Preliminary Sketches For Swindon Montage

Just in case you'd like to see them...

A good insurance policy is to annotate rough sketches especially if, like me,  you suffer from a scatterbrain. They could be notes on colour or style but in this case I wanted to make sure I adjusted the composition before I commenced with the final piece.

Swindon Montage

Many moons ago I studied in Swindon and up until a year ago I was still living there. I can't say the town itself ever particularly inspired me to paint but it does have some interesting features.

For example Swindon's heritage is based on the railways built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (only he could get away with that name) so not surprisingly there is a large statue of the man in the town centre. The old Town Hall is a gorgeous redbrick Victorian beast and one of a few such buildings surviving in the town. Then there are the more modern constructions such as Swindon's solitary skyscraper the David Murray John Tower and futuristic leisure centre dome called The Oasis. Also another statue is the Blondini acrobats, I'm at a loss as to why it was made but it's certainly eye catching. Finally in this long list there is arguably Swindon's most famous landmark and something which 'drives' the fear of God into the petrified hearts of all learner drivers - THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT. Imagine a massive roundabout that feeds 5 busy exits, none of which are governed by traffic lights. Then imagine this monster is actually made up of 5 interlocking mini roundabouts which often have two lanes encircling them. It's ordered chaos and yet I have never seen an accident on it.

Anyway why am I babbling on about Swindon? It's not a habit of mine but I thought you might need some background knowledge before you saw my latest private commission below.

Swindon Montage 30 x 42cm

I was asked to keep this painting simple. Really it is more of a pencil line drawing with a light wash of watercolour at the end. Thankfully the end result ticked all the criteria and I had a happy customer!

Advertising Fun!

Here we have a couple of illustrations I completed for Admap Magazine. I've never worked for the magazine before but they now use an Art Director I know so I was in reasonably familiar territory.

The concept was simple but effective. Advertising agencies are increasingly using games and fun activities to promote their products, this seems to have really taken of online in the last few years. The main illustration was to suggest this by showing a bright and colourful funfair scene growing out of a man's head. The head had to be suitably pensive and grey to emphasize the punchy funfair on top.

Below you can see the main feature, a detail and a spot illustration.

As you can see the style is very different to what I normally produce but it often pays to expand your skills in any walk of life. I'm sure a few years ago I would have struggled to mix pencil, Illustrator and Photoshop and still achieve the same standard.

F-Block Portrait Progress

Oh! Well done you survived last night. It's good to see you. Oh no is that a claw scratch? Perhaps you should be careful next full moon... you know... just in case.

I've been having a lovely time today, there's nothing better than painting away with the radio on and few distractions. But first let me take you back in time a couple of days to the final pencil and under-painting stage.

Above is the final pencil work on stretched Arches Satin Smooth Watercolour paper.

I decided to try a Paynes Grey Watercolour under-painting. Normally I would got with Burnt Sienna or Ultramarine and always in acrylic, however I wanted to keep the skin tones and background very neutral and also have the option of lifting them out if the Grey was too overpowering.

So finally here is where the painting is at right now. I've very nearly finished the background and 'fleshy bits' really just using four colours (Paynes Grey, Rose Dore, Sepia, Yellow Ochre). With the shirt I've blocked in where the main shadows are going to be. I'll let that dry then glaze over that with Paynes Grey which will hopefully make the fabric soften and appear blue in a restricted palette sort of way.

Slight problem, but a good one to have... I have to start a large editorial commission tomorrow so this portrait is going straight to the back burner along with everything else until mid November.

F-Block Portrait

After quite a hectic month I've managed to find some time to make in-roads on a private commission. Waaaaay back at the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition private view I met a very nice gentlemen named Wilson Cotton. A few days after our first meeting he got in touch with an offer for me to paint a portrait of his son Nick. Turns out Nick is a young DJ who has recently performed on the BBC introducing stage at Glastonbury Festival under the name F-Block and he is making quite a stir on the dance circuit. Click here for his video.

Below you can see my initial sketches based on photographs from his BBC set.

Selected Thumbnail

Detailed Rough

Perhaps you can see in Nick's shirt various bits of text. These are the song titles from his set list on the night.

Tomorrow I'll post the final pencil and the first stages of colour. Until then try and survive the night Muhahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

Happy Halloween!

Reviews Of The Bath Prize

Here are a couple of links for you. Both are reviews of the Bath Art Prize, one by Katherine Tyyrell on Making A Mark (click here), the other by Linda Kasmaty on Swindon Open Studios 2011 blog (click here). Linda's other half popped into the shop I work in part-time yesterday and I told him what had been happening. In almost no time Linda was on the phone asking me permission to do a write up.

Tonight the Bath Art Prize Winners Were Announced...

And I was the shocked to discover I received first prize!! Below is the winning piece. You can view my progress by visiting my previous post (click here).

May I say thank you to the organizers of the Bath Prize at Art Ventures and all the judges who had a tough time whittling the entries down. I've just got back from the private view which is a must for anybody who likes art and lives in the South West of England. For more details click here.

The Elephant & Castle

I have recently completed an unusual commission - artwork for a musical theatre poster. So far in my short career this type of thing hasn't been requested of me so I went into this all guns blazing which possibly explains why I became too excited and stretched an enormous piece of paper to work on. A week into the final painting and I was flagging. Apart from jumping between another project and this one, it was taking an age to get the rich dark tones I was after. When you have a deadline looming and watercolour is your choice of medium this can sometimes be a problem so any normal person would work smaller but not me, I like to make things difficult for myself it seems.

So after grumbling and losing sleep I decided to scan the unfinished painting and drop it into Photoshop for a bit of computer wizardry. I quickly had multiple layers of rich dark colours zapping from my wacom tablet. Something that would have taken days in watercolour was digitally knocked up in an afternoon thus saving me time and helping me reach the slightly (by then) extended deadline.

What have I learned? Plan painting timescales based on the size AND content of the projected artwork. It makes sense that large scale works which contain loose details or light pastel colours are generally less time consuming than those with rivers of dark hues and mountains of details. Also another lesson to keep in mind is Photoshop shop can cover up a multitude of sins, great for illustration, not so great for original art exhibitions.

Rant over, I'm still best friends with my watercolours but now more aware of my limitations when using them.

Regarding the musical, hopefully it will be on stage next year in London. When I get hold of dates I will post them up for all to see!

Children's Book Rally Update

Illustration Rally have posted my entry (above) into their Children's Book Rally Competition. You can view quite a few of the entries and mine in more detail by visiting Illustration Rally.

The finished artwork is watercolour wash on Bristol board then pencil crayon on top of that to flesh out the colours. I then scanned the originals into Photoshop and built up the shadows and highlights using a brush on multiply layers. When I completed the images I placed the speech bubbles using tracing paper and then inked in the text with a fine-liner pen. These were also scanned in, cleaned up in Photoshop and then added to the artwork as a separate layer.

The story is of my own creation based on a boy called Walt and a whale who visits Walt's town to try and get his bones back. You can see the bones in the top image.

Agnes Sloan Memorial Prizewinner!

 
This was a very nice surprise, I can tell you!!

I have won the opportunity to illustrate a new children's book titled 'Momo And The Totobrats' with Birkbeck Hauxwell Publishing. At the moment I'm waiting for the manuscript to come through and to start liaising with the author which is frustrating because I can't wait to get started.

Now, so far I have managed to avoid posting a photo of myself on the blog (you can see why) but a photo was requested for publicity so I thought I might as well add it here. Perhaps I should add a health warning - 'Beware! Viewers may unexpectedly turn to stone. Chris Dunn Illustration will not be held accountable for masonry side effects, gouging of eyes etc etc...'