Thursday 22 February 2018

Heads and cows and things

I have been rather busy drawing illustrations for the latest children's book I'm working on. In between, made time for the Instagram "100 heads" challenge. Here are #12 - 15:


And a selection of the illustrations. The mostly empty pages will be filled up a bit with text. That, at least, is the present plan. The thing has not quite come together yet; I may or may not make extensive changes:





Friday 16 February 2018

More sketches and illustrations

A few more sketches for the Instagram "100 heads" challenge thing:


And some more illustrations for my latest children's book. Lots more still need to be done:



Sunday 11 February 2018

New experiments

I have been rather wildly experimenting with all manner of things. I am developing ideas for an illustrated children's story:



The first of the above is in acrylics on cardboard; the second in watercolor. I am more inclined toward watercolor. Other attempts with acrylics did not work out quite satisfactorily. Illustration is really a new thing for me, and it's a quite different skill set from "fine art" (i.e. stuff intended to be hung on a wall). Thus a little journey that is both fun and frustrating at the same time.

Two more in the #100heads Instagram challenge. Due to lack of time, these heads are going to have to be pretty sketchy:



Studies of cattle, as preparatory work for the illustrations - the story will feature a cow:




And in between the cattle, some studies after Hergé's Tintin books. No time studying Hergé's work is ever wasted!

My latest sideline, Chinese brush painting:


I can't get hold of real Chinese brushes around here, so I just used a pointy western one. But this is yet another steep learning curve. The style is not nearly as easy as it may look!



Monday 5 February 2018

Some random sketches

Taking a bit of a break from all the oil painting, and focusing on another project, which may or may not come to fruition. In between, some quick sketches exploring a mostly linear approach:



That is what comes of growing up with Hergé's Tintin comics - it is an approach that has long appealed to me, and I keep on returning to it.

In the meantime I let some talk me into joining a thing on Instagram, known as 100 heads, in which you draw or paint, you guessed it, a hundred heads. I'll have to see whether I do even close to a hundred, but what the heck, here's the first one:


Time for more than such quick sketches I won't have. Who knows, maybe the project will be of some value...

Tuesday 30 January 2018

Work in progress video

I put up a video of a time lapse photo series on YouTube, showing a bit of my process for painting a small oil:


Until I get a video camera, a series of still photos will have to do! Apologies for the few that turned out to be out of focus; they looked perfectly fine on the camera's view screen. I tried to sharpen them up as best I could.

I'm sure I still have the piano version of sheet music somewhere on disk. It's ridiculously simple and easy - write me a note if you want it.

Thursday 25 January 2018

Salt shaker and cherry tomatoes

Oil on board, 15 x 10 cm (= about 6 x 4 inches):


As I worked on this one, I took a series of WIP photos, which I planned on working into a YouTube video. I'll see if I get around to it. Unfortunately some of the photos came out thoroughly out of focus, so it might not be too spectacular. I can say this: there are few things that break one's concentration and "flow" quite as much as stopping all the time to take a photo!