May 2015 Art Challenge - 'Ancient vs Futuristic'

Here is my entry for Draw with Jazza's May 2015 Art Challenge - Ancient vs Futuristic.  The idea is that they are a kind of secret service MI5 (or Men In Black) top secret government agents in Victorian times, fighting Aliens and Futuristic Robots.  Hence the lady and gentleman on the left, are fighting a spider-like robot from outer space, in a Victorian sewer tunnel.

This is my first artwork in quite some time, I think it might actually have been a couple of years since I last tried to create some colour pencil art.  I still doodle in pen and pencil, but I've not tried to create some real art in ages.  I was really rusty.  But I really enjoyed doing this, and even enjoyed sketching out and colouring in bricks in between ad breaks on the TV.  

I joined this Art Challenge late on in the month, having only a couple of weeks to come up with the idea and create it.  If I'd had a little more time, I would have liked to have continued darkening the background, and just had a light glow around my heroes, and from the robot's laser bolts.  But as it is, I still enjoyed it.  And I want to create more!

My Artwork:  Colour Pencil, on A5 Sketchbook paper.

Landscape WIP - "Manzanillo Beach"

I have now decided to focus on Fine Art and Illustration, it is what I love the most.  No more design courses for me.  I want to be a Fantasy and Science-fiction Artist, creating as realistic art as I can in graphite and colour pencil.  I have managed to free up my time to concentrate on my Art every day.  Providing I can stick to this, you should see a lot more of my art appearing on here.  Today I have been working on a Colour Pencil Landscape of Manzanillo Beach on Margarita Island, which is part of the Wetcanvas May Landscape Challenge.  I am really enjoying this one, it doesn't feel like a chore, and I am really enjoying creating the ocean.  I may discover a love for landscapes after all!

Trees Landscape - Complete!

I finally completed my landscape! It's been difficult working on this one, but I am so glad I finally completed it. It was worth finishing as now I am proud of it! There are still areas I need to improve on, I am a fledgling landscape artist, I do need to improve the contrast and make the picture darker in some areas. But this is a good start I think with a difficult reference image (see previous post). Thanks so much to Retha for offering me so much help and support - without you and would not have completed it!

It just goes to show that it is worth finishing your pictures, no matter how badly you think they are going - they do improve once completed, and you have something to be proud of!

Artist's Block

I know you can get writer's block, but is it possible to get artist's block? What do you do when you don't know what to draw, and every reference photo you look at, you think you can't do? Maybe it's partly a confidence issue, and maybe it's a little of allowing the world to rest in heavy on your shoulders and stifle your creativity. Either way, I think I might have found a cure.

If I take a break, do something else, allow myself to get distracted, and best of all start laughing at something - I laugh the stress away! Then I spent some time looking in my art inspiration folder, where I've collected both pencil and colour pencil art that inspires me. Art I would love to be able to do.

I have a basic art plan to work on each week: Figure Drawing Monday, Still Life Tuesday, Wildlife Wednesday, Landscape Thursday, Urban Landscape Friday, Sci-fi Fantasy Saturday, and Colour Pencil Sunday. This gives me goals to work on to improve my art skills. I am also thinking of trying themes for each week, such as movie week, so I pick a reference related to movies for each one that week, a patriotic week, so each one has to be related to something patriotic to my country, maybe a Victorian week, so everything is Victorian related, etc, etc.

To ease myself back into regular sketching, I am also planning to try just a section of a reference photo if I am too overwhelmed by the thought of tackling a whole finished image. I will still be able to practice my drawing and rendering skills, hopefully gain confidence, and then maybe work on a full finished drawing at the end of the week.

That's the plan anyway. The main goal is just to get me sketching again. I want to be good, and I want to improve my skills. I can be a great artist if I practice. I can do this, I just need to try.

ArtOrder Creator - Great for getting new ideas!

I just visited the new ArtOrder blog (they've moved!), and found a link to a really cool ArtOrder Creator widget. You click the AO button at the bottom and it generates a whole series of ArtOrder specifications for you. If there's anything you want to twek slightly, just click the grey buttons to the right of each line you want to alter. It's a lot of fun, and you can get new ideas when you're stuck for inspiration!

Here's what it came up with for me, funnily enough I've been really interested in Steampunk lately, so think I may give this one a try!

(Click image for larger view)

This would also be really handy if, like me, you're an amateur artist and want to see how you could have a go at doing commissions, without actually committing to one and risk letting a client down. A test run if you like!

Planning a Naga - How to draw a monster?

The weather is gorgeous, and I have two days off work this week! Woohoo! I'm going to tackle my next drawing challenge - Wetcanvas' Creature Feature - a Naga. A Naga is a mythological creature, usually seen with a female head and torso, and a serpent tail from the waist down. It has the ability to change form either fully human or fully serpent.

I am not at all experienced at drawing a make-believe monster, or planning out how I want it to look! The links on the Wetcanvas Creature Feature forum lead to images of statues, the Naga creature appears to be depicted as a many headed snake, and I really fancy having a go at that. I will need reference photos of snakes, especially angry looking snakes. I want to do individual heads all looking angrily at the person viewing the picture.

Looking at some other artists work to get ideas as to how they do their monsters, I was looking at Marc Scheff's website, and found this image of a "Scorilla". Not only is it an awesome and imaginative creature, but I noticed he gave it a background that it seems to fit into. So I think rather than just do a dark background, I could do with thinking about where my creature is likely to live, where will it be found? My first thought is a D&D dungeon, though it could also be in the water.


Another artist whose great at doing Monsters is Christopher Burdett, a couple of his images really caught my eye, Galog Bullfrog and Post Apocalyptic, both are action shots that appear to tell a story, and both have extra characters in them you either feel sorry for, or will to fight and overcome the monsters in the images. I would like to include another character in my image, but I'll have to see how I can fit them in. I'm thinking of doing the image in colour pencil on A4 paper (English Letter Size), not sure how much room that will give me to do detail on the secondary character. Although having said that, Christopher Burdett managed to fit his extra characters in easily, although I don't know what size he was working on, probably digital so I guess the size doesn't count the same on the computer!

I'll also need to come up with a pattern on the snakeskin, either similar to that of a real snake, or one made up. I might use a real snake's pattern but change the colours - I quite like the greens and yellows from the first picture of a Naga at the top of this post. :)

This picture is definitely going to be a challenge, but again looks like it will be good for me to improve my skills! Any help or advice anyone can offer would be gratefully received!