P.A.L - Pretty Autumn Leaves

Been a while! Apologies for the drop off with my regular blog posts, things have been getting pretty hectic of late.

Here's an ink piece I did for a local band's T-Shirt earlier this year.

More soon... (promise!)

New Paintin' - Pandora's Box

Title - Pandora's Box
Client - Portfolio Work
Media - Acrylic on Bristol Board
Original Artwork for Sale - Currently Unavailable

I've been playing around with a slightly more watercolouresque approach to my acrylic painting of late. I love the vibrancy, delicacy, and immediacy of watercolour painting, and would really like to assimilate some of these fine qualities into my work.
I'm pretty pleased with how this endeavour is working out so far and I definitely think I will continue to begin my future pieces in a watercolour like way - Using gradated build ups of thin washes in the wet. I'm finding that this method is not something that will be limiting or will come at the cost of losing some other capacity, as it will combine with thicker opaque uses of paint too, and I can still easily opaquely paint over any element any time I feel it necessary, the watercolour style build up just lets me sort of 'feel out' and develop the image in a steady (and surprisingly rapid) but subtle way during the early stages.

I did this particular piece by initially penciling the image in first on stretched bristol board, I then went on to block in all the key shadows (in the appropriate values) and began building up washes of colour(in the wet) over this foundation. When I was happy with the colour, I proceeded to build up detail over various areas more opaquely and subsequently went on to add any necessary glazes and tints to adjust areas of shadow and light where it seemed appropriate.



"One who fears failure limits his activities.
Failure is only the opportunity to more
intelligently begin again."
- Henry Ford, American Industrialist (1863 – 1947)

Earthdawn - Cathay: The Five Kingdoms!

I had the privilege of illustrating some interior artwork for Redbrick's recently released Earthdawn publications - Cathay the Five Kingdoms Gamesmaster's and Player's guide books last year. It was great to be involved with the Cathay project, and creating artwork for the rich and vivid Earthdawn game world is always a real joy. The books are now both available in PDF Here, or Hardback Here, and for more information about all things Earthdawn check out the Redbrick website at Link.

Here are a few of my interior B+W pieces from the books...

Barnburgh Art Club Demonstration

I was invited back to Barnburgh Art Club last week, and gave a demonstration on how I would approach going about making a reasonably accurate drawing from a photograph, and the general practice, techniques, pitfalls and benifits of using photographs as reference to aid in realising ideas. I chose Robert Redford as my demo subject (Original photograph sourced from internet). Here's how it turned out...


Media – Charcoal Pencil, Raw charcoal, White pencil, Black pencil, White paint pen, on Toned paper (parcel paper).
Time - 2 hours.


"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Werewolf

New Painting!

Title - The Guardians of Nihl
Client - Portfolio work.
Media - Acrylic on Bristol Board.


New portfolio painting fresh off the board!

Media = Acrylic + Pencils, Sponge, Water, Paper, Sticky tape, Masking fluid, a dash of Airbrush hither and thither, and all sorts of random gubbins like that.


"Drawing is the cornerstone of the graphic, plastic arts. Drawing is the coordination of line, tone, and color symbols into formations that express the artist's thought."
- John Sloan (1871–1951)

The Necronomicon Horror - iphone/ipod touch CCG Game

I had the privilege of producing some card artwork for Lucidsphere Media last year for their recently released great new iphone/ipod touch game app - The Necronomicon Horror. The game has an exciting CCG format and is set deep within HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. For more information check out the Lucidphere website at - link


"The Necronomicon Horror is a single-player game of arcane horror and mystery, created by Dustin Neff. Players take on the roles of investigators in an attempt to thwart the evil machinations of a sinister cult who have stolen the Necronomicon from Miskatonic Universities library, and have used it to open the gateway to another dimension--threatening the entire world."

"The Necronomicon Horror combines the quick, addictive pace of fantasy card games, combined with the strategy of table-top role-playing games. You can win achievements in the game to unlock new bonus content, and there will be support for downloadable expansions in the future."