Monday 18 April 2011

Easter break

I'm taking a few days off for easter week, so here is a wip of what i'm working on at the moment.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Those wonderful men in their flying machines

Non-digital art people that i talk to, (thats most people really) seem very confused by the idea of painting digitally, so i thought i'd post up some pictures of me painting on my Wacom Cintiq12. I've also been looking for some youtube clips of it in action, but they tend towards two ends of the spectrum, A: The dry flat approach or B: The trash metal 'rocking out with my cintiq' approach, so i think i'll go with it and post two links. Here are some pics of my hand and the cintiq:




And here's the finished painting:


Here's the first youtube video:


And here's the exciting one:


Yes, watching people digitally paint is alot like watching analogue paint dry...

Monday 11 April 2011

Things on my CD's

Did two fairly rapid pieces today and yesterday, more like colour sketches rather than finished pieces, tho it might be just that i'm getting faster at painting. I cleaned up my desk, that is i took all the rubbish off it so i can see my cd collection again! I got the idea of using the stacks of cd's as a platform for small little objects that are sitting around the house unappreciated, and i can paint them still-life style. It means that i'm not relying on photographs, which given i'm not a great photographer, tend to loose colour a bit, or look not quite right, yet anyway, until i learn how to take a good reference photo. Anyway thats another days work.

The main benefit of setting objects on top of cd's is that i can get to paint text, without the text being the main object of the painting. I am really enjoying painting words!! Also it means that in one small piece i can appreciate an object be it a fruit or a vegetable or box of something or whatever as well as looking closely and appreciating graphic design as well. Although i always say this, i think i'm going to explore this angle further, i think i really mean it this time!!

Here's the two pieces, both left a bit sketchy and both could be improved a hell of a lot but i kind of like them as they are so far. The pear one was drawn first, and the cd's were at a slight angle, and yeah the pear does look a bit like it s sitting squashed down on the cd, but hey, enjoy the colours!




Sunday 10 April 2011

Get your measurements right!!!

I started off this week painting a take-away coffee cup, but i had to abandon it after about 5 hours, cause i didn't get my  initial measurements right. It probably wouldn't have been a big problem except there was a lot of text involved and a curved surface, so the details had to be spot on and they weren't. Here is what i had got done...




I'm sure that i could probably rescue it, but i'm better off just start again from scratch. If i was a traditional artist using a canvas i could have just smashed the thing to pieces in frustration, but if i was to pick up my cintiq and whack it off the ground, i'd never forgive myself!! Anyway i did a very quick sketch last evening, took about an hour which is very fast for me, and i'm happy enough with it considering it didnt take long. And i will more than likely do a bit more with it, like add some more cd's to the pile.


The print out of it is a bit dark tho, gotta get some lessons on how to use a printer better.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Ok already!!

I did a little bit of , what would you call it, 'text' art?



Its a little button on a card reader that i got when i joined Postbank a few years ago, they have since gone bust like just about every other bank in this country!! This was a very relaxing piece to paint, cause i really like circles and i really like text, tho i dont recall painting text ever before. No WIP for this one either cause i did it on just 3 layers, namely 'backround' 'button' and 'text', in all about 5-6 hours work.

I decided to paint this after reading about a woman in the back part of the sunday times magazine who paints 'naive' art, i forget her name, but i kinda liked the idea, it helped me relax a bit and paint something i thought was fun.

Ive now started a new painting, its a take away coffee cup...