Dog Rose

Hi all,
Hope you had a good Christmas; mine was quite and uneventful. It came and went with rapidity and stealth. Still there's always the next one to look forward to.

I did get a couple of arty books which I have enjoyed looking at. The first was a book of Lakeland sketches by Alfred Wainwright. I guess that when most people think of Wainwright they think of his walks, but I' a great admirer of his sketches. They are done in pen and ink and show that he was a master in that form of art.

The second book was Mark Crilley's, Realism Challenge. This too is a great book and I'm steadily plodding my way through the exercises. I will show you one or two on here as soon as I manage something half decent. If you like a challenge and want to improve your drawing here is the link.

It has been a busy time over Chistmas so I haven't done any big paintings but I've got one on the way.
I've been watching a man on You tube painting roses with watercolour and I'd love to be able to do it half as well. I'll give you the link in my next post.

So far I'd done the drawing, which can be seen below.

I will start doing the painting soon and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. I Hope you have a great new year and let's hope it's peaceful one.

Lino Prints

Hi all,
I don't know about you but whenever I think about creating a piece of artwork, I always seem to consider the commercial value. Will people like it and, would anybody want to buy it, are two thoughts that come to mind along with how much could I sell it for?

These are strange thoughts, considering that making money from my art is not a prime motivator. I keep telling myself that I'm doing for the enjoyment of the process and to create something nice for my own pleasure, but those commercial thoughts will persist.

I can only put it down to the notion that the act of selling something that I have created gives it an elevated status. After all, if somebody is willing to part with their hard earned cash for something I painted or made, surely that is all the endorsement one's art needs.

Anyway, during the act of creating the wild flower painting in my last post

it came to me that it could be easily be replicated in print form. I then struck on the idea that I could do a lino print. Now I know diddly squat about lino prints, we didn't even do them at school, where the best we managed was a potato print. In fact, the my main memory of lino was, many moons ago when I was a young thing about town, and beer was but ten pence a pint, being left to sleep on cold lino floor after I'd returned from the pub in state of drunkenness that almost put me into permanent sleep mode.

So I did what I normally do now to educate myself, I turned to the Internet and You tube to see how it was done. Then, I purchased a lino starter kit from Amazon for about £20. While I was waiting for it to arrive I did a couple of drawings that I thought would make good lino prints. I would print them in black and white and then colour them in with watercolour paint.

 The first one didn't look too bad, but perhaps it would be a bit ambitious for my first lino print so I did a simpler one. This looked much easier to replicate in lino print and I was ready for action.

My plan was to then sell a limited edition of the prints on the internet. What could possibly go wrong? Well, I had several attempts at doing a lino cut and used a lot of paper making prints, but unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the process one bit. The best part was creating the drawing, but the actually cutting and printing was tedious. Here is the best print I produced before I gave it up as a bad job. I couldn't even be bothered to colour it in.

I guess I could have stuck with it and lashed out more money better tools and ink but I'd had enough. I can now admire the skills of those who create masterpieces out of a floor covering, but it doesn't ring my bell. I'll stick to the painting in future and one of the day, if I ever produce something good enough, I will investigate the world of Giclee prints because they will be easier to acquire than those done from lino.

Wild Flower

Hi all,
I am still of the mind that to be a good artist you need to be able to draw. This is a skill that I would like to improve upon and, to that end, I'm trying to do as much drawing as possible. I have tried keeping an art journal in the hope that would give me the motivation to draw every day but I find that, although my intentions are strong, my will power is pretty weak. It is much easier to sit in my chair and play with my kindle fire than it is to get some pen and paper out.

Still all is not lost, I have been watching an artist on Youtube called, Mark Crilley. He does some really amazing realistic drawings of everyday objects. I have ordered his BOOK "The Realism Challenge" and I shall start reading it at Christmas. I have to wait until then because I asked my wife to get it me for an extra present.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not aiming to be a super realistic type of artist, but I would like to gain an insight into how he does it so well. There must be lots of things that he does that can be used in the type of painting I want to do.

Here is a drawing/painting that I did recently.

It's okay, but it is a bit flat looking. It looks more like an illustration than a work of art.
That's not to say that illustrations aren't works of art, they clearly are, but I think you get my drift. Flowers don't all grow like they do in my drawing and the colours must be more subtle than my skills allow me to show. In fact, it did occur to me at the time that this picture would make a good lino print, but that is another story which I will relate to you in my next post.

If you use you tube, I would recommend checking out his video about the realism challenge. Then you will be able to see why I ordered his book.

I hope to get another post in before Christmas, but if I don't, I hope you have good un and manage to do some painting.

Free Book

Hi All,
Just a quick one to let you know that I have made one of my books free for two days.
It is called "Bossyboots" and should give readers a good laugh over the festive period.

To get a copy just click on the books tab at the top of the page and you can then click on the book to take you to amazon.
Happy reading

Colouring In

Hi all,
Have you noticed that the latest adult craze appears to be colouring in. Every where I go there are stacks of books devoted to what used to be a child's pastime. I guess colouring in can be therapeutic and I'm sure it is better than sitting in front of the telly watching brain numbing programmes like Big Brother etc. I don't know whats happened to the telly, how many programmes can they make about "Lizard Lick Towing" and it's a wonder that the tapes containing "Grand Designs" and "Come Dine With Me" aren't worn out.

Anyway, back to the colouring in. Anything arty is a winner with me and if people get pleasure from colouring in that's great. What would be even better is if a small percentage of the people, who have started colouring in, actually went a step further and decided to create their own drawings.

I recently did a couple of drawings to remember days out and now realise that they could just as well have been done for a colouring in book. If ever I get the time and inclination I might colour them in myself. Please feel free to take a copy if you want to have a go.

The drawing above was inspired by a visit to a lovely village in Derbyshire called Osmaston.

This drawing was inspired by a picnic we had while sitting in our car during the summer. Butterflies were flitting about everywhere.

By the way, I currently have a free book on offer over the Christmas period. It is the second book in the fishing detectives series called "Bun In The Oven.

If you would like a free copy pop over to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/267076
then when you get to check out use the following free coupon code VZ64V to get your copy.
Happy painting.

Painting Number 10

Hi all,
At last I have done a painting that feels as if I am getting somewhere. It might not be fantastic or even great, but I feel that it is a step in the right direction.

For the time being I have given up on the chuck it and chance it type of painting that I've been attempting and gone for something more formal. The best part is that I actually enjoyed doing this painting.

For some reason the theme "Escape" came into my head and I wondered how I could depict it in a painting. Here is the drawing that I came up with.

It portrays a red admiral butterfly that has just escaped from a spider's web that is strung between some roses leaves. Here is the painting done with a mixture of SAA, and Winsor and Newton watercolour paints on 140lb paper.

If you look back through my other paintings you will see why I am pleased, it is much better than the rest. In fact, my wife liked it so much she allowed me to frame it and hang it in our living room. If that isn't a seal of approval I don't know what is.

So what's the score for this one? Well, I'm going to give it 24 out of 100. I don't want to go too high because it could be father to fall when I do my next one.

Good bits
I like the composition and the colours.
Bad bits
I could have made the spiders web darker to make it a bit clearer.

Anyway, I'm happy and that's the main thing. I'm looking forward to doing my next painting and I will show it to you soon. Don't forget to check out the SAA website if you get a minute, as well as the shop there are thousands of painting to look at in the gallery.

Inktense Pencils

Hi all,
I my last post I was telling you about how I enjoyed drawing with water soluble pencils. Well, I thought it would be nice to do a drawing with coloured watercolour pencils. To be honest I didn't do a new drawing for this exercise, I used Tracedown paper to copy the daffodil that I did for my previous painting. I was mostly interested in the colours and how easily they blended together.

 There is something about drawing first and then adding water that is an enjoyable process for me.
 The only problem is, I have tried drawing with ordinary water soluble colour pencils before and found that the finished result is a bit wishy washy. I don't like wishy washy paintings so I invested in a pack of 6 Derwent Inktense Pencils to see what they looked like. I was expecting bright strong hues and that is exactly what I got.

My first impressions are that they are easy to use and blend really well, but I'm afraid that the results are a bit to harsh for my liking. Here is a drawing I did of a daffodil, which gives you a fair idea of the intensity of the colour.

I think Inktense pencils are great if you are doing manga or comic images etc, but for the art I want to produce they are a bit too bright. If somebody could come up with a pencil that had a colour tone that is half way between a standard watercolour pencil and an Inktense pencil they might be onto a winner, at least with me.

One of these days I might try doing a bigger drawing with the Inktense pencils but for now I will reserve them for adding highlights, something they should be very useful for.

By the way, I purchased my Inktense pencils from the same place where I get all my other art materials called the SAA (Society for All Artists). If you haven't come across the SAA, it is well worth checking them out. I have been a member for over 6 months and would recommend them to anybody.

There is a low membership fee, but once that is paid you get free magazines and free postage just to mention a couple of the benefits. If you want to check them out here is a link to their website.

The next painting in my challenge will be along soon.