something to watch

I started to prepare a post today but my scanner breathed its last breath half way trough and kind of spoilt the flow. So I though i;d give you something from youtube to look as as a reward for stopping by.

what good is a sketch blog without sketches

Some sketches of eyes & ears on normal copy paper using a new type of charcoal stick. Like a conte only oily. Quite like it.

PS It's been so long since I uploaded an pictures blogger asked me to reaccept the terms of service ... maybe I should have read them ... ok nobody every does ;)

some on-line sketches of friends

Opps

sorry about the black box (seems I'm deemed un-safe on flickr again) andits been a while between post ...i'll be back sometime soonish ;)

more dancers

too many web 2.0 places

I have been a sucker for the new social networking place ...like a kid with a new toy ...i pick up and play with each new offere like blogger (here), flickr (i'm considered UNSAFE there so your need to be a member to see my work), last.fm, bebo, tumblr, & twitter ...now I have a small gallery in ipernity...



Ipernity is often refered to as a flickr clone, superficially it is ... but for me the big difference is you can upload video from a FREE account ...all my web 2.0 playing is very definitely based around not paying :)

AND for the record I still resist FaceBook ...not sure why, haven't tried it but those who where so initially enthused just put me off ...had the feeling it was second life without the fantasy avatars

See you on the interwebz, some time

watching paint dry

I must admit I have had a lot of problems with my washes getting way to wet as I develop watercolours ...particularly of naked flesh .. the delicacy & transparencies of watercolour is beautiful ...and a little hard to control... but thin layers of colour ontop of each other give a luminancy to the original work (which is almost impossible to capture in a scan like this) ... the down side is the washes need to be thin and WET ... VERY WET .. which crinkles the paper and any further pigment added will bleed out into the already wet zones ...waiting for the paper to dry takes hours, and the creative urges soon dissipate ...the solution is painfully simple ...use a hair dryer to speed up drying ...and keep the creativity flowing.

dancers

Siren is also the name of Tara Moss's new book

Tara Moss is not only a great looking model, she is an exciting writter ... her latest book is out in australia today. Its called Siren not sirenS ... haven't read it yet but who could resist with a teaser like this -

ENTER A WORLD OF BEAUTY AND DANGER, OF FRENCH CABARET AND TERRIBLE REVENGE

girls drawing back

I don't always get my way, sometimes my subjects get cheeky ...take my pencils and sketchbook and draw themselves or friends ... who am I to argue?

venus reclining

venus reclining,
originally uploaded by sigh clone.

This is another sketching exercise ... my skills at taking the video haven't improved ...not up to YouTube quality just yet ... but hopefully ot lets you see what I do ...how i work the washes ... and my mistakes and errors ...and the feeble attempts to fix them ... but most of all i want you to see feel the image coming together ...it takes about 5 minutes but i have made sure the video is small enough to be low-bandwidth friendly ... sketched from the natural curves group on flickr ...its a private group but if you are nicely you can join

wow ...i'm worth something!

Not sure why I even checked ... but you can even get a quote on the value of your web site ... is it the indepth content that brings the crowd? ... ok maybe its just the boobs :)

My site is worth$2,696.6Your website value?

Wet & Overcast & Sketching

I did ask if anyone wanted to be illustrated on twitter... but only one reply and that was probably a bot ...so I returned to flickr for yet another torso challenge in watercolour.

sirens

The painting "The Crucified Venus" cause a real stir back a long while ago in Australia. Some of the controversy is covered in the film Sirens

Sirens (1994) - The best free videos are right here

This is a good film ...much more to it than just the speculation of seeing elle naked ...have we really progressed very far? ...is good art recognized? ..must nudity be always confused with pornography? ...are religious images sacrosanct? ...or was Norman just a naughty boy?

ear ear (again)

who could not help being a bit distressed at a gory item wrapped in newspaper ...not a gift of love that I think anyone would like to have to accept? poor rachel!

just had a massive argument with some fellow artists about the Kaufmann claim that gaugain cut off van gogh's ear ...it wasn't about the ear abd who did it, over who and why? so much as what was the deeper disturbance between the two artists. Van gogh insisting (quiet rightly) that art needs to be grounded in what we see ...landscapes need to be painted in plein air ...while gaugain insisted (maybe just to rattle van gogh) that it was the artist imagination that made the picture ... the artist just needed to be inspired ...and then his mind could do the rest ...it was me against everyone, the rest of the world maybe ...but i was adamant that your need to have the visual reference ...studies from life ...that what makes for a great nude ... then I was called a hypocrite and deluded ...you see I often sketch from photos or direct from the computer screen ...but isn't that also a visual reference ...ok I know I'm outnumbered, but i still think vincent was onto something.

not getting out of line

I haven't been drawing as much as I'd like ...for a start I don't like the cold and I prefer to sketch & paint on the deck ...but the health fiascoes of the past few months have slowed me down ...but i know i need to get back in the saddle and keep the mark making, marking marks, making lines and making shades .. just making stuff ...keeping the eye hand coordination subliminal not labored ...art is as much about seeing as actually making the lines ...that is why I need to sketch

“People only see what they are prepared to see.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

not seeing eye to eye

its not funny, its art

poor bianca, she doesn't get art ... or is it us ;)

sketching from flickr (again)

circumstance has conspired to restrict the amount of time i have spent sketching ... yet i yearn for the challenge of analyzing the tone and composition ... coordinating my hand and eye ...letting my arm feel the turns and gestures ...have my brain distill the colours and how to build the washes ...watercolour take practise ... and what better way to tune the skill than to paint a delicious tease from flickr ... merci elli

Shut up you are making me hungry

Melbourne has always been a food obsessed place ... not in a bad way, just savy about food, fresh ingredients, rich cultural diversity and tastes, a decent restaurant culture from the simple (eg the age's cheap eats) to the ridiculously opulant (and they get no free advertising from me) but lately the conversations äre becoming very focused ... and its because of a TV show ... masterchef ...everyone is watching ...it eclipsed the michael jackson saga here, more popular than the current sporting draw cards the tour de france and the ashes (that's true cricket to the heathens and we have started poorly I'm afraid) ...something more important than sport is so un-melbourne! ... then tonight little george let the cat out of the bag with two four letter words FOOD PORN ... yes that's what we all need to stop thinking about the global financial crisis, tax and other bad stuff

Don't get me wrong this is not wanton GLUTTONY or depraved use of edible items in exploitative sexual acts, it is the thrill we get about imagining our next meal ...we need to be excited about eating, it is a survival instinct, and you don't just need TV to do that ....I belong to a food porn group on flickr and I have noticed a lot of tweeters post photos of what they eat, MegaNom has a particularly delicious tastes ... the only problem I have with all this is ...damn am I hungry

Beaux Gestes

Most often I get questioned about what is my style and where did it come from. I don't paint like my cartoons and I don't paint like the artists I admire (eg Gauguin) ... so where does my style start ...my theory is it is is not a conscious thing, it is much more physical it comes from the interaction of my eye and hand ... and it very much related to how I hold the brush and flex and bend my arm ... i don't paint in a slow considered way ... it don't even use pencil construction lines any more ... i just pick up the brush .. mix the colour and dab it here and there, my hand just does it guided by my o copy, but I eye but not its slave ... my mind and ego are looking away distracted ...music helps ... ok i do work from photos or a computer screen a lot so that is already resolving the perspective and giving a two dimensional thing to copy, ... but to be honest I look more at the tone than the lines ...confusing isn't it ...I struglle to explain it just love to do it. Four or fire gesture sketches and I'm away in the creative place, time, logic and sensibility vanish, this is a place of colour and emotion and .... and... no one knows until the wash drips of the brush as it flicks this way and that.

Like ideas & words, gestures have a life of their own.
Laurence Wylie