Summer profty.

I found this massive beetle on a walk yesterday.

Floaty buildings.

Little elf/alien character. Experimenting with acrylic.

Perspective practise with custom brushes in Photoshop.

(Sorry if they won't enlarge, it sometimes does that to them but I

have no idea why. If you know how to fix it please let me know!)

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More links...

Crows by Takashi Okada

Drawings with creases by Simon Schubert

Gabriel Moreno

Cooked Art - An animation blog

Landscapes.

Newsflash!

The great pioneer Andrew Bosley aka Sketch Hunter has just done something incredible. Something astonishingly groundbreaking, cutting edge, and truly revolutionary. Sort of...

Take a look at his automated brainstorm generator here. I think all artists need to prompt their imaginations sometimes, and I personally can't wait to make use of this. Thanks Andrew!

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I haven't been following the digital art scene very much recently, so anyone who has will probably have seen this already, but take a look at Steamnocchio, the winning entry for CG Society's Steampunk competition by Fabricio Moraes.

I'm reading Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" at the moment, so I might have to do some steampunk style art soon. In case you're confused...

“Steampunk”, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the fictional concept of a world in which Victorian technology is projected against modern concepts, e.g. mechanical analog computers instead of digital electronic ones, airships instead of jets, and, of course, steam power in place of internal combustion engines and electricity. (Steampunk is a literary sub-genre, rooted strongly to Jules Verne and H.G Wells).

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Also, James Clyne finally updated his website! I realise that by directing people around the web like this I'm pretty much doing the same thing as Drawn! and Lines and Colors.

...but whatever.

End of the Year.

Well, my Foundation Art Course is finally over. This was the main piece to my Final Major Project, a study on characters and portraiture. I arranged the composition as a book jacket to give it a greater sense of narrative, but it wasn't based on any particular story (Death of a Salesman perhaps, but I think that's a play). The piece was never actually finished, I got bored of it. I don't think I will finish it now, it reads well enough as it is.

I don't have my scanner with me these days, so I've been trying to get back into working digitally on photoshop. These are a couple of excercises at trying to communicate environments, with simple use of tone. It's quite refreshing working without lines for a change.

Moleskine scan. I don't know what I was thinking when I drew this.

I have set up a blog with one of my illustration comrades here at Falmouth - Jim Boswell. I draw trees, he draws armour, hence the blog name. We are going to kick things off by interpreting and illustrating some song lyrics, so keep an eye out for that.

Also have a look at the playful and puntastic work of Arthur Hamer.

And the juicy and erogenous graphics of Roz Edenbrow.

This week I'm going to work on a couple of drawings to be sold at a local coffee shop called Babahogs. I don't know if I'll be able to scan them or not, but I'll try and get a photo of them at least. Also I have epic plans to design and make a deck of playing cards. Kings, Queens, Jacks, Jokers, and some cool typography for the Aces. I'm excited.

Finn Diesel out.

Environments

I sold a drawing this week to a couple of swiss tourists. 

I've never sold anything before.

Feels goooood.

Anyway...

Futuristic environment

A couple of quick sketches with the palette knife brush in Photoshop.

I really missed doing these, more to come.

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Some new favourite pictures...

Tom Scholes is amazing

Jaime Jones is too

A few moleskine pieces.

Moleskine stuff. I was going for a Joao Ruas / Audrey Kawasaki style on the top one.

I've put up a sketchbook thread on ConceptArt.org

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Some good art stuff I've found recently:

A moleskine by Juan Berrio

Heat Death - a painting by Jeremy Geddes

Pencil and ink scenes by Karl Simon

Frog and Eros - illustrations by Sam Weber

Typography made of coins by Stefan Sagmeister

I bought a moleskine. Hooray for me.

See Full Page

See Full Page

I now have a place on the Illustration course here in Falmouth.

Not much to else to say really, but I'm feeling more inspired at the moment so hopefully I'll have more to post before too long. 

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A street performer and a quick attempt at matte painting

Airships

My last project...

...adverts/designs for an airship cruise company. 

Here is the article that helped with the inspiration, and some of my prelimary designs.

Long overdue.

One day I'll draw something other than trees. More here.

This post definitely comes in under par considering its been so long since my last. I'll try to update it with more stuff by the end of the week. 

p.s If there's anyone out there - go have a look at Tycho Cafe. It's a feast for the eyes. 

Foundation.

Unfinished sketch.

Pencil, Watercolour and Gouache.

 Photocopied drawings, cut up and collaged to create a new image. 

Mono Print and pen. 

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An exercise in defining space using tonal value.

Paper and Bubblewrap fish from the construction part of the course.

 Sand sculpture of an engine component [group project].

More Trees!

Over the last few weeks I was keeping a close eye on the Totoro Forest Project, and it inspired me to draw more trees. I can't wait for the book to be released. This drawing (the intro to my art journal) will probably be the first in a long series of organic objects made from mechanical forms. There are some older drawings here and here.

Here is a small doodle from a lecture last week. It was inspired by KofieOne, whose draughtsmanship I really admire. I'd love to do some larger pieces in a similar vein. 

This is a portrait of Bryan Devendorf, the drummer of my favourite band, The National who I was fortunate enough to see live at O2 Wireless this year. This blog is named after one of their songs. 

Finally, a confession. I gave up on that Daily Sketchbook ages ago, which is not to say that I haven't been drawing, but it was really tough to keep up with. It was Lauren Nassef who inspired me to start one in the first place. The portrait above was also influenced by her style.

Patience

So here it is at last. I think the composition might be a bit crowded, but I like the overall design. See those curly decorative things around the text? It took me ages to find out what they were called (flourishes, in case you wondered). I copied those from reference, but the type is my own design.

Scans

Some scans for a new piece...

and a couple of older pictures...

Daily Sketchbook

The first two weeks of my Daily Sketchbook...



I tweaked Day 1 on computer and here is the result. Its unfinished, but I like where its going. I might update this later if I make any big changes to it.

And finally, some abstract shapes...

I'll think of a better title later...

Started as a light pencil drawing, added colour with watercolour and gouache. Then scanned, darkened, and painted over again to bring out the highlights.

More stuff

I usually draw quite tidily, but there are days when I just can't get it right. Today, being one of those days, I decided to take a piece of paper and blitzkrieg it with a biro. So here it is; a 10-15 minute scribble of an armoured car.

I got a place on the Foundation Art & Design course at Falmouth (Cornwall), so in a few weeks I'll be down there doing that. As part of the application process we were asked to interpret the theme of "Layers" so I drew fallen leaves (among other things). These three are my favourites, and the ones which I spent longest on.

Here's another tree doodle from my sketchbook.

First entry

It seems that a lot of artists are using blogs now, so I thought I'd try and adopt it too. I'll try to post sketches and current projects when I'm happy with them.

This is an old doodle that I'm still quite fond of.