Theme of the week is happening on Reddit SketchDaily. The theme – Seven Deadly Sins. For the first day it’s Gluttony. mmmm, food. I had subway for dinner last night as I was given a $20.00 subway card for xmas. Haven’t brought any food since moving into this new flat – might survive on subway again today and shop tomorrow.

Anyway, back to the the art. I did a search on google for gluttony for some reference inspiration. And found this disturbing image. Would be interesting to draw.

The models I get for life drawing are often skinny, especially the male models (James, Robert etc). I’d like to draw a overweight male. Arhhh, more varional on

The GIF. Sadly no video today. I recored it but when I tried to open it after the file was corrupted. I’m using Cam Studio. Maybe I need to check the settings. The files it creates are huge as well – 4 gig for the recording of this painting.

I explored enviorments again, something common in my last few pieces. Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated. The smudge tool was fun to play around with. Creates transparency and distortion. For the seven deadly sins I think this distortion is important – much like the colors – brown, gray – sickly. With the green I tried a impression style – blobs of green to make up a area. Maybe I could use this same technique with figures as well?

Here’s the final. Does his head look like ET?

I got a new mentor. Here’s the email I sent her today explaining my plan and such for the year. You can read it too….

Hi Sophie.

My cellphone is currently at my Mothers home in Levin… I will have it later back late next week. Best contact is via email. I check daily.  I’m useless with a cellphone.

I’m really happy to be back at TLC… Roberts block this week.

Over the holidays I focused on digital painting. Normally I draw and paint from a life model (pencil/color pencil/crayon/acrylic).

This term I’m doing Life drawing on Monday with Dan and painting with Marc on Thursday. I life paint every 2nd Friday. On days I don’t go into TLC I’ve planned several exercises:

• Sketchbook. I’ve used these for years and will continue doing so. Pencil, Colored Pencil, pen, watercolor. I like to get outside and draw from life – people, buildings, trees, anything I find interesting.
• Website. Working on a new design. Continue with regular posting. Get some guest post/collaboration happening. Launch a programming blog in March (so need to work on the design for this)
• Reddit SketchDaily. I’ve been doing this for the past month and a half and will keep it up
• Environment of the Week – ConceptArt.org - I’ve never entered artwork – the standard is high. I plan to start working on the themes and upload paintings for it.
• Video. Continue with recording of digital painting. Expand to oil painting. Commentary.
• Programming. Currently working with Python, and learning C++. I see programming going hand to hand with art.

So that’s my plan for the year. Knowing myself, bound to change and evolve.

In terms of my artwork and getting it to you – my blog posts are the best stop – lets you see what I’m thinking behind the artwork. You can subscribe to my blog via email or RSS reader. I also upload to TLC Workroom but I don’t upload everything. I can also email you artwork if that’s best for you.

I’ve setup a digital worklog with Google Docs. Since you arn’t at TLC campus (my last mentor Lee was) a digital worklog will be easiest.

I’ll keep this regularly updated.

I think that’s everything for now. I’ll keep you updated.

-William Mckee

I spent yesterday cleaning my room as I’m moving this weekend. I also had problems with my internet connection. It just wouldn’t stay connected – connection dropped every few mins. Town yesterday with my flatmate – Syed. He wanted to look at flats. I found a flat on Wednesday night thankfully.

It was a beautiful day in Wellington. I had my sketchpad – popped into the french art shop (hadn’t been in for ages) and brought 3 new colored pencils. With so much digital work produced lately it was nice to use colored pencils.

The theme on Reddit SketchDaily (I’m kinda falling behind) is Inorganic character design. I didn’t do a character – instead applying the inorganic to landscape drawing.

No WIPs or such. I didn’t have my camera with me. Camera is fixed now though! Will make it easier to upload drawings! I’ll aim to get the life drawing I did on Wednesday uploaded on Sunday. unfortunately I missed out on life drawing Thursday as I spelt in – got my room packed though!

This was drawn on the Wellington waterfront. The straight lines created an inorganic shape to the hills! I reinforce this further I used the pen, experimenting with straight lines and crosshatching.

Sketch of a couple of people in Wellington. Some foliage in the scene, taking it beyond just the two figures. Certainly want to continue this in the life drawings this term.

Expect to see more drawings soon! Plus I’ll keep working on digital works, but maybe not as much as I have been this month and a half.

This evening I sumbedupon the site Drawspace. I checked their advance section – and found a section that looked at Old Masters. Last year I became interested with Old Master drawings – partially Rembrandt. Though I took a break from this over Xmas I’d certainly look into it again.

I followed their tutorial on drawing a nose in the style of Da Vinci:

With my digital works I have focused on painting techniques over drawing. This is much different to what I have done for SketchDaily and such. What do you think of it? I’ll certainly like to explore this line technique in future works.

The next tutorial looked at drawing a babys head with similar techniques. I found a reference photo of a baby on DeviantArt and created this:

Started with an off white – yellow background. Normally I make this textured with a large brush. Here I haven’t. I used the line similar to the nose study – though it’s rougher. The shape and direction of the lines show the shape I’m attempting to create. Looking at this now I notice I need to slow down and work on areas slower.

I couldn’t leave this as is and added a color layer:

The colour added. It’s just a single layer of color with no effects added to it. Maybe next time could experiment with layers of color and the use of the eraser tool to cut back into colors.

Now I want to do a copy of a Rembrandt or DaVinci work.

Digital work from UCOL. It was for the a illustration project – creating a character for a video game or movie etc..

The character I came up with was this two-legged, large head, with sharp teeth. My tutor, Steve really pushed my drawing skills.

Background is minimal – similar style to what I have going now.

I spent a time on Strangegrace, detailed shading and shadows. Doing a project like this now would be interesting… my knowledge of human anatomy would be a advantage and generally better drawing skills. I can’t remember using reference for this. I was never taught how to use reference efficiently.

I’d like to set briefs for myself creating characters and creatures and developing them further. Doing life drawing all the time comes a point where I want to develop an idea further. That’s why these Reddit SketchDaily projects have been fun and helpful – they have gotten me out of my shell and helped develop my work further beyond simply drawing or painting the figure.

I am missing life drawing.

To Follow a art blog or not This post is going to talk about art blogs that I follow and reasons behind following them. Why I follow a blog I like finding new blogs to follow. But it’s hard to keep up. My favorite are drawing/painting personal art blogs.Showingg WIP, technique, development, criticical, original content. Many of these are on my blogroll The other, are database blogs. They posts other artists art. DoodlersAnonymous, Art Attacks Online, Lines and colours. I follow to discover new artists and be inspired by a range of artwork. Text and discussion are important. Blogs that only post images lose my interest. I like reading about art. That’s why I’m enjoying the writing blogs, plenty of reading. There is a point when looking at art is too much. Amount of posts is another. Poor post quailty is worse. Art blogs are generally ok when it comes to spammy posts. Political blogs are the worse. I just checked the unread for my politic roll – some blogs have over 100 unread. Builds up quickly. Ii’ll rather visit the site then try to keep up with posts in a reader. ComicTool Thanks to ConceptArt I found ComicTool. This one is going into my FavArt blog roll. The title says everything . It’s focus is on comics and tools. Updated every Saturday the blog consists of interviews with artists, reviews (dip pens, brushes, erasers). Tools of the trade. I follow lots of art blogs but rare to find them blogs about art tools. The reader interaction is great. The blog interacts with readers – answering questions and posts from twitter. Reviews of drawing and art tools would be fun to do. And to finish off Might apply for a job at the French art shop and Gordan Harris. I’ll love to work on their social media presence and a job in a artistic environment. Access to material for reviews/use would be great Penaddict is a similar to comictool. It focuses on pen reviews. I’ve followed it for sometime. I haven’t brought any of the pens but It’s nice to read about different pens and how they do.

This year the New Zealand Govt passed  the file infigement bill. AKA 3strikes/skynet. Yesterday this bill went into effect, my torrenting has increased. Really need some new music anyway, getting sick my currently collection. I’ve been thinking about the reasons why I don’t buy music/movies/games that often and choose download them instead.

Torrent is cheap. Even with the data caps and expensive internet we have here in New Zealand, it’s worth going over cap then buying a album/dvd. Certainly much cheaper then cinema. Prices are over priced. 35 dollars for a new realease. One album is around 100mbs in size. Internet is roughtly $1.50gig. Sure with a CD you get packaging/fancy disc, but really what you are buying is just data on a disk. Fuss is being made by companys over their data being shared by their customers. Business model must change. For too long they have stamped down on file sharing.  Have they thought that this might be benefit? Looking at other ways of generating revenue would be a great start. Advertising, clothing, paid content, streaming, tours, video games…. the list goes on…

The only TV I watch is what I stream online or download via bittorrent. If I couldn’t stream/torrent I wouldn’t watch these shows. It’s the same with music. If I can’t download music and discover new music I’m not going to start going out and buying. I didn’t really buy music as a kid much. Spice Girls, Hanson, Teen Spirit, Pokemon… are prob the only ones. With bittorrent you have easy access to a large range. It’s not costing the record company anything, no server, it’s done p2p. They talk about loss in profits because of bittorrent. Would of they made these sales? I certainly know I wouldn’t be able to afford buying albums as regally as I download.

I’m a good example of try before you buy (though I don’t buy albums or dvds).  I find music from last.fm then using ishunt or Piratebay to download. Once you have me hooked on a band you have me for life. For example. I got really into the Beatles. I downloaded all of their music on bittorrent. I had thought about buying one of their albums after seeing a friends copy. It was quite cool casing. Never did though, and I never will. I did however go out and buy the beatles rock band. I’m wearing a beatles tshirt as well. Is that good enough for the record company? Just because I didn’t buy 250 bucks worth of music (most of it is rubbish anyway) doesn’t make me not want to support bands. Punishing me will only cause anger and way less likely for my to buy.

Ease up. Don’t sue potential customers. We already hate you.

In Wellington public library the otherday I came accross a recent book on creativity and such. It had some good ideas about exercising your brain for artists. Here are the rough notes I wrote into my book:

Right Brain

Go topsy turny

• Workupside down
• Turn an image 180 degrees
• Recreate using lines and shapes

Colour a word

• Write down a word representing a complex issue then translate it into a picture

Sing for spontaneity

• Sing out loud or repeat a ‘mantra’ of any kind

Imagine a photograph

• Choose a photo
• Identiy the primary shapes by outlining them with a marker.
• If you had to break it down to 4-5 shapes what would they be?
• Create a drawing or painting out of it

Left Brain

Be a critic

• The left brain is the inner critic
• Look at a piece of work by another artist. What are the strengths and weaknesses? What could be done to improve the message?
• Focus on techniques used and not just emotion

Applaud your supplys

• Start by looking at info on packaging then look up resources like manufactures websites and artists message boards.

Paint with words

• Chooses a painting and employ as many adjectives to it
• Have someone read what you have written and sketch it

Step it out

• List the steps you would take to re-create a famous work of art, whether the artist created it that way or not

Two Colours (or fast-track to autonomy in art)

There is a decision which many artists will have to make at some point in their lives. That is the moment they decide to stop drawing or painting what they see in front of them.

The life-model, landscape or apple is just the idea; the trigger from which a work can be created. But the artistic significance of the painting or drawing does not reside with the model or the apple. The essence or spirit of the work comes from the relationship between artist and the medium.

Once the artist recognises this they can start to create works which are autonomous; works which exist independently of the world around them. They borrow shapes colours and ideas from the world, but present them in a way which creates something which is wholly new and self-sufficient, and which can be used to express the ideas of the artist.

Titian, Cezanne and Matisse, even contemporaries like Hockney and Freud, gave classic motifs and colour forms from the real world a different context in their paintings.

No apple looks like a Cezanne apple; no Californian swimming pool looked like Hockney’s nor does naked flesh look like Titian, Matisse or Freud painted it. (think about it for a moment). The point is, each of these artists was not trying to paint what they observed. They were creating a new version of the world: a world which they could use to express their ideas.

The result, I suggest, is autonomy in art.

There is a fast-track to autonomy in art, this is abstraction. Picasso and his fellow cubists discovered this in the first decade of the 20th Century and artists ever since have been using the fast lane to autonomy.

Abstract art weakens any connection to, portraying of the actual world to breaking point. In such a state it is possible for the artist to express their ideas about the world without needing to replicate its forms and colours. They are on the high diving board and the only way is down. When they jump they inevitably create a work which is no longer recognisable as the world around them. They are saying explicitly forget the apple, the swimming pool, the human body; these are not important as objects, only as ideas; as memories.

The work is autonomous, but the ideas are the artist’s. This is a blissfully satisfying discovery for the artist, and it is achievable on a fast-track.

All you need are two colours, ignore everything else you see.

http://whichsongtitle.posterous.com/two-colours-or-fast-track-to-autonomy-in-art

More and more oil painting has been done. Although I’m half way though most of the painting so taking my time.

Liquin + Turps = ???

Using a liquin and turp mix stirred up I add it to my oil paint.

Colours I’ve been using:

Colbolt Blue

Casmium Yellow Deep

Titanium-Zinc White

English Green

Raw Sienna

Naples Yellow

Thats bascially all of my paint. What I have been playing with is making gray. No black though. That’s something that missing! Keep the colours muted. Adding white  destroys the colour. I’ve been told to use the oil paint as it is and don’t use liquin/turps. I’ve found playing with mixing it down really fascinating. It’s much smoother to spread, and it dyes quicker. Glazes applied.

Glazes are a whole other story. I’ll keep going with the Gray. So yeah, these gray mixes have been fun. I’ve made a few types, yellow, purple, blue. All still gray just tints.