Thoughts on a tea spoon

End

2012-02-14T15:58:00.002-08:00

I have to focus my efforts on my portfolio from now on. Thanks to everyone who read here.

Art Education for the self taught

2012-02-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

I've found some new resources for art education from some of the most awesome fantasy artists and illustrators around.
Thought I'd share the links but I'm sure you know of these anyway.
Awesome Horse Studios
Muddy Colours
WiPnation

Meanwhile: I am really regretting my self imposed ban on fairys and fantasy art over the last 3 years or so- it has not done me any good. so I'm going to get back to my roots and what got me interested in art in the first place. watch out Fantasy and elf haters I'm back (nearly-sort of-I hope).

Update on the Kneeling Chair

2012-02-06T06:40:00.000-08:00

I got myself a new chair because I tend to suffer a lot from back pain at the computer (I'm getting round to writing an article on the hazards of digital painting and how to avoid them).

Its one of those ergonomic kneeling chairs- you kneel and it puts your back in the right position.
So far it's pretty good- no back or shoulder pain anymore touch wood, although I have a dodgy left shoulder which I think will stay no matter what I do.
Only thing with it is after about 3 hours my knees ache a bit- but I should take more breaks and waling about solves the problem.
RSI Pain is something I've suffered with for quite a few years now and it has affected my ability to paint at the computer quite a bit as my more finished style digital art technique can be time consuming.
I've been working on painting faster and developing new brushes in Corel Painter to help with this for the last few years as well as learning and developing my skills.

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-07T09:25:00.000-08:00

Happy new year guys and gals :-)
I'm going to write a few random discoveries and things I've been doing and want to do lately.

Firstly books: I got some good books for Christmas including Drew Struzan: Oeuvre and Spectrum 17. I highly recommend the former, I've loved Drews work for a long time and this is a great book- full page pictures of really nice work. I think the Hellboy and the Harry Potter posters he did are my favourites and he did a lot of work on Star Wars posters and illustrations which is in this as well.
Spectrum 17 is very good as well and has quite a variety of artists and styles to look at in the field of fantasy and sci fi art.

I've been studying Character Design in more detail and I've been doing the self taught Schoolism course by Stephen Silver which I highly recommend anyone to do, its well worth the money and for any level of artist- I've learned a lot from it and it is very professionally done. I wish I had done it sooner. As I said in a past post- I've collected a lot of books over the years to help learn various things but I really needed some guidance of where to go next- what things to focus on and such- in short a Mentor of sorts. I'm thinking of doing the other courses in the future as well as long as I have the funds.

The only other thing really is my ongoing battle with RSI (repetitive strain injury). My stabbing shoulder pain was so bad a few years ago. I couldn't sit for very long to work on things and the pain was very distracting, so I've made a concerted effort to sort this out over the last few years.

A few things helped- I got a JML sit right support thingy which helped a lot, and I started using a board to put on my knees at the computer. However I still tend to slouch when I sit down so I'm going to try a kneeling chair and I'll let you know how that goes. My last office chair sort of got ruined with duct tape when I made a few adjustments involving a cushion and then ripped the leather off by accident.
Walking more has really helped as well. I try to walk every day with my dogs and it also helps fitness of course.

Website Upated with new look and new art

2011-12-07T06:40:00.001-08:00

Please check it out at www.chrisgarnerart.com

E Books- what are they and how do I make them?

2011-10-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

I thought I should learn more and share about these e-book things so I did some research.
Turns out they are not that different from websites- HTML knowledge comes in handy apparently.
If anyone is wondering how to make ebooks, there are some good free software and Opoen Source resources I found:

Anthologize WordPress Plugin (self hosted only)- very promising and easy to use if you like WordPress.
Sigil - (desktop) easy to use and lots of documentation for formating your own e books.
Calibre - (desktop) read e-books in loads of formats and convert between different formats.

And for free e-books to read:
Project Gutenberg

Some Practice Paintings

2011-10-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some things that probably shouldn't see the light of day, these are just personal practice speed paintings from various photo reference on the web (original photos copyright of their owners).

I wasn't going for capturing a photo exact likeness, I just wanted to explore the colours found in skin tones and develop my painting technique. I'll do loads more yet in-between a project I'm working on.
The skull one- the colours are made up, more of a study of bone anatomy which I've been doing a lot of lately.

Creativity and Training

2011-08-25T01:20:00.000-07:00

Training
I've decided to up my training lately and here are some websites I've looked at lately.

The Gnomon Workshop is really good- lots of video lectures on all sorts of art industry training. http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/

And I've looked at Schoolism.com recently which looks super awesome and more course based and structured, whereas Gnomon is more video tutorial based.

Books and Training

In my experience books are good but require a lot of self motivation and time and can be pricy overall.
The problem I've found over the years relying on books as the source of self learning is that you are overwhelmed with choice- a good book list would probably be the solution to this.
Cost of books does add up over the years and is not always cost effective because of the large amount of guess work into which books to get. Also they are hard to store after a while and heavy. Lets just say I need more bookcases.

Book Recommendation

Just thought I'd mention a good book I read called "Creativity Now" by Jurgen Wolff.
It has helped me a lot in terms of getting the creative juices flowing again and he has a website here:
http://jurgenwolff.com/

Confidence is key- believe in yourself

2011-08-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

OK, so I didn't lose any of you with my last outburst, thank you all by the way for reading this thing, I appreciate it :-)

I've been having a really crazy week as you might have gathered- one of those "what the heck were you doing with your time doing all that completely unrelated to what you want to do stuff" weeks I guess.

My confidence in my artistic ability has suffered sometimes. In recent years I haven't painted as much as I wanted to and I do get down with myself about it because I really love drawing and painting, it keeps my mind off the thoughts that creep up like the black dog of depression so to speak. Life gets in the way sometimes for us all.

This week I have finally realized how important it is to keep building your confidence in your abilities and believe in yourself no matter what, and that is what I'm going to do from now on. You have to do what you want to do in life, don't listen to the doubters and the time wasters. Don't undersell yourself, don't let others dictate or manipulate what you do in life. Be true to yourself.

I've been watching the interviews on Schoolism.com this evening- especially the female artists Daniela Strijleva and Lynn Johnston and its very inspiring to learn that they both had difficult times and worked like crazy to get where they are now as did all the artists, and so I'm going to re-double my efforts folks. Rome was not built in a day.

Check out the web comic Ratfist if you have time, my sister Katherine helped colour it in for Doug Tennapel (paid of course)- ~~and she will be working on his next project too~~. I had some sneak peeks as she worked on it, but I'm good at keeping quiet- lucky for her.

Why Spec and Unpaid work is WRONG

2011-08-16T00:42:00.000-07:00

Speculative and unpaid work is a waste of time and makes you feel like rubbish. It undermines you and sucks your confidence in your abilities dry.
Anyone who asks me to do speculative or unpaid work from now on will be added to my black list and reported to the Association of Illustrators. Thank you.

There are many better written articles on the subject:

No Spec Campaign
No Spec for Graphic Designers
Speckyboy article
Sally Renshaw on why free work is wrong

Re-design and re-locate blog

2011-07-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

I'm pondering moving this blog to my main website instead soon- so if this place vanishes at some point that will be why- but I will save all the content and transfer it over (hopefully)

Sketch Dump

2011-07-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Here's some digital painting sketches I've done in Artweaver, Gimp, and Art Rage lately.

Tip Number 9: Get yourself an IPS Monitor

2011-07-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

Thought I better write something here its been a while.
Heres a few tips off the top of my head regarding digital painting and design work.

IPS Monitors

I recently saved up for and splashed out on a 27 inch IPS (In Plane Switching) monitor (Dell Ultrasharp). Don't faint because I almost did after that I can tell you. Spending money is easy, making it is tough!
It was worth it though- the picture is brilliant, calibration excellent with my Pantone Huey and no colour/picture variation when you move your head around wildly. All the websites I visit look tiny now though which is a bummer, but I still have my smaller monitor for that. Digital Painting is a lot nicer on a bigger screen.

There are some very good monitors out there, but my tip if you do art and design on the computer and you want accurate colour and contrast is to get a decent one- pref an IPS of some sort. Read lots of reviews, and if possible view them in person because they are all different.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/ does review IPS monitors quite regularly.

Be prepared for Flood Damage- backup

My dad left the water hose running one night, lets just say when the door to my study was breached I was somewhat unprepared.
Switch off computers and electricity plugs ASAP if this happens to you, and get a lot of towels and a mop. Luckily I had my computer raised off the floor- good tip by the way- make sure electricity socket extensions are also off the floor if possible. The day before I had bought an external hard drive as well and backed up all my files- useful to have in case your computer dies unexpectedly (not that mine did, but can happen sort of).

Thats it for now guys I've been rather busy, but I will write more tips soon.

Tip Number 8: More Free Painting Software

2011-06-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

I realise my last tip was along these lines, but I've been doing a bit of testing lately with Open Source Software and found some other programs.

Artweaver is also available as a free painting program. It is like a mix of Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop with its interface and functionality. Its a lot simpler than Corel Painter or Photoshop and it has some nice painting tools. It does blending and impasto effect brushes as well. Good if you just want some simple preliminary painting tools. The free version is for non-commercial use only though.
http://www.artweaver.de/

I mentioned in my last tip that Gimp Paint Studio was brilliant but didn't have the blending brushes Painter has- well I was wrong because if you use the "Gimp Painter" version instead of the normal Gimp you get this functionality and some nice inking tools as well.
Gimp Painter Sourceforge

I'm also going to keep my eye on the "Calligra Suite" project which will include a painting program called "Krita". It's not available yet, but should be later in the year. I'm looking forward to this one because I think it has a mirror painting tool as well which is groovy. (http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article74/character-design-sketch-little-steampunkish-dragon-girl)
http://www.calligra-suite.org/
Krita is currently only available for Linux in the form of KOffice.
http://krita.org/

For 3D there is Blender of course- I've been looking into 3D art, but for now I think I'm not ready for that yet. More technical stuff to learn is not for me right now. The great thing about the newest version of Blender though is that it looks a lot more user friendly than previous versions with the interface, and it also has sculpting tools a bit like Z Brush now (which I keep drooling over but no...).

I tested the Corel Painter 12 demo- very buggy still, crashed after 5 minutes. The new interface looked snazzy, but I'm so used to the Corel painter X version and the price is too much for an unstable software package. The X version doesn't crash all the time and is fine for me. I'm liking free alternatives a lot though.

Frice

2011-05-23T10:03:00.001-07:00

Tip Number 7: Free Paint Software Worth Trying

2011-05-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Long time no write sorry. I've been a bit busy of late with various things non computer or Internet related but now things are clearing again with my schedule (I hope).
I have had time to try some free software and so this is tip number 7. If you are new to digital art or just like to try loads of tools out like me these are worth checking out:

MyPaint is a free open source digital sketching program which I prefer to one I paid money for a few years ago by Autodesk (figures). It does have limitations regarding resolution settings and file formats you can save to/export to (Open Raster Format and PNG), but it is only intended to be used as a sketching tool, so tis no real problem. There will be a new version of the Gimp soon which will support the file format MyPaint saves to soon anyway.

Gimp Paint Studio is an add on for "The Gimp" which gives you more brushes and tool presets to play with and makes Gimp feel more like a painting program than it does by default. It actually has something I wish Corel Painter would implement- "a useful navigator window" (think Corel painter 12 will have this- about time). The brushes are really nice, especially the pencil tool presets, they are better than anything I have used in Corel Painter or Photoshop. It does not have the blending abilities of Corel Painter, but is a very nice tool non-the-less- and it is FREE.

More tips to come (I'll try to get to 10 at least)

Rooster Sketch

2011-04-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

Just a quick sketch in Artrage testing mixing colours and using a canvas texture with a coloured ground.

Tip Number 6: colour (color) theory and paint programs

2011-04-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

Hi again readers,
Recently I've been revising my colour theory and I bought Artage 3 Studio Pro as well for my birthday (any excuse...)
My tip today is to study colour theory because it is pretty powerful stuff in the right hands and something I definitely need to use more.
Mixing colours is possible in digital art programs as well as traditional methods such as acrylic, oil and watercolour paints.
I tried it out in Artrage, its a very cool program for realistic painting. It beats Painter in my opinion for realistic paint interaction- especially on the price.
I pinned 2 reference pictures here- one is a basic palette based on the recommended starting colours for mixing from the book "The Art of Colour Mixing" by John Lidzey, Jill Mirza, Nick Harris and Jeremy Galton. A good book for learning about colour mixing in my opinion. The other picture is a colour wheel- useful for testing colour combinations based on the various colour wheel principles.

However it is of course possible to mix colour in Corel Painter and it is a much more powerful program than Artrage in other things. I think they are both good and can be used together to create pictures.
Now all I need to do is get an IPS monitor to really take advantage of digital colour....

Tip Number 5: Research Illustration and art

2011-03-31T01:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the hiatus- been a bit busy with things.

I wanted to share something I found today: Illustration magazine can be viewed on the Issuu.com website. It was or is a magazine about the "Golden Age" of Illustration- mainly American I think by the look of it. http://issuu.com/illomag/docs

Research and exploration of anything is always a good idea, but make sure you don't get carried away with just the research and forget to do your own stuff like I do sometimes ;).

Tip Number 4: Experiment

2011-03-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

I'm always trying new ways of working and techniques (probably a form of procrastination but it does have a purpose).
Digital painting is only one way of creating an image of course, you can get by with a pencil and a piece of paper, and I often do with my sketches, but the versatility of digital tools to create finished and rough images is amazing nowadays. It has come a long way since the days of Degas Elite.
Now with graphics editing, drawing and painting software you can create any type of image you can imagine. It can look like traditional art, or it can look completely different to traditional stuff.
So my advice today is to experiment with as many forms of digital art as you can and see what suits you.
For instance today I tried some pen and ink brushes I've been making in Corel Painter X for a cartoony sketch. I think I overdid the blusher though.

Tip Number 3: Virtual memory and scratch disks

2011-03-13T03:15:00.000-07:00

Here's another technical tip- I'm going to tell you some of the less obvious things I had to figure out when I started painting digitally in these tips.

In most graphics applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter and Manga Studio, you can allocate a different hard drive for its scratch disk or virtual memory if you have more than one that is. Its always a good idea to do this because it makes things work faster. For example I have Photoshop installed on Drive C, but I set its scratch disk to drive D which has a lot more free space and is larger than my C drive.

I definitely noticed a marked improvement in the speed of Photoshop after doing this, which makes it nicer to work with- you don't want brushes to lag in speed when you are painting something.

Tip Number 2: Backup and Save Your Files Often

2011-03-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

I try to backup my work files at least once a month onto DVD/CD or an extra hard-drive. You never know when your computer will explode or die as they say.
When working in software- say Corel Painter (still quite buggy and liable to crash evry so often unfortunately- hope they resolve this in newer versions), remember to save your work often, especially if you have been working on it for over an hour and also save iterative versions because saving repeatedly over a file can cause it to get corrupted.

Tip Number 1: Picture Library Folder

2011-03-10T11:51:00.000-08:00

I'm going to add a series of tips here for digital art and illustration process, some are probably silly, but nevertheless here they will be.

Tip number one
Collect lots of inspiring reference pictures and study different styles and history of illustration art.
I have a big folder of reference pictures- purely for learning from (personal use) and studying different styles.
I also collect photos I think might come in handy for reference later. It can be time consuming, but you never know when something will inspire you at a later date.

Perfectionism is not that great to be honest.

2011-03-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if I'm a perfectionist, but I seem to hold back with showing my illustration work a lot because I never know if it's "good enough". I've decided from now on to try and make some more "Happy Accidents" ~~unless I think it belongs in a bin in Antarctica from now on it's going on my portfolio.~~
Ok mabye not

I also really need to do my first postcard campaign with Hire an Illustrator which I've been procrastinating over for far too long now.

I'm finding more and more Its not easy starting out in something, but I'm still here for what it's worth.
I've been doing a lot of coding lately, so no book review today, unless you want to read about e-commerce and private client/task management systems based on WordPress, but I don't get enough feedback to know what people would like me to write about sorry- (hint, hint....)

More tea stained elves

2011-02-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

Work in Painter X

I'm still on a bit of a sepia thing right now.
Developed my custom brushes much more now, only used 3 for the bottom one.

Another test in Corel Painter

2011-02-19T05:33:00.000-08:00

Some digital sketches I did whilst watching a really odd cartoon on you tube called "Wizards" made in 1977. Weird film. I haven't read any good books lately, but I have just done another illustration which i will be posting soon to my portfolio.

Tea stain fairy take 2

2011-02-14T17:45:00.000-08:00

Testing stuff. Getting there I think.

New things for February

2011-02-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit quiet lately because I've been setting my newly upgraded computer up. I now have Windows 7 instead of XP, it looks very glossy and is very user friendly. So far so good. I have a lot more memory now at 8GB and a Quad core processor with a fast solid state hard drive which make things somewhat faster to load up. Corel Painter X still works thankfully under 64 bit Windows 7, I was a bit worried reading about problems people were having but it's fine.

I also found some nice little free portable apps today. I'm using one called Focus Writer right now, from portableapps.com . Its for writers that want no distractions and you can set daily goals in the settings based on how much time you want to spend writing or how many words you want to write. It also makes cool typewriter sounds when you use the keyboard, which I quite like.

There's also one called Kapow Punch clock by the same creator of Focus Writer. Its a program to track spent time. You can set your hourly rate and start the timer to time your progress. It tracks percentages of hours as well based on your hourly rate which is good. I tried one called task coach before, but I find this one a lot simpler to use and it prints nice reports for your clients.

Another timer is Cook Timer from portableapps.com, it is a very simple egg timer like app, if nothing else you can brew the tea with it.

So that's that for now.

Illustration Thoughts- January

2011-01-18T07:23:00.000-08:00

I was mulling over a few books last night, one being 'Understanding Comics, the Invisible Art' by Scott McCloud and the other being one of my favorites; 'The Chesley Awards, a Retrospective' which is just brilliant for inspiration.

Anyway, the comic one brought up an interesting thought at some point- the importance of the 'Idiom'. To question why in art and what we want to say through it. I thought about this and I realised that a lot of the time I don't always consider this when drawing or just practising, but I can see how it is important, especially in the field of Illustration which is very much about visualising ideas and communicating through art.

So I sat with my Chesley Award book and considered why each of the pictures by all the super brilliant artists were so good, and I came to the conclusion that mostly it's because they don't just look nice, they communicate or say something to us.

I made a short list of my scattered observations and I'm sure it can be improved. please feel free to comment on this and i may add or change it over time if its of any use.

What landscapes can communicate

Escapism?
Ideal/ fantasy
Nostalgia
Mood
Atmosphere
Setting or introduction to a story
Subject Matter

What figures and characters can communicate to us

Character in a story
Mood of a character
colours associated with character
costume- what can costume suggest- details may tell a story
type of person
what objects are associated with the character- can they tell a story?
Symbolism associated with character
Characters pose- what does it say about the character
How other characters interact with the character

What narrative art can say

Figures doing something in a landscape that relates to the story
Objects and surroundings may tell a story or enhance a story
Covers- the story expressed in a condensed or conceptual way to sell the book
Composition can tell alot- still scene, action, close up, far away
Colour- mood of story- may add to narrative effectiveness or understanding of the picture as a whole
To show a specific scene in a story
Point of view of certain character's may be different- for example a goblin might not view another goblin as a threat, but an elf might see it another way. this could be expressed visually.
Meaning- philosophical or conceptual- quite often these themes show up in Sci Fi art
Escapism and ideals- fantasy art. the desire to create imaginary worlds and characters in a visual way to tell a story.
Pictures can fill in the gaps or enhance the text, show insights from the artist.

The use of OHP Transparencies inkjet film

2011-01-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

I've been collecting cheap plastic wallets and dividers over the years to try and find the ideal cover for my Wacom Tabet to protect it from wear and tear and give it a nicer feel to work on (yawn...) and I discovered that Kensington laptop risers are brilliant for angling the Wacom tablet to a nice drawing angle a few years ago.

But the other day I found in WHSmiths that OHP transparencies inkjet film had been reduced from £9.99 to wait for it... 99p!

I laminated two of them together print side facing (no plastic laminating sheet over them needed- but do use the protective envelope of course) and they stuck together beautifully with no bubbles or creases making a really nice transparent acetate like surface.
It doesn't affect the wacoms sensitivity and it will keep it clean. Its also a lot cheaper than the ones you can buy from Wacom. I use bostic sticky pads to keep it in place because they can be removed easily. If you ever get glue or selotape stuck to your wacom tablet WD-40 seems to work wonders.

So that's my tip. Also if you have a scratch in your Wacom tablet putting one of these things over it will sort it out.

My Sketch Blog

2011-01-10T23:56:00.000-08:00

Just like to say- I have a sketch blog here: http://chrisgarnerart.tumblr.com/
My sketches are quite different from the current finished stuff I have in my portfolio right now. I still prefer drawing to painting and am still trying to develop a painting style which takes advantage of this. I'll be trying to post more work with more of a light wash quality in the future as well as the time consuming detailed style.

Ratfist Launching Today

2011-01-10T06:24:00.000-08:00

My sister Katherine has been getting the website ready and colouring in Doug Tennapels new web comic (first web comic that is) Ratfist.
I'm very proud of her even if she doesn't believe me, it is a lot of hard work what she does.
Here's the link- ratfist.com I'll go and see if she will post the first panel yet.

Work in progress 2010 retrospective

2011-01-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Readers :)

Just thought I'd put these work in progress step compositions up here for reference. I find its useful to keep iterative saves when I'm painting so I can go back and remember how I did something as sometimes it is experimental. Hope they will be interesting.

In the case of the rooster it went really smoothly painted in Corel Painter directly on the canvas all the way through, but I have been discovering the benefits of Photoshop and using layers more these days as well.

For the red dress I re-discovered the simple technique I used for the red head portrait I did and the brush I used to make the shading so smooth. About 2.5-3 days work in total for both I think. I still have to get faster but I'm happier with the technique now.

Work in Progress- perhaps

2010-12-16T09:59:00.000-08:00

Hi again,
Here's something I think I'll work into a bit more. I have loads of weird sketches like this.
Any feedback welcome. Its early so yes it needs some work yet.

In the deep sleep/sleeping with the fishes

Web Optimisation Advice

2010-12-11T08:39:00.000-08:00

I had a big optimisation and maintenance session over the last 2 days or so. I learned a few new things in the process and thought I'd share them if any one wants to know.
Firefox is very good for helping with website optimisation with the "firebug" add on.
You can go to Google code and download the page speed analyser add on for firebug
http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/extension.html

It analyses how fast your site is out of 100 and suggests solutions to help speed it up.
I won't go into too much technical talk but I managed to speed my website up from 75/100 to 94/100, so that's pretty good I reckon.
I found that optimising css files and combining them whenever possible worked very well, and also try to combine any javascript.
I also used Gzip on the server which helped, and enabled caching. That seemed to make a big difference.
If you use WordPress, there is a plugin called PHP Speedy, which seemed to work well for combing javascripts, css and minifiyng things. However I compared the after and before speed and found it slowed things down for me. But may be worth a go.
http://aciddrop.com/php-speedy/
But be sure to read Prevolacs adice for it first.

http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/optimize-wordpress-page-loading-time-with-php-speedy-and-wp-super-cache

Coding hat on sorry. More art and books later hopefully, I'll try and find my painting hat.

Cards, books and more books

2010-11-28T05:22:00.000-08:00

For the first time I have real photo evidence of my book fetish for you! I have a camera at my disposal for the first time in many years.

Recently I've been having a bit of a thing with illustrated cards. It started when I found Tony Meeuwissen's "The Key to the Kingdom" transformation playing cards and book of verse. I would say this would be a great Christmas present for someone. I found it in a bargain book shop for £1.99. I had no idea what it was but the cover picture lured me and I thought it was a bargain. 52 illustrated cards with a verse on the back.

Amazon Link

I then did a bit of internet browsing and I came upon this website:

http://www.storyworldcards.co.uk/

I decided to get the Storyworld cards because I thought the illustrations were beautiful and I'm always looking for good ways to improve stories and creativity.

Again I think these would be lovely as a Christmas present for someone of any age.

William Ball- the Shropshire Giant (1795 – 1852)

2010-11-19T03:11:00.000-08:00

I did this illustration as part of my work at Great Dawley Parish Council (my current part time job) to illustrate the various heritage and folklore sections on the website.

It is completely self initiated, I just thought it would be a nice thing to do for the community and to make some of the content on the website more visual.

William Ball was an interesting character from Dawley in Shropshire, England. He was known as the Shropshire Giant because it was said that he stood 9 feet tall and weighed 40 stones. Whether this is true- who knows. He worked as an iron puddler in the Horsehay Ironworks near Dawley and was very good at his job on account of his tremendous strength.

Art Development and more books

2010-11-14T03:39:00.000-08:00

Hi there, yes I'm going to write something again.

I've got another list of useful books I've read recently for my Illustration and art development with some brief reviews. These are the ones that happen to be lying in my office- some are probably hiding around the house still.

"Breaking Into Freelance Illustration" by Holly Dewolf

This book is aimed toward the US market, but it does have some really good advice which can be used wherever you are. My copy has a few tea stains on it and I have read it in the bath a few times. its a good compact-ish size, not too big. I liked the way it was written in a friendly and encouraging tone, not elitist or patronizing at all. So much advise in it I keep coming back to it all the time.

"Fashion Illustrator" by Bethan Morris- second edition, Portfolio series Laurence King publishing

I saw this book in a Waterstones and was intrigued enough to then look on Amazon and buy it for half the price when I got home.

I have been trying to broaden my illustration knowledge and I have an interest in Fashion illustration because I've been doing a lot of figure drawing in my sketchbooks over the last two years or so. It's a beautiful book full of information and modern examples of illustration in the Fashion industry. It also has artist interviews and walk-throughs on their techniques.

"How to create a portfolio and get hired" Portfolio series Laurence King publishing

I bought this after being impressed with the Fashion Illustration book in the same series. It is a very clearly laid out- no nonsense sort of book. I am developing my portfolio and I'm sure this will be helpful.

"Creativity" by Jurgen Wolff

This again is a really nice compact book- perfect for reading in the bath or on the train. It has a nice lime green cover which I have to admit was the reason I bought it. its full of ideas and creativity methods. I bought it because I sometimes have trouble choosing ideas and focusing them into finished drawings. This book was an eye opener to what can be done to unlock those ideas and do something with them.

"The Bloomsbury Guide to Creating Illustrated Books" A&C Black Publishers

I cannot say enough about how good this book is. I wish I had bought it two years ago when I started a book project with no knowledge on how to do it, it would have been useful. lots of advice, suggestions for portfolio development- i.e what art directors want to see for a children's illustrator (very useful), how to develop your ideas, the book, markets and professional practice.

"The Fundamentals of Illustration" Laurence Zeegen/Crush, AVA

Brilliant book- great introduction to the practice of Illustration- the markets there are and very modern in layout and design.

And now a note on why I've been painting chickens...

I'm refining my painting process so that I can meet deadlines- in the past it took me a long time, but I'm getting to the stage where I have a clear three-step-ish method. My fastest painting so far took 2 and a half days- which I think is an improvement on two a year. Practice makes perfect I hope.

Relocating

2010-10-31T12:38:00.000-07:00

Hey there,

I'll be writing about stuff on my art website as well from now on as I keep forgetting I've got this blogger account I don't update so often.

Back to books- I found a good one recently in a charity shop for 50p- Pushkins Fairy tales. I Recommend it highly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pushkin

http://chrisgarnerart.com/news/

Thanks

Art reference books I have read recently

2010-02-17T07:36:00.000-08:00

Long time no post here I know, but I'll try to get the ball rolling again.

I've been in a bit of a development/ training stage for a while now and have picked up a few good books along the way:

An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists

This book has some really nice detailed plates of various animals bones and musculature, focusing on the horse, dog, lion, cow and bull, stag, roe and the goat.

Anatomy and Drawing (Dover Books on Art Instruction)

I've found this book very useful in understanding anatomy further, particularly on bone structure and how it relates to the human form.

Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design

I thought I should learn more about design, so I gave this book a go. It is very informative and well presented. The book explains 100 key design principles that can relate to a wide area of design in an effective way, such as usability, consistency, legibility, Face-ism Ratio and many others.

Making Sense of Business: A No-nonsense Guide to Business Skills for Managers and Entrepreneurs

Being self-employed, my own boss and self taught to a great degree I found this book to be useful on the business side of illustration and web-design which I am still getting my head around. It was recommended reading at an Association of Illustrators seminar I attended last year.

Other Books:

I've collected a few of the Association of Illustrators publications up to now and I am currently going through the Adobe Classroom in a book series learning Adobe Illustrator CS3 and Adobe InDesign CS3 to expand my skill set.

The classroom in a book for Illustrator incidentally was excellent, very useful and easy to follow.

Swedish Folk Tales

2009-07-20T04:33:00.000-07:00

I bought and read a book recently called 'Swedish Folk Tales: Illustrated by John Bauer'.

It's a beautifully illustrated hardback with some really great stories which are suitable for bed time reading (adults and children) mainly about Trolls- the long haired, big nosed creatures of swedish Folklore.

I enjoyed the stories, some of them reminded me of the Jim Henson series: 'The Storyteller' and have wonderful imagery and lessons of life in them which are still relevant today.

The illustrations are really nice, there are many illustration's of John Bauer which I hadn't seen before either on the web or from his other book 'In the Troll Wood'.

Link on Amazon.co.uk: Swedish Folk Tales

The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book

2009-03-03T10:32:00.000-08:00

I picked up a nice hardback of this in a charity shop recently (always look in charity shops for books- never know what you will find). It contains many of the popular fairy stories such as Beauty and the Beast, the Princess and the Pea and Sinbad the Sailor to name just a few.

The really good thing about this book is that it is beautifully illustrated by Arthur Rackham. The first edition of this was 1933, but the one I have was published in 1986. If it was a first edition I would be very happy because it is worth quite a bit of money.

I was quite surprised that he had several different styles with his art- a very fast sketchy style almost like Quentin Blake, silhouettes and his famous detailed pen and wash style.

The stories are very nicely written and illustrated and is a nice bed time read.

More books and random thoughts about life.

2009-02-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been reading more sci-fi and fantasy. I found a book called 'Weird Tales' edited by Peter Haining, which contains short stories by many of the famous fantasy writers from 1934-1952. The weirdest one I have read so far is 'Beyond The Wall Of Sleep' by H.P. Lovecraft in 1938. This story deals with dreams and the psyche.

There is a lot of variety in the stories, and I think it's a good starting point for fantasy and sci-fi.

I'm also going to read some of HG Wells short stories.

.............................................

Another thing I have been thinking about is the legacy of war and the terrible consequences that technology and science can inflict even if in the best interests of learning and so called 'enlightenment'.

I am in the favour of science: the pursuit of the truth and how things work etc... however I also see the value of belief and religion, moral values and wot not. I think it is important to look into history and learn from the past mistakes and teachings and also try to understand why things happened in an unbiased way.

I can't really explain my feelings well enough (I'm not a writer), I am trying my best to see some humanity in the media at the moment and failing miserably. Money is not as important as people, but they go on about it incessantly in the news.

An excerpt of the 10th Century poem 'The Wanderer' might help to express my feelings on certain turn of events a bit more at the moment.

'from the north there comes
a rough hailstorm
in malice against men.
All is troublesome
in this earthly kingdom,
turn of events changes
the world under the heavens.
Here money is fleeting,
here friend is fleeting,
here man is fleeting,
here kinsman is fleeting,
all the foundation of this world
turns to waste!'

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wanderer_(poem)

Books wot I have read recently.

2008-12-19T03:25:00.000-08:00

I've been raiding my dads library lately. I found two books that caught my interest, one is "The Book of Heroic Failures" by Stephen Pile and the other is "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" by Mike Harding. Both really funny books, made me laugh out loud in places.
The book of Heroic Failures is great for making your so called failures seem ridiculously small (which mine are in comparison). I have to say I learned a lot from this book, for instance I never realized that the famous poet William McGonagall played Macbeth and refused to die until the other actor began to shout at him.
The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac basically confirms my general cynical thoughts on the human world of politics and religion so far and is very funny.

Gullivers Travels

2008-11-17T04:59:00.000-08:00

I found the book again, it was hiding under my bed. I've been reading about secret societies, African Mythology and Mayan archaeology and culture in the mean time. I'm also doing a bit of historical costume research and headdress styles through the ages. Keeping busy as usual.

The Picture of Dorian Grey

2008-11-09T03:49:00.000-08:00

I got sidetracked from Peter Pan and read this last weekend. I think I'll have to re-read it at some point because it is not what I would call an easy read. Oscar Wilde was an excellent (and very clever) writer though, and I did enjoy it. The ending was not what I had expected thanks to the film "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".

The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A.S.Byatt

2008-10-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

I have read a few of the short stories in this book, and my interest in reading has been re-kindled somewhat after burning myself out reading the "Duncton Wood Chronicles" when I was a teenager. Not that Duncton Wood wasn't good, it is one of the best series I've read, but very disturbing and dark. I did not read a real story book for several years after, sticking to reference books mainly.

In the "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" are some of the best short stories I have read for years, "The Glass coffin" was a beautiful read, and created amazing imagery in my head which I might try to draw at some point if I feel brave. If you have ever watched Jim Henson's "The Storyteller" and enjoyed the stories in that, this book is for you.

I'm going to read Peter Pan again. I haven't read it for years, Hook scared the hell out of me when i was little. I've got the book that was illustrated by Jan Ormerod; she did a really scary Hook.

I was reading Gullivers Travels as well, but I've lost it somewhere. It'll probably turn up one day again.

Voices in Stone

2008-10-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

I've been reading "Voices in Stone" by Ernst Doblhofer lately. Its very interesting reading the background stories on how the ancient scripts such as Egyptian Hiroglyphs, Persian Cuneiform, and Mycenaean Linear B (to name a few) were deciphered. I'm quite surprised at how many languages and dialects the linguists and archaeologists were prepared to learn in order to solve the mysteries of translating the ancient writings, children in England are lucky if they manage to learn French or German these days. I was also impressed at the bravery and dedication of such people, often working in harsh environments and war torn countries.

Mayan Underworld

2008-10-05T03:40:00.000-07:00

Archaeologists have found an underground labyrinth of stone temples and pyramids on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

National Geographic News Article

I've been reading a bit about the Mayan's recently, the National Geographic Magazine has a special Mayan edition out at the moment which has some great photographs and information.

In the Troll Wood

2008-10-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

John Bauer was born in 1882 and died in 1918 at the young age of 36. I read an illustrated book by him called "In the Troll Wood" which was published in 1979 (first published 1978). The illustrations are quite haunting. I liked how he put so much character and little details into the trolls; their jewelery, costume and mood. Most importantly they compliment the story and words very well. I have looked if you can get this book on amazon, but they are only selling the 1978 versions at very high prices unfortunately.
Here's a good post about him on Lines and Colors.

Gurkhas win rights to settle in UK

2008-09-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

Some good news for a change!
News link

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

2008-09-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

I found this really great illustrated book in the Works: "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It has beautiful full page illustrations by Gustave Dore. He made them by using the technique of etching, which means he drew them all in reverse so that they would look right when printed. This obviously must take a lot of skill and patience to master.
I've been doing a lot of research on illustration over the years, being self taught means it is difficult to know what to focus on at first, but I have realized that illustrating books can be a huge undertaking, almost like directing a small silent movie. The illustrations in this book are very inspiring and show the power of illustration at it's best.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Samuel Coleridge, Gustave Dore: published by Capella 2008.

Another blog, another cup of tea

2008-09-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

After a lot of thought (almost 10 minutes or so possibly) I decided that my second blog should be about something other than my illustration stuff really.
The name of this blog came to me in a dream I had the other night, probably after I drank too much tea throughout the day again.

I have many other interests aside from art, including science, archaeology, history, mythology, philosophy to name a few. I read books on as many different topics as I can and I am a believer in self teaching and learning about as many things as you can. Of course the more you learn about something the more you realize you don't know about it, but it makes it a great challenge.

So that's mostly what I will be writing about here.

Study Sketches

2008-09-13T13:20:00.000-07:00