Happy New Year!

Because nothing says new year festivities like a race car driver psyching herself up before the big race.

xmas portrait

Recent portrait and a little more process.

The pencil sketch is roughly A4 in size, scanned into photoshop. Over time I've gradually put less shading in there as I think it can look a little too rough, especially on soft/delicate features like gums, lips, eyes etc, in comparison to the smoothness of digital paint. Obviously textured brushes can help, but I tend to over-render a little sometimes so no matter what brush I use it ends up looking smooth.

I don't like it, but I will admit that alot of the time I don't get it spot on and have to edit the sketch in varying amounts (digitally) to get a better likeness. Sometimes I don't have to do it at all, but more than likely it needs to be done. Here is the halfway stage for this one, which is a combination of laying down basic colour and working in some detail so I have a better indication of where it's going (I often convince myself that in the early stages it's looking like crap, so I like to detail the eyes a bit, and put highlights in early elsewhere to boost my spirits).

Although most of the time, if there's two people as in this example, I'll paint one face almost to completion before moving on to the second. I only did it differently because the subjects requested an in-progress stage be printed along with the finished piece.

The finished piece.

I think I got the guy's likeness fairly well from the off, but the girl needed a fair bit of adjustment, mainly in the size/spacing of her eyes and the size of her smile and curve of her top lip.

I didn't intend it to end up having an overly smooth, almost 50's pin-up shiny-ness to it, but I think it suits the xmas theme.

Couple of recent portrait commissions.

When in Rome...

This is a job I finished last night, a retirement gift for a director of a company that's off to Rome. I've decided to show a little bit of the process as I find it interesting when other artists do the same.

I make a rough sketch that's actually multiple sketches composed together in Photoshop, I don't always do this but I find it more convenient and less stressful. I almost always end up getting one or two parts wrong so I end up re-drawing them seperately anyway.

I'll then print it out in light blue, as alot of artists do, ink it with any 0.1 or 0.3 technical drafting pen I happen to have lying around, then scan it in and remove the underlying blue lines in PS.

Then the colouring is just plain ol' PS with a standard round brush.

An idea a friend and I came up with for a little kids story, about a little girl with massive hands. This is a scene where her ma-hoosive hands have come in, erm, handy and she's just caught a lil baby bird whilst falling out it's tree.

24 Hour Draw

Here's some stuff that I drew during my recently held 24 Hour Draw, you can see more over on Doodlethugs. The comic was written by my friend Ric Carter, and I drew and inked it in roughly the last 5 hours of the day. It has no ending, it's rushed and it's weird, but overall I like it. A good exercise, fo' sho'.

24 HOUR DRAW!

Click here to see the live streaming of the 24 Hour Draw, Guernsey!

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Lfie Dwranig

24 Hour Draw!

9th - 10th of October 09, 6pm till 6pm.

The Art Collective Gallery
Mill Street
The Old Quarter
St Peter Port
Guernsey

Come and watch as a selection of local Guernsey artists make art for 24 Hours straight! Finishing on the 3rd Old Quarter Night on Saturday the 10th of October, witness their descent into a pencilly madness for yourselves (and maybe even purchase an artwork or two). All drawings and art that you can see with your eyeballs will be purchasable. On top of any and all sponsorship, half of all sold drawings will go to charity (Cancer Research). The other half will be going to an arguably, slightly less worthy cause, us artists what will be drawing things.

To donate, please direct your attention to the link below this sentence:

http://www.justgiving.com/artcollectiveguernsey/

There will also be a live video stream of the event, plus drawings will also be scanned in and displayed, literally at the following address:

http://theartcollectiveguernsey.blogspot.com/

A recent commission for the Channel Island Stock Exchange, to go on a t-shirt and possibly some other stuff in the future. It's a sort of caricature of the Guernsey town sea front, with labels on specific companies/buildings that were sponsoring an event run by the CISX.

The Moustachioed Gent in 'Cannelloni'

Some 'test' panels for a comic I'm working on with my talented writer friend Rick Carter. He's a busy guy so it may be slow going, but it's something I intend to give a go.

Two portraits recently completed.

I bought some glasses

With my new glasses, not only do I look even sexier, I can now draw stuff at a distance in slightly more detail! I've heard worse reasons to drink.

I'm mostly done, it's tempting to try and emulate all that canvass texture without the usual Photoshop tricks (masochistic?), but I don't think I will. I may continue picking at that wall...bricks are a pain in the ass.

The beginnings of a Sargent study, about an hours worth. Will hopefully continue it tonight. Here's the original painting.

Plus a commissioned portrait I did recently.

Moar lifedrawing.

Woohoo, found a life drawing class!

Blogger.com ate my colours again, here is a slightly better version.