Stray

Stray

I wanted to make this cinematic -staged lighting feel.  I think I kind of stumbled into it eventually.  I worked on it in greyscale first.  I was happy enough with that then wrestled with the palette a lot. I also played with Stanley Artgerm Laus method of adding colour which offers a lot of control.  Will use this approach again. 

Sketches 35-Hmmph

Hmmph

This week some sketches.  Bank holiday here and a day off.  Caught Johnderekmurphy on Twitch today doing some practice work and followed along.  The first three are from that session.I got some ink so I have been doing a bit of traditional sketch work.  I have a another book where I am sketching and studying anatomy for a while now.  I find it easier to do those studies in ink.  

Barn

Barn

Did an interior which I started as a photobash but ended up painting something completely different.  The limited pallet kept things simple.  Didn't want to render it beyond this.

This is prompted by a writing exercise from John Gardners book  “The Art of Fiction”.   It has the following brief - 

“Consider the following as a possible exercise in description.  Describe a barn as seen by a man whose son has just been killed in a war.  Do not mention the son, or war, or death.

I thought it was a good challenge for an environment. In essence it is what an environment should do - communicate the mood without the aid of the narrative.

Spring has arrived

Spring has arrived

Easter here so some themed work.  Still struggling with the practicing environments but managed to get something in this one.  Yes  I know thats a weak excuse. 
The sheep are Valais blacknose sheep.  Youtube video here. Brace yourself for cuteness. 

Straw Warrior

Straw Warrior 

Supposed to be landscapes this week. I did start one but I took a break to doodle and this is what I came up with. It was much easier to work on so I kept going with it. 

Trying Trees

Trying Trees 

Some trees from imagination.  
It looked better about half way through.  
Think I fussed too much over it. 
Moving along....

Landscape studies 13

Landscape studies 13

Went back to landscapes.  These were all from photos I took.  The plan was to try a few different approaches to get the structures down with the least amount of fussy brush strokes and pay attention to edges.  The aim is to get better at planning things out and moving on to more imaginative stuff.  I am also hoping to do some gouache and oil studies and imagination work.