Old Books

I love old books. I could (and do!) spend hours looking around in old book stores. A couple of weekends ago I went exploring in Winnipeg and found a few fantastic shops. One had a section filled with antique books, so I did what any sensible person would and took as many photos as I could. I may trying doing some prints from these if/when I ever get to move and have a studio again! I'm putting a silk screening kit on my wish list.

Shar and Helen at Graduation

This is the first of (probably) many pieces I'm going to do based on the photos I took of my basic training graduation. I don't normally use charcoal for portraits, but it's all I've got available at the moment, so I thought I'd give it a go. I used rough watercolour paper to give it a grainy appearance because I was trying to make it look a little vintage, like the photo it's based on:

It was a dark and stormy night...

A few weeks ago I went down to Somerset, MB, which is sort of the middle of nowhere. It was a middle of winter as well, and there was nothing much to look at but some really beautiful trees, devoid of leaves and covered in snow. I wanted to draw it when I got back, and started right out on this charcoal drawing. It looks nothing like the trees in Somerset. It turned out really dark and twisted. It reminds me of the Disney forests in Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. I like the dark fairy tale feel, but I think at some point I'll have to retry the original idea.

I used masking fluid to keep the highlights really white, vine charcoal for the majority of the drawing, and compressed charcoal for the really dark blacks. I love the look of vine and compressed charcoal together. I started using it way back in my first semester of art school to add depth to my drawings:

A Try at Photography

I haven't posted much in the last few months because I was doing my Basic Military Officer Qualification in Quebec. Opportunities to draw and paint were limited to say the least. I did, however, get in iPhone for my birthday so I could keep up with the world at large, and almost immediately downloaded Hipstamatic, which makes me think I'm a photographer. I'm tryingh anyway! I've been posted and hope I'll be able to do and post creative things very soon, as I will be moving and hopefully have a place to call my own in Winnipeg.

To begin with here are some of my favourite photos from my graduation parade. The one at the top of this post is me being narcissistic and showing off in my uniform (I didn't take that one obviously), but these next ones I think turned out very well. I took about 300+, so some of them had to turn out, right? I have a few more I love as well, but I'm saving them for drawings, so you'll just have to wait for more.

'Comic Book Portraits' - Grant 479

Trying more new things with this one. So I'm not too familiar with comics, so why not throw in something I don't know anything about with some graffiti. That part was actually really fun, and it's on my list of things I'd love to learn. The rest... umm, I don't know how happy I am with it. It's much better than it started out, I kept making the lines thicker, and that's really helped.

'Comic Book Portraits' - Grant 833

This is a bit different for my 'comic books,' but I want to try a whole bunch of different styles, so it's about tie I ventured out. I found a neat fan-made poster for Green Lantern (which, unfortunately, I can't find again for you) with the code in the background, all in different shade of green. It looked pretty cool, so I did a take on it in Air Force Blue.

This one changed a bit from when I saw the poster it was based on to the final version - I didn't get the photo I wanted and had to improvise, and originally I was going to have a bunch of Grant's nicknames - there are two on our platoon, but decided to go for full hero-mode on this one, so I put the Air Force motto in the background instead.

B&W Garter - getting the technique now

Here's my second try at using charcoal and oil paint. I learned quite a bit from the Horses experiment a couple of days ago. I did fewer layers, and after the first two I simply put down a layer of glazing medium and then drew into that (instead of the other way around). Much of the detail and most the actual lines stayed in the paint. I then scratched out some of the charcoal, which added more detail. You can see it in the close-up:

I'm really happy with how it turned out because you get enough information to really read the different textures, like the lace, but it has all the softness of the charcoal mixed with oil paint of the first painting.


This painting is for sale on Etsy.