Updates: HULLO!

Hiya folks, here it is, again, Friday!

Before we get to my amazing art work, I'd like to type a few words...

As part of continuing to grow and learn artistically I decided a while back that I really needed to learn how to draw 'properly'. I'm not incredibly unhappy with my style or expression but I want my Illustrations and other work to be backed up by good old-fashioned realistic draftsmanship.

To this end I've been going to life drawing (as you will no doubt have noticed from the never ending stream of drawings of naked people) for the past couple of years. I also did another drawing class which pushed me to really draw 'from life' as opposed to photos. Now, I am starting another term, again taking another life drawing class (I can't help it guys!) but in addition... I'll also be doing mixed media painting- which looks incredibly fun.

Principally you see, I am an Illustrator, secondly a designer and so on... and somewhere at the very end comes painting. This I'd like to reshuffle a bit for the next couple of months. I would love to be able to paint properly or at least- a lot better than I can.

When I was younger (a lot younger, I'm talking Primary School) I used to go along with my grandmother to her weekly Art Club which was held in the Church Hall. I loved it. Surrounded by a sea of white haired old ladies I would drink tepid, incredibly milky and sugary tea, eat a tonne of biscuits, and draw to my heart's content anything that came into my head. They also held exhibitions in nearby towns and would frame and hang my work alongside theirs. I even, incredibly (I still think it was out of pity) SOLD one of my drawings. £10. God knows what I did with the money (probably bought a book, because at that point of my life - if I wasn't drawing, I was reading). Anyway the art work in question was of two or three milkmaids with those big double pail things coming into a courtyard after milking some cows. At this point in my artistic career I was incredibly influenced by Constable, the Victorian era (My Fair Lady, the scene in the park from the musical Oliver) and all the old ladies painting landscapes in oils around me. Even then, though, I was very honed in on the human figure in order to tell the story.

Now, I would like to be able to paint in a way that doesn't remind me of my grandmother's landscapes or (sorry) Rolf Harris' painting show (I still love you though Rolf and you taught me so much in your book "Every Picture Tells A Story" I love it even now!) or Neil Buchanan from Art Attack. I want to paint in a new, interesting, contemporary way - to be able to introduce paint and colour(!) into my current work which (by way of me trying to concentrate on form and tone) has become incredibly monochromatic. I also, would like to break out of my tendency to veer towards the human figure as the sole subject of my work.

There you have it then. That, I hope, is a suitable introduction to what I shall be exploring and posting here in the next three months....

SO..! Now for less of the typing and more of the uploading.

To start us off, because I know you know, this blog wouldn't be this blog without the naked...
here is the first long pose from my brand new life drawing experience. The idea here was to try to keep the lines fresh and exciting. Not so much about what was actually there- but what the 'story' of the pose was- the idea and impression of it. Trying to break it down into just one or two shapes. A challenge for me indeed! Me of the long labour intensive pencil or pen and ink drawings... part of the rules was to continuously erase the entire drawing and start again! Dear me, a heartbreaking rule I think for any artist. In the end though, I feel it is a success as it looks like mine but also doesn't. I can see my style peeking through, but it is a fresh new approach and I like it.


I'm giving you a second image too (this fabulous painting) because I wanted to share with you one of my earliest attempts with colour. Hopefully I am going to demonstrate some progress here on my blog - so we had better start at the beginning, you see.

Well, what a lot of writing! I don't tend to do much of that as I want the images to 'speak for themselves'. That works for illustration I think, but, I think paintings do need to be de-constructed a bit, digested and regurgitated as it were. (Lovely image, eh?) So I think you may find I'll be writing that wee bit more as I explore this side of the creative spectrum.

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