New things

Been working on some new pieces for an exhibition I plan to have. All related to Celtic mythology in some way or other.

Sketches

A couple sketches from my most recent sketchbook.

The Umbrella girl returneth

After much discussion over on the Islander Art page I continued with this, still tinkering. I may have over-done the boots.

House

A painting I was asked to do, the colour didnt come out great in the scan but there ya go

Umbrella

Started this last night whilst watching movies on tv

More Fairy lady

More work done on this one, a little refining here and there.

Fairy lady

Back in the saddle it seems. Some practice from today, the first time Iv touched my tablet in months.

A fairy lady for fun, I was going for a sort of payfull smirk with downlighting

And a close up cos I was playing with skin textures.
To finish, or not to finish?

Fixing pictures

Nan gave me this one to fix for her, apparently she found it amongst Granda's stuff after he died. She doesnt know who the dead man is or why Granda had a picture of him, she just wanted it fixed up a bit, and the original was tiny: 2 by 3 inches

Practice

 

Painted over a sketch for practice

Practice

Been doing some practicing lately with random images and trying to paint things out of them, I just google "picture" and grab the first one I see. Today it was this pic

And painted this out of it

Tis good fun

Guitar Girl

A pencil sketch that I cleaned up in photoshop, I think I might render it in pencil on bristol board for the giggle

Practice

Trying to paint freely in photoshop, using a textured brush to start making random shapes and then seeing something in it and running with it. This is what I did today.

The hound and the bull

I'v been trying to come up with an idea for the upcoming Islander Art exhibit. So far the only thing I like is a picture of Cuchullain having killed his friend Ferdia, those of you up on your Irish mythology will know the story of course : )
After a whole bunch of sketches I'm getting happier with this image

This is one I did real quick in photoshop just to play with the colours. The shape of the overall image is based on a celts shield and I prefer the idea of showing just the hand to leave the viewer to figure it out rather than having the body float away, which is how I had it originally.

Photo restoration

Havent fixed a photo in a while, but here's one I did today

Before

After

 

The Evil Queen Dorgana

I started writing a story when I was teenager, so quite a while ago now, I'v rewritten and changed it a lot over the years and still love playing with it. Most of it has changed since the original incarnation but one character in particular has always remained, the evil Queen Dorgana (although that name is quite new, a little tribute to my girlfriend Beena when she gets mad at me, her second name being Dorgan)

Her story was fairly straight forward stuff, she was a good woman, a healer and living a happy life in the woods until her great love was killed. In her grief she turned to dark arts to try and ressurect him, never succeeding but discovering several things along the way, how to make the undead and how to make herself immortal. All this darkness has clearly taken a toll, her growing big horns and being generally evil  an all.
Here's a guy she doesnt like...

Warrior types

Why arent they called swimmies

I have a very large family, sometimes they give me things. A good few years back one of my many uncles gave me a chinese calligraphy set for christmas because it lookes "arty". I have rarely used it but the other day I was filled with the urge to create a coy fish.

Granted it's not the greatest thing I'v ever drawn, but the whole process is a lot of fun, grinding the ink setting everything up and the way the whole style seems to be designed so that you have to think out what you're going to do very carefully but then when you do it, it's all go, long fluid strokes and dabs.

Because I get bored

The heavy cargo transport ship ULYSSES

This was actually a lot of fun to just make up as  I went along.

Sirius

Sirius Black from the Harry Potter books. Sketched this during the week and inked it in photoshop today for funsies.

Music finished

Music

Practice

Trying to paint some things I dont normally draw or paint

Conan steps

The title says it all

Neville

 

Have been re-listening to the Harry Potter audio books, cos reading takes up drawing time and Stephen Fry is awesome. This is Neville Longbottom from the end of the Deathly Hallows, all scarred and post having his head set on fire.

Conan

Did some more on Conan for fun

Practice

A quick Conan

Portrait of Da all finished

Portrait of Da

Attempting Da in oils once again, so this is my second ever attempt at oil painting. I learned a lot from the last one. This time there were no wite spirits to be used for anything but cleaning the brushes as the fumes give me a headache no matter how much I ventilate and it just causes problems later on. I did forget like a tool to take process shots this time, so after painting from 2 today until midnight I got this (and no matter how much I kept the lid on the jar of white spirit, another headache)

I'm pretty happy with it so far. His head should be wider but I can live with it. The medium is fun to work with but hard to control sometimes and it can be very unforgiving. I'm trying to keep it soft and maintain the planes of the face, its bloody hard man. Looking forward to finishing it though and seeing how it turns out.

New Stick

Way back in May of last year I posted about some Shilleleghs I got, well can you believe its this long since I got a new one, this time courtesy of my uncle Paul, a carpenter that lives way out in the middle of nowhere.
This beauty is made from Hazel, dried and treated over a year and a half and finished with a piece of deer antler. He dowels the stick and antler uses some type of glue to fix them permanently, he did tell me what it was but I forget, all I can remember is him saying he has ten seconds to get it perfect or the glue will set.

 Its a good tall stick, so perfect for me. I know this isnt my usual post, but I just love sticks...

Practice

I was travelling a lot for the last week or so, plenty of sketching done whilst I was at it, but not as much as I'd like
I watched the movie the Troll hunter, and I was sketching as I did and having my pocket watercolour set with me I did this whilst I watched

I'm not sure if the troll in the tree's is noticable, but I like it over all, its only about half an A4 size.
I also sketched from a bunch of reference pics I have on my comp, not sure of the original owners or anything, but as its only for practice I cant imagine anyone would cause a fuss

I'v always loved the shape of american army boots... no idea why