Auto vs manual

I've had time to review the tutorials that come with Corel Painter ...and i've tried out their auto paint and trace features ... the three images about were created in only a minute or two using avrious auto-paint options ...look they are effective but in the end I am unimpressed. The colours are nice in the modern painting example in the middle, close to those I might choose. But sadly the auto Van Gogh of the right is an embarrassment to the poor guys reputation, particularly the colours, also the watercolour sketch on the left lacks the transparency and delicacy that makes watercolour such an appealing medium.

Ok could I do better? I choose this photo, of a flickr friend, for a "two minute torso" exercise, that I have found enjoyable and a way to test out new techneques or just shapen up my work. so here is my first computer generated two minute torso (ok it did take more like 18minutes because I was still learn and doing a lout of s)

I used the chalk and pastel brushes because the marks they left where close yo want I get when sketching. So I started with my favorite pale blueish purple to start the shape of the mid tones, adding a couple of colours in the darks. When sketch I also often just have a few reference smudges or colour patches over on the edge so I can judge the relative tonal values

Next I added strong colour using a wide and fast infill squiggles. Then I got the blend tool and smoothed them into the previous areas.

I have repeated these last two steps several times, building up the form ...and i do like how it lets me do that ...however I gave up at this point ...normally about know I would put in a few "detail" lines with a pencil, generally with a quick open flourish ... just to bring a few key parts into detail ...alas my detail line work is still a bit clumsy and I was consigning all my work to the place (where ever that is)

So my final conclusion is I actually love the my bamboo fun tablet (it won't stop me painting of sketching conventionally) it is a terrific tool. Expect to see more or my work created with it, Yt I am unlilely to start selling my direct computer art anytime soon.

too much fun

I actually went to buy a new scanner (my old one died a far while ago, they don't seem to last for me) and I got side tacked by a slicky shinny thing called a bamboo fun. Its kind of a cross between a touch surface and a graphic pen tablet. It is just a few flat pieces of plastic molded together really, maybe heavier than it looks with a pen and a usb cable. I liked the black small ones but the bigger one only came in grey ... I really needed the room for my hand to flourish rather that colour cordination with my laptop ...so grey it was.

The really best part of the story is how easy it is to use. Take out of box and plug in ...not hard at all. Ok there is one big limitation as a mouse substitute it is really hopeless and clumsy ...or maybe I haven't got the hang of that part yet! Once I loaded up corel painter essentials which came as part of the deal I was hooked. I could rub with my finger press hard or soft with the pen. change the drawing "brush" from feltpen to soft pastel to a bristle brush, even a smudge. It was very natural ... so natural I haven't read the instruction manual yet (its on a pdf file somewhere) or the tutorial videos they can wait I'm having too much fun

sick of being sick

Being under the care of the medical profession is a time consuming business, and I'm so so sick of it. Clearly no one knows what is wrong, ok I've had all the test and scans & xrays but i just want someone to listen to me not the machines ...whinge over ...the drugs are making the symptoms bearable ...just

What I want want know is some time to be creative

oh yes and sorry for the lack of posts lately, I not one who likes to use excuses, maybe I can focus some that inspiration and creativity into more posts :)

The yellow bra in pastel

Pastel on Paper

mucking around with tone

pastel on paper. with watercolour wash under the dark tones

2010 Funbag Fascination Calendar

Forgot to post this, the 2010 Funbag Fascination Calendar is out, on flickr. Better late than never I guess, but you should have noticed by now that I use small versions of the calendar pages over on the right hand side.









INSTRUCTIONS :: HOW TO MAKE a PERSONAL COPY OF THIS CALENDAR.

This is DIY (do it yourself) calendar, and only for personal use (see the copyright and wrong discussion at the bottom of the right-hand side column.

First click through on each image (you will get through to flickr were they are stored) and the select all sizes, and get the largest size images (they are all 710 by 710 pixels, this is 12cm at 150dpi and matched a CD jewel case size), download to your computer and print them out. The instructions to assemble your calendar can be found here

interviewing me!

blog interviewer.com has interviewed me ...no kidding ...well i filled out their questions and you can read it spelling mistakes and all here. They rate themselves as a behind the scenes look at the web best bloggers ...some of their other interviews are fairly insightful also (eg rick green's organized doodles is worth a look). I'm just a little puzzled why i ended up in the photography section with an adult rating!

...oh that's right I sketch nudes!

buxom dreams

pastel on paper

what is art?

I get asked this question a lot ...as if i should know the answer! ...welll i suspect art like beauty is in the eye of the beholder not the object or the action ...so I can labour and toil and call what i di art, but i would be lying ... i think my art is a gift of inpiration or joy to the viewing ...a gift i may never seen given ..but one i give in honesty and full knowledge that it may not be recognized of generate income of bring fame ...but is a gift all the same.

Stolen Art

I'm not sure why the art heist in paris has gitten so much media coverage, when so much art is stolen every second on the net. Sure the picaso, braque, modigliani and matisse works are worth a lot these days, as museum pieces. The reality is they should be worthless, ok the could earn the thief or indiscreet purchasers a lengthy jail term, while they are at large. The problem I an getting more and more confused about is what is the real vale of art and why is the art creator so unlikely to benefit from its value. The worse problem in my mind is all the direct theft of art, photos, videos and songs because it has been posted on the net. Doesn't the artist deserve something?

I will skip over the question of whether art is also stolen when it is largely copied (plagiarism?)

If you have valuable art and are worried about it being stolen, make sure it is properly photographed (you gallery or agent can help with that) and document it specifically with your insurance and not down the useful web servicw the Art Loss Registry (which lets you register stolen works). It will also let you do additional check up on that "unearthed" Picaso from the guy at the pub!

restlessness

I have become restless in my art ...two things are nagging me about what i see others doing ...the first is fashion and fads, the look at me i'm a celebrity wannabee ..which is just copy/plagiarism in disguise ...and most of all boring ...you don't neeed it to look like a beyoncé or lady gaga film clip ...ok lady gaga is becoming a recycled madonna and single ladies has more than a few dance moves from the Yolngu Zorba Dance ...don't get me wrong there is talent there also but i yearn for more originality in the rest of us

yet I know you need to follow some rules of say composition and sketch a pose that artist and photographers have used many times ... but it works

the second concerns is about colour ...i love colour ...i'm sure you have noticed that ...its just that colour consciousness seems to have left the building ...am I the only one who see the beauty in a purple shadow? perhaps i just need to keep sketching :)


BTW I'm still posting on TwitPics

They say ...

They say that doing too many self portraits is the way to madness ...they sight Rembrandt through to Van Gogh and many more ...well I might have a dutch name but I'm not the slightest bit psychotic ...Ok I keep getting reminded I'm a child with an inflated super ego (them there are harsh words from a professional) ...its justt6hat those self reference things keep cropping up amongst my scratches and doodles ...ok the one below I did waste some time creating on-line. It is supposedly me in the future according to my webface.com ...to be honest it looks nothing like me. It even looks a bit creepy, kind of troll like a photoshopped buddy icon on a dating site, and he is the last sort of bloke I'd even chat with ...little lone draw ...C'est la vie.



Surely there may be some advantages to appearing mad, a little off or not quite the full bottle maybe I'll be left alone. ...alone to create and just do what I want. But then I am reminded by someone who knows these things there is zero benefit in going crazy

“Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively” Voltaire

Alas poor twitpics....

i liked the way the badge or widget or whatever it was from Twipics worked (just on posting the last item I had uploaded to twitpics. All automatic and no code to copy and paste ...something that tests and old bloke like me) ...but alas it has disappeared without trace and I have to do some editing and such to show my work here ...such tedium

Time to look for a new photo to twitter methods : )

By Bye Twitpics ...was nice while it lasted

Don't forget to revisit Pandora

Congratulations to the Hungry Beast Team, their Avatar 2 trailer has had over 1.5 million hits on You Tube

Appropriation or Plagiarism

The Art news that Melbourne is a buzz with this week is the discovery that Sam Leach, a local Melbourne boy, and winner of the prestigious Wynn Prize for Landscape, was outed for copying. No one realized how heavily he had borrowed from the 1660 work Boatmen Moored on the Shore of a Lake by Dutch master Adam Pynacker. Leach makes no attempt to deny he was "influenced", the gallery says they didn't realise. but the tongues are wagging on radio and TV, plagiarist rather than appropriation!



Yet it is hard to be totally original, some of the best art is built of previous ideas and works.

Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.

(Pablo Picasso)

Thinking too much

I am about to die, not tomorrow, not next week but some time. The trouble is I'm loosing little bits of what life is about and that worries me a lot more. I think it is so important to live life to the full. Sometimes I need to do the living on my own so I can focus on creative stuff. Other times I need to be surrounded by company, preferable the amiable encouraging kind ... but a good argument never hurt anyone ...at the moment I seem to be getting a lot of flack about living on the net ...being too social ...letting my "bad habit" be viewed by the world (sketching naked ladies is not in my view a bad habit, posting it on a blog might be what offends them so?) ... and laughter, what a joy a group laugh can be. ...but I do need to live on the edge occasionally too ...take a risk, back my own judgment ...sometimes it is my art ...sometimes its the ocean ...now it may be my health, such is life

I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate
Vincent Van Gogh

two minutes for boobs

I've been distracted a lot lately by stuff in the real world ..fixing, repairing, doing errands, drinking beer and yarning with friends ... the stuff that gets in the way of those creativity juices ...not excuses so much as different pathway in life STILL I did have some new paints to trial ...I had loved using a set of cotman colours in a neat plastic travel pallet (I'd got on special some time ago) but was coming to the end of the best colours and I can not get the replacement tubs ..such is life ...any way I decided to splurge out on the equivalent windsor & newton grown up watercolors (and they are about twice the price) I loved the cotman Dioxazine Violet (for the under painting of shadows of tone, maybe with a little red to take the edge of the intensity) then glazing this in layers Raw Sienna and Alizarin Crimson over this. Well a two minute torso exercise seemed a logical first start ...ok this is more precisely a two minute boob job...and yes it took longer than two minutes but I was having fun ...nipples are difficult forms to make convincing ...and these where particularly proud nipples ..I had to do three separate washes in violet to just leave enough edge and tone. then it was back to wet on wet washes with the colour glazes ...I was very pleased it turned out very magically translucent, but where the new colours better? not sure, nice model though.

Autumn is for ART

art show appeal
Originally uploaded by sighclone

This time of year is art season, down here in the south eastern of Australia ...and I'm busy preparing for, getting things framed and transporting work back and for to art shows that have been popping up everywhere ...OK you won't find my works in the Archibald this year, btw congratulation to Sam Leach, who won booth the Archy and Wynne prizes ..and good works they were too ...my works are still competing with everyone elses for wall space ...especially in those expensive little inner eastern surburb galleries (no they are not even listening?) and shows.

So my theory is grin and bear it, if my art truly appeals, I will get enough to pay for my materials and perhaps framing ...after that ego could be in danger of becoming harmfully inflated.

Such is Life

REALLY - or yet another of the FauxFolk

Annie Stoner- nude from behind
Originally uploaded by AnnieS25

I chatted with this idenity a while back on ipernity, she seemed nice enough and I even decided to use her photo for yet another return to my 2 minute torso exercises. ...that started well enough

then I noticed something ...can you see it?

hmm ..why is the waistline so different? ...have i lost it? have i got the anatomy so wrong? ...that skin is pretty damn flawless ...why is annie's head and body in such different proportions in her other photos ...am I paranoid or is she just too flawless to be true ...and how does a body like that sing like stevie nicks? ah mais oui, encore un autre faux pas

perhaps not,
Is she fake?
She is a photoshop abuser

hope i'm wrong on this one.

PS Well not surprisingly I got a less than happy email from the identity involved. about my "bullshit blog" post, seems it was a jaded boyfriend that supposedly started the rumor she was fake. This is very feasible and thus I have removed her name from this post (and my illustrations, to avoid my contribution to furthering the shadow on her name in net searches). However she added "buy my album and see for yourself" ...well that just complicated things ...I can find her songs on last.fm and ovi podcasts & they are free to download BUT not for sale in either ITunes or Amazon. I remain very skeptical

SPOILERS | Hungry Beast

SPOILERS | Hungry Beast
You'll have to watch the clip to discover what spoilers are. I must admit I love the hungry breast's GRAPHics ...trés trés chic ...and this time I don't think I missed the intent of the self reference at the end of the spoiler segment.


The cane toads piece with wonderful ...but so truthfully sad ...maybe it may have had a happier ending if Peter Garrett had offered them free insulation!

all buzzed out

Seems buzz has got the huff with me ... i have so many unread Buzz'es, is that the right term?, that they are ow just showing 100+ unread ...what the ...i don't scroll back on twitter ...do you really expect me to read them google? Isn't my gmail bulky enough it? are there empty spasces on a server somewhere just creeking for more! Or sm I just to stuck in things to do in the real world?

Such is life

2010 Funbag Calendar

I will have to admit that I have been a fraction slow getting this year's funbag fascination calendar organized. I'm sort of doin as the year goes along, which should matters since it is designed to fit into an old CD jewel case and sit nice and neatly on your desk ... you will just have to keep and eye out and download the new page each month.

Here are my sketches for next month calendar girl.

river nymphs

A couple of rough sketch ideas for a new series of water goddesses

the satire is not lost on me

The Hungry Beast, a good new show on the ABC, tonight had a segment with lots of graphic detail and the true terms about Labiaplasty, a bit of a surprise from conservative aunty. Yes it was about snipping the lips back of a woman's genitals. I have no complaint about the segment but I get the feeling most people missed the point that it was satire not a documentary. I doubt the plastic surgeon was really a doctor at all and the expert witness, a graphics artist from a soft porn magazine, who voice was disguise to protect his identity. Come on! Are models really going to undergo surgery to look neat, just to get in a cheap magazine when a bloke at a computer screen of said magazines can airbrush it all out in a flash? Are you starting to realize now? This was good satire, but it is not to be taken too seriously.

The truth is the Hungry beast team is hoping to exploit the same classification that let the magazine publish clear and frank frontal nudity photos.

PS Seems I miss read the intent of satire in the story (see response in my comments) & I'm not trying to critize the hungry beast team, they are well worth a watch

The first drinks on me

Well I finished Feb Fast without any big fan fare. Not having alcohol for a months was a lot easier than I expected, ...probably because most of my friends where in it as well. The community response was pretty amazing as well, nearly $650k raised in support of services working to reduce alcohol and other drug related harms in young people. Well done everyone.