Update!

Well it's official I'm utterly rubbish at blogging! I think I've had this blog over a year now and only updated it half a dozen times...well all my school reports did say 'could do better'. The gap between posts is far too big now to update on everything that's past so I'm just going to concentrate on what's happening now...and hopefully do that more frequently!

Above is my most recent piece of work (unfinished as always with anything i do). She was meant to be wearing a motorcycle helmet but something about it says more 'army' to me then anything else...Might have a go and seeing what different colour palettes do to it before making up my mind.

That's it I'm afraid short and sweet, going to tidy up my desk, have a cup of tea (raspberry & white) and continue sketching for a bit and leave the colouring till tomorrow seeing as i have the whole day off work, instead of trying to cram it in tonight.

So with any luck another little update will be appearing here soon, but just in case don't hold your breath!

Autumn Days

Well i haven't blogged in forever so i decided it's time to get my lazy arse into gear! I always seem to get more productive when the nights get darker, I'm never sure why that is. Probably cause I'm practically nocturnal anyway.

So I've been doing some small amounts of drawing, nothing major and it just seems that i haven't gotten any further forward with my portfolio at all. Which isn't what i was hoping for by this time of the year. One thing i have been doing some work on is designing my own book cover for Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland'.

Not sure how i feel about it yet, but colour is definitely one of things i struggle with most so we'll have to wait and see how it turns out. A lot of my crazy ideas never get beyond the pencil, I've always found applying colour painful to do.

Since I'm being honest one of the other things i struggle with is time; I draw painfully slow (as anybody whose ever watched me draw will no doubt have noticed). A friend of mine recently turned me onto http://www.posemaniacs.com/ which has a brilliant 30 second drawing tool, which I'm finding a big help on that front. When i eventually get round to blogging again perhaps I'll share some of the vaguely human squiggles that result from it. But for now i have a desk to tidy before i can take anything any further, and that looks like it may take some time!

Tyneside Metro Station

Got a camera film back today from Boots, and it had these photos from the metro station at Tyneside in it. I remember visiting there way back before last summer whilst still at university, i was totally captured by the decay and rust; the colours in these photographs are beautiful. I wonder if it's still there, a lot of the station was bordered off when i went, they were busy getting ready to redo it which would be a shame because i love it just the way it is.

I think at some point i'm going to have do some work from these photos, either developing a colour palette for another piece, or drawing and sketching...or maybe something abstract (which i never do) just trying to get down on paper the feeling of the place.

You'll Never Take Me Alive!

Ta-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
i've been drawwwwwwinnngggggggggggggggggggggggggg!
And it made me really happeee! Like 2yr old on a giant orange space hopper happeee, like i wanna take all my crayons and stick em up me nose happeee, like i drank far to much tizer than should be humanly allowed happeee!
And i currently have nothing else to proclaim other than that :) xx

A Moment on the Lips...

...a lifetime on the hips, isn't that what they say?

For xmas i got a chocolate making set, and this is my first attempts at one of the recipes; chocolate truffles. I'm planning on doing a different recipe every week, it's quite challenging as the extent of my cooking abilities is cheese and toast thanks to my days as a student. Seeing as all the recipes involve chocolate in some form i can see it being very rewarding! The only downside is sitting down drawing all the time and eating lots of chocolate aren't a good combo, and being more active is supposed to boost your concentration isn't it? Which would benefit my drawings, no? So i need to find some activity i actually like doing, besides walking the dog or having the dog take me for a walk.



I had a go at drawing my daily portrait earlier but it went squiffy...so i attempted to save it with some coloured pencils, so it's not exactly a portrait in the traditional sense, but thankfully it's not a total disaster either. It needs working into a bit further, fill more of the white space, might try some other mediums in there...shake it up a bit...

Is it Supposed to be a Cartoon?

...those were the exact words that came out of my little sister's mouth while peeping over my shoulder at my work, and no the intention was not to draw a 'cartoon' as she so aptly put it. Sometimes i just have no control over what or how i draw, and this was the result. Not quite a cartoon (not in my eyes anyway) but really that realisitc either, kinda reminds me of a caricature only not exaggerated enough.

Well i may have to get the lightbox out tomorrow and try inking up a few, to see what they look like.

Maybe I'll Be Done By Easter...

Okay, well i have been drawing (honest!) just i dislike most of it muchly, so i thought i'd share this with you instead. This is a rabbit that i was supposed to finish about a year and a half ago as part of a print making module i took at university. On it are screenprinted photos of my family and our various childhoods, underneath that is some monoprinting on the cloth (a old set of pjs i cut up). And while i was banging my head against a brickwall trying to draw something half way decent the purple box file it's been living in all this time caught my eye. So i'm thinking when i need to take a step away from working on some drawing/painting/piece finishing this rabbit would help me destress a bit. So that is what i'm gonna do...