Wednesday 31 August 2011

The awesomeness of Lost

So I'm wandering around the Internet and as usual end up at youtube. However, whilst refraining from looking for videos of cute cats, talking cats, angry cats or sociopathic cats I stumbled upon some videos that I liked ages ago... The final few scenes from lost.

I'll not go to in depth as I wouldn't want to spoil the Show for people who haven't experienced its undeniable awesomeness. But my reaction to the videos quite shocked me. Tears streamed down my face (especially the bit with Vincent the dog).

 This all lead to me losing about an hour to video clips where the shows characters remembered their lives on the island. What a truly amazing show and story! I'm so pleased we stuck with the show through the complicated parts; so worth it.

So here are the final two scenes...



With fresh inspiration I decided I wanted to create some Lost related artwork. I've every intention of doing some drawings but to begin with I found some stills and played around with them using Photoshop.

This still is of Jack and Vincent and an incredibly powerful moment in the last scene.


Sunday 28 August 2011

The Lighthouse of the Abarat

I've been using my recently acquired photoshop skills; merging texture and and photos.

This piece is inspired by Clive Barkers books The Abarat quartet (tho I think he's expanding the story beyond the initial four planned books). In the first book The heroine stumbles upon a derelict lighthouse on dry land far away from any sea. Its this lighthouse that calls forth the shores of the Abarat.

If you haven't read this book its very good and epic modern fantasy. So far two in the series have been published, I think the third book is due soon.



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Portrait

So I've just finished a portrait that someone on facebook asked me to do. Have given it a good go and am reasonably happy with the face but found the hand really difficult.

The guys hand was kinda supporting his head but at the same time slightly turned. I think I redrew it 3 times before I was anywhere close to being happy. More hand drawing practice for me!

As this piece was for someone else I'll not put it on my blog until I've asked permission

Friday 26 August 2011

What is art?

I love this!

-not sure where this is from but I found it in the Pintrest boards

Dahlia

I a photoshop sort of mood so flicked through some magazines and had a go at merging textures and photos. All the files for the tutorial were on the CD but being me I couldn't be bothered to go upstairs and find it. So I used Photographs from the net instead and textures from media militia.

It wasn't particularly difficult nor did it take very long. I'm liking the result and already have Ideas of how I can use some of these techniques for other projects.


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Thursday 25 August 2011

Sunset

I took this photograph yesterday evening just as the sun was setting. I was in my pjs and glanced out the the window and ran for the camera.  Such a lovely cloudscape with amazing colours :-).

I sorted the light levels in photoshop but other than that it's as it was... breathtaking.


A sight like this demonstrates  the beauty that is around us a unique sight temporary unless the moment is captured by an artist.

Tuesday 23 August 2011

Hands

Look at the hand! Look at the hand!

The portraits not perfect  but I'm quite pleased with the hand which I can proudly say looks quite hand like!  That's opposed to the mangled messes which normally result in me drawing hands!

I'm not saying it's perfect (I know its not) but I could pick apart a picture until I can longer see the good bits. I'm not going to do that any more than I already have. :-)

 Look at the hand!

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Monday 22 August 2011

Abs

Sadly, this in no way a self portrait. However, I did enjoy drawing this picture.

I used a photograph from a magazine called Attitude as inspiration. The photograph  was of a full length model but I chose to focus only on one element of the photo. Drawing only on the abdominal section allowed me to play around with shading.

Also, drawing only this part of the model enabled me to completely avoid drawing hands!  Maybe that's what I should focus on next HANDS!!! I'm pretty certain if I can draw them I'll pretty much be able to draw anything. Need to get practising though because the ones I produce at the moment look like they belong to someone who's had an accident involving their hands being mangled in machinery.

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Sunday 21 August 2011

Playing With Photoshop

Went for a lovely walk today and took some photos; most of them of flowers but a few of paths and disused roads. It was beautifully sunny and bright a most enjoyable wander.

When I got home I played around on Photoshop. I wanted to make a bright looking image of a disused road that leads to an old quarry look darker... as though it were taken at night.  I think I managed.


representing

A lot of people ask what the symbols in my artwork represent. Sometimes they don't really represent anything but just kind of grew organically as I drew them; sometimes they represent an idea or an animal , and sometimes they represent people, as in this piece if artwork.

When drawing this I'm representing a situation and was very focused throughout the whole process. I definitely feel that expressing myself artistically kind of gets those emotions and thoughts out of me so I can leave them behind and move on.

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Saturday 20 August 2011

Google+ invite

Just and invite to google+ in case people were interested in taking a look.

Growth


I always enjoy doing these sort of pieces and lose myself whilst doing them.  I used pencils and a rubber to clean up.

I just let the composition grow. I wanted to create the appearance of depth so layered up parts, which I think works well.

Whilst drawing this I got the idea for next piece which has more personal meaning I'll upload that tomorrow.

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Friday 19 August 2011

Performance art

I saw this video linked from the bloggess' blog a couple of weeks and I thought I'd share. It's  undeniably a little strange but also kind of brilliant. The costumes used kind of remind me of Lady Gaga and the baby mask is seriously scary! :-)

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Progress

This took me ages to get going on. I found it difficult to think of an initial idea. Eventually I opted for a growth and change sort of theme. I just used pencils for this.

Thursday 18 August 2011

How cool are these

I'm  finding these quite inspirational.... wondering where I could take this idea :)  Human nests


Orchid


One of my orchids. The bottles there to support the weight of the bloom.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Photography

Photography isn't something I'm into in a big way but I've been playing around.  What I'm quite enjoying is then further tinkering with them in photoshop.  

I've found that photoshop is great for sharpening images and for also blurring the background components. This is allowing me to get effects I'd ordinarily only get with an SLR camera. Photoshop also allows me to crop images slightly altering the composition and positioning of focal points adding interest to the resulting photograph



Procrastination

I think I may have actually broken through a wall! I just stopped producing any art work at all.  I didn't do this intentionally it just happened. I'm thinking our rapidly approaching wedding and some of the stress this caused is partly to blame but any how...

I've started drawing and creating finally and will upload some new artwork soon :-). Now I'm off to start some more!