Another Hiatus in the Real World

Hope yew haven;t missed my art too much , I;ve had a few distractions but don't loose hope my art will returns soon.

Art & Naked Beauty

“ Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed. ” William Blake http://t.co/cGKD6JrW7K pic.twitter.com/SFqrXQ4fz4
— norton elissen (@sighclone) March 2, 2015

Light & shade

preliminary pen sketch

Often I will see something in the lightening, or a scene, a person or a photo that just portrays things perfectly. often I will have to scratch around, doodle and sketch till I understand what I saw.

Once I can see the inspiration developing on the page, the picture usually comes together quickly.

adding a watercolour wash

adding shadow

beginning in pastel

Finding the Light & Shadow

 

Is it time to move on?

The issues of both google's and redit's move against publishing nudity on the net, has a lot of folk worrying, In all probability you are likely to wake up and find everything gone, So there are some solutions & cautions, that are sensible for anyone publishing grown up topics on their blog. If nothing else, go and make a backup today (it creates an xml file, that can be reloaded into a few other blogging platforms and some photo book, ebook publishing applications). But before you panic take a deep breath, take you time to figure out if you want to stay put and toe the line, move somewhere else that "at least for now" allows you to publish that grown up stuff or even shut up shop and go home (ie dissapear)

I already have a couple of sketch book style things set up in Tumblr, its  really a microblog (a kind of bigger version of twister) and not a full blogging service. I don't mind it is probably a lot easier to use BUT my work remains largely unviewed. In other words I'm happy to have an each way bet by having my stuff spread across a few services like twitter. flickr, tumblr & google+ as well as the post here

Nude but not Lewd

Google/Boggler are apparently about to "disappear" blogs with explicit adult content, those specifically concerned where sent an email (which I didn't get, so I'm assuming I'm not one of those involved) that this was about to happened and without any option or little recourse, other than self censorship ie so long, goodbye!

Checking out the terms of service and the published part of the email. Google will allow some nudity

We'll still allow nudity presented in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts, or presented where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content.

Pen & watercolour wash

So I hope my work is artistically justified, I certainly am not trying to be Lewd or Rude. The naked human body is a great learning tool for sketching and painting, There are lesson in line, tone, texture. mixing skin tones and even just seeing, how light defines form, lost lines, positive and negative forms. Not to mention trying to capture gesture & emotions. It will be a great pity for thoee interested in art. if they can not publicly share the challenges and joy of such things.  I really am only interested in sharing the beauty I see and try to render, I don't care much for the lewd and exploitative nudes. So I]m cautiously ok with this for the moment.

I just hope google doesn't throw out the baby with the bath water!

Be my Valentine

A virtual #valentine to all those marvelous models who allowed me to #sketch them. pic.twitter.com/dlX8Ee1OLF

— norton elissen (@sighclone) February 13, 2015

Where to store my working sketches on-line

I'm not sure twitter is the right place for my art. My worked does get viewed and quiet a few favorites, but the rest of the tweeter verse is out chasing celebrities or promoting delusions of self-grandeur. I don't feel at home there although I will post some sketches into #thedailtsketch hashtag, I still firmly believe sketching is good for my soul/health.

My on-line sketchbook on tumblr, In Praise of Rubenesque Mademoiselles, remains largely unviewed and I can't figure out why? I quiet like the paper stacks format (the images are stacked on each other so you have to move them to see what umderneath)

.

By far my best audience is on flickr, that is weher I get the most expoures, view, favourites & comments. Plus I have a group of regular friends who appreciate my art it just a pity I'm considered UNSAFE and therefore cannot be displayed in any public areas. So you have to have a flickr account and be a friend or memeber of a group that allows retricted images to see my art.

So the net result is I'm not sure where to post my work, so there will be a little bit more duplicate posting and probably I'll stick with this place as the best place to keep my works, with a little exposure over on google+ (I'm not sure I believe their views and followers statistics)

Such is Life I guess

Naked .vs. Nudity

“Naked is a human commodity. Nudity is God's art.” http://t.co/kaFEX1kqu3 pic.twitter.com/T1InWtXIfn
— norton elissen (@sighclone) February 11, 2015

Gesture Sketch

gesture sketch #thedailysketch #artwork #torso #watercolour #pen pic.twitter.com/8uf9m9wqAr
— norton elissen (@sighclone) February 3, 2015

Torso 5 - Bringing it together

“#Drawing is not the form; it is the way of seeing the form." ... Degas http://t.co/th38kumbzS pic.twitter.com/nq45EX4MxT
— norton elissen (@sighclone) February 5, 2015

I'm back sketching each day, a torso each morning, and it great for the soul as well as honing my technique, Seeing the light and translating that into tone in a wash or pen line at an edge is an essential first step but I do like using pastel to be able to add or remove the light and finding lines, perhaps more sculptural than drawing/painting

You can see the individual scans on my tumble log

The Shy Torso

“Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation." H Cartier-Bresson #artwork http://t.co/sMdyz3Dchm pic.twitter.com/yf3bbk2AEH
— norton elissen (@sighclone) February 3, 2015

 I painted this a while back and I fiddled with it for a while, I realised less is more and a lot of oil and pigment was lifted off, and then glazed over. Still I was pleased with the feel, although this photograph of the art work does seem flat it does hint at the delicacy I was after. I'm surprise how many think this is a photo not an art work! That wasn't my intension

Torso 3 The Rubenesque Torso

 I have not really been putting in much effort to submit a daily sketch into the #thedailysketch hashtag (eg, on twitter or google+) however it is good to have a little project to do each day to extend my art. Torsos are not only a traditional subject but they also offer the opportunity to do those fast gesture sketches (aka doodles).I suspect I learn more about shadow and forms with just a simple wash and perhaps a pen to "find" some detail.

Many sketches never get scanned, or taken through to a final art work (like below) but a lot of the benefit is not so much as a visual guide but more as a performance practice. That hand eye coordination that is so seldom mentioned in the art world. I like to think of my eye directly moving my arm and wrist without to much analysis, the body language of the model translated back into my body language.
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Acrylic on Board

Torso 2

The Proud Outstretch Torso

Begining a new torso series

Red Stocking Torso

8 good traits

The net is already full of mushy advice on how to live... the 10 best things for this and the top 7 ways to do that. So not to be left of I'm adding 8 good traits to help you grow (they are someone else's list but I can not find who...)  they are however great advice no matter what you are trying to do

I've had some fun experimenting with the service spruce, Which helps you put your text over an image and the post it to facebook and/or Twitter. This is my collection from my twitter stream.

“Persist: Because there is no overnight success.” http://t.co/m4PJQnN5Ma #artwork #pastel #sketch the silhouette pic.twitter.com/58Fd3Q3abi
— norton elissen (@sighclone) January 30, 2015

“Improve: Keep improving yourself and what you do. ” http://t.co/WR4Ere2xSo #thedailysketch pic.twitter.com/SbgVreuA0F
— norton elissen (@sighclone) January 26, 2015

“Focus: On one thing, not everything.” http://t.co/GGXsoyKFVQ #thedailysketch watercolour portrait of @elligirl pic.twitter.com/2cwI2bOEjN
— norton elissen (@sighclone) January 29, 2015

“Ideas: Come up with some good ones.” http://t.co/cXajvPegkJ #thedailysketch pic.twitter.com/tfpDWAemMj
— norton elissen (@sighclone) January 28, 2015

“Push: And keep on pushing yourself.” http://t.co/g3VdQ19qxz #thedailysketch pic.twitter.com/H3JLHyKYgs
— norton elissen (@sighclone) January 27, 2015

“Serve: Serve others something of value.” http://t.co/7UJoCo474f #artwork #sketch the apron pic.twitter.com/GhRNh8rHpM
— norton elissen (@sighclone) January 30, 2015

“Work: Really hard.” http://t.co/kHO1w5AkvM pic.twitter.com/nSjdRHCVJu
— norton elissen (@sighclone) January 25, 2015

“Passion: Love what you do.” http://t.co/A7W8WCR4NW pic.twitter.com/Si1M9RY79l
— norton elissen (@sighclone) January 25, 2015

going around in circles (becoming loopy)

I have been teaching myself how to make animated gif files from scratch. Mainly as a simple way to illustrate how I dvelop a sketch (video can be tediously long). Its been fun with some backwards steps but I'm really finding it difficult to find a place to upload to so I can view the little animations. Twitter won't let be upload it and both flickr and tumblr seem to upload them ok but the only show the first frame. Blogger seems to load it but won't let me post it in here!

Finally figured out how to do it from tumblr