse it... or sometimes it's best to realise your mistakes

In previous posts I've shown some WIPs for an oil painting I have been working on. Unfortunately my oil painting skills aren't up to scratch and I've made a complete hash of it, I might just have to install a 'gallery flambeau' (check James Gurney's imaginative realism). So after putting that aside with a bin liner wrapped around it I've attempted a re-run on the concept and come up with this sketch. Fortunately this has been approved by my friends who will be receiving the final artwork so I can now get on with the final drawing.

To try to explain the composition it is taken from the 'Ainulindale' chapter in Tolkien's 'Silmarillion' where the world is created through song. I have tried to focus more on the environments this time but also kept with the singing characters. Also the circular composition is designed to be hung any which way and evoke a pulse of sound spreading from the center.