Angel of Chanterlands

'Angel of Chanterlands'

21cm x 30cm

Graphite Pencil on Paper

Not sure if this latest piece is finished or not, there could be some further tinkering to do when I've had a break from it. Overall I'm happy with it, which is nice because otherwise it would be close to seven hours wasted. Now I need to do something else, I've done two detailed pencil pieces recently (this and 'Grapes') which I've really enjoyed but it's time for something new now. I'm thinking something in coloured pencil, it's been a while since I've used them...

This was drawn from my own reference photo, taken in an old cemetery not far from where I live, very overgrown and Victorian, lots of weathered stones and gnarly trees. There may be more from there in the future. I do have a bit of a thing for those gnarly leafless trees.

I've noticed the scan is a bit off here too, there were a few marks on the glass and a stray cat hair has crept in there too... I could call this a work in progress I suppose :o)

Grapes

'Grapes'

21cm x 16.5cm

Graphite Pencil on Paper

A new drawing (finished today). I enjoy getting into the complicated details, like the stems of the grapes. Hopefully it works as well as I think it does. Drawn from a reference photo I took myself, the grapes were eaten long ago :o) ....

Moleskine

Moleskine Ear

Graphite Pencil

For Christmas I was lucky enough to get a couple of Moleskine sketchbooks, one regular and one watercolour. Had to get past using that first page, with a pencil drawing of my ear. I wonder what will be in the rest of it...

I've also started on another of my 2009 goals and started oil painting, just a couple of small practice canvases to start with so that I can get a feel for it. It's fun but I can imagine it's going to be quite frustrating, the drying time alone will be a challenge. I've no real idea of what I'm doing, I'm just making it up as I go along. Good fun though...

Trio

Leaf 1 - 2.5" x 3.5" Water soluble Pencil & Graphite Pencil on Paper
Leaf 2 - 2.5" x 3.5" Watercolour on Paper
Leaf 3 - 2.5" x 3.5" Coloured Pencil on Brown Paper

Just playing around with different media today, and size too. I've never worked on this small scale but I quite liked it.

(Thankfully the heating is back on, but there is now a big hole in my savings too.)

Happy Halloween

'When Marion met Norman'

29cm x 20cm

Graphite & Carbon Pencil on Paper

I love horror movies, and Halloween is the perfect time to watch a good shocker. This inspired me to do this drawing, taken from unconnected stills from the classic Hitchcock movie 'Psycho' (1960). This is still one of my favourite movies, and remains genuinely disturbing, especially the last few minutes when the audience can hear the mad thoughts of Norman Bates. I don't really think I've captured Janet Leigh at all but Anthony Perkins is just about recognisable. I used two stills from the film, which was conveniently made in black and white with plenty of good strong contrasts. I used carbon pencil for the background, applied with a brush as carbon dust then blended with a tissue, the figures are all in graphite pencil. This was well out of my comfort zone as I don't normally do people, let alone people who are supposed to be recognisable. But it was quite enjoyable to do and I'm really liking the moody effect you can achieve with carbon pencil

For those who might be interested (but why would you be?) - in the original Robert Bloch novel of 'Psycho', Marion was named Mary and Norman was a fat older man with glasses. A bit of useless information for Halloween...

Virtual Sketch Date - October

Time for another Virtual Sketch Date, and I have to say I've really enjoyed the ones I've done so far. Of course one of the best bits is seeing what other artists have done. Here's my first version (one just never seems enough...)

'3 Pears'

23cm x 15cmm

Graphite & Carbon Pencil on Paper

Every time I see the work of Marsha Robinett on 'The Extraordinary Pencil' I'm impressed so I wanted to try her style, particularly with the use of carbon pencil. The blackness you can achieve is impressive but not without effort, the rest of this is goood old fashioned graphite. I think I'll be using carbon pencil again. If you've not see Marsha's work it's brilliant and inspiring, go see it!

For my next effort at this reference I went to watercolour. I quite liked the result but when I scanned the piece it went very yellow so I've took a photograph too to comapare but it came out really dull looking, as you can see.

'3 Pears'

21cm x 15cm

Watercolour on Paper (scanned image)

(photographed image)

Neither of them really captures the colours in the original. This is the first time I've noticed such a marked difference between the original and the scan - I've always scanned before. And yet the photograph looks very dull, but then I'm not a photographer. Anyone else have this problem?

Virtual Sketch Date - August

Here are my contributions to the August Virtual Sketch Date. From the reference photo I first used graphite pencil on a smooth Daler Rowney paper. I'd decided early on I wanted to use the indenting technique for the veins in the leaves. I drew the image freehand on to tracing paper, including the veins, then transferred it to the paper. I really enjoyed doing this one...

I enjoyed it so much I had to have another go. This time I used acrylics on Arches watercolour paper. I've never really used acrylics much before and treated them pretty much as I would watercolours, I think I mostly got away with it. The colour is a bit wrong I think but still cabbagy enough...

Really looking forward to seeing what the others have done with this. Many thanks to Sherrie Roberts for the original reference photo.

Mortar & Pestle

'Mortar & Pestle'

21cm x 27cm

Water soluble Graphite Pencil on Paper

Enjoyed working with these new pencils, used on the body of the mortar and pestle as a kind of underpainting then I worked in graphite over the top. Shadows on the white cloth I used a stump to blend with. I think this technique has a lot of potential for me.

I've also joined the 'Starving Artists' site - there should be a link on the right... The same stuff that's on here basically but it might attract more readers...

Belt

30cm x 22cm

Graphite Pencil on paper

This is my newest piece, finished last night actually and I'm quite pleased with it, I like the snake-like coils and the rough, battered texture. It's the first large-ish drawing I've done in a long time, my other efforts have been confined to sketchbooks. Here's a couple of keys I did recently...

I've now learned that this sketchbook scans quite blue-ish (the page is whiter than that in reality) and shows waves at the edge...