More of Cersei Lannister, in different mediums

I tried to paint Cersei with watercolour last week, and although I like the medium, I felt I couldn't get the detail in her face that I wanted, and from working the paper too much with colour and water the paper started to disintegrate:

So I've now had several types of paper so I can carry on with coloured pencil:

Original drawing from the previous timelapses, 150gsm acid-free drawing paper, 100gsm copier paper

So the paper on the left is the coarse paper I don't like, the middle paper is finer, and the paper on the right is copier paper, so smooth. I like the middle paper best, as I can get the right amount of colour on the paper without the texture showing through. On the copier paper, while it was smooth, I couldn't get the saturation right, and the more I worked it the paper started to disintergrate. The only trouble is, I don't have the paper I prefer in A3! So I need to wait until next weekend before I can start to draw, except I'm out next weekend, so even if I can get hold of the paper I want I won't be doing any drawing.

In other news, we had a Bank Holiday on Monday, and in the town I live in we have Charter Day, which marks when the town was founded. It's more for family and kids, so we usually give it a miss, but I had to buy groceries, so we had a wander into town. I went round a local art exhibition (same one I went to last year, although I think most of the artwork has rotated round), and also went to another place which is a local store and the Tourist Information in one (as they also had an art exhibition on). I've seen a summer course I'm going to sign up to, it's just a general art course for the school holidays (6 weeks), and it's working with oils, pastels, watercolour, tonal drawings, still life, etc. I'm not entirely sure I want to do it, but I'm hoping it will give me a purpose to my art.

I've also seen a university course I want to do, it's only a short course (10 weeks), and it's for graphic design. The guy that runs the course is a practising graphic designer, and I'm really keen to do this course, except it doesn't start until April 2017! Oh well, it'll give me plenty of time to save the money for the course.

Well, that's the most I've posted to my blog in the past few weeks, I hope you made it this far! As usual I'll leave you with my Pinterest of the Week: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355205709851/ I love the simiplicity of this watercolour, plus it's a rabbit, which I'm a sucker for.

Game of Thrones Cersei Lannister timelapse finished!

I finished up my piece on Cersei Lannister in colour, I made 2 more timelapse videos:

I managed to stop the overall colour in the video changing too drastically (I shut the blinds, as the changeable British weather means the sun is always popping in and out of clouds), and I put the video camera on a different surface to the one I was working on, so it stopped the camera shaking too much. 

I love watching the timelapses back, as I think it's magical to see my work come back to life. However, I'm not happy with the finished result at all, the paper I used is too grainy, and you can see this in the stokes of my coloured pencils:

So, it's back to the drawing board (pun absolutely intended). I've started playing around with a cheap watercolour set I bought a while ago, and I think for the finish I'm after this is closer to what I want (smooth colour, not grainy colour).

And this week's Pinterest of the week is totally relatable to my art woes, and my hope that watercolour may be the medium I use going forward: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/ATHZu9RGmfIFMG2fkvis1Uj0Z09U-DtL2X-uq8JCCIIgCtGvwzZeX1E/ maybe I should get some of these tools into my art arsenal!

The cat is done, evil will not triumph

I finished the cat! Her name is Milly, and she is the spawn of satan:

Don't let the fluffiness or cute eyes deceive you, she will claw your eyes out the first chance she gets

I really enjoyed doing this piece. There's something incredibly satisfying drawing art traditionally rather than on a computer, however traditional art doesn't have an Undo button (and I had to rub out most of her forehead to redo the eyebrows, yeah, those wispy little white strands). I've even had approval from my peers for this, so it must be good!

On top of the colouring pencils I bought I've also bought some chalks and some wax crayons. More on that on a later post...

The amarylis hasn't bloomed properly. There's 6 flowers in one head, and I think it's just so crowded the flowers won't open properly. And it looks like it's dying :(

I have a couple of ideas in the pipeline for some art (the wax crayons above being one of them), but I need to get a few more bits. I wanted to get some fixative spray for the above artwork, as it's done with graphite. It's a good job I didn't buy the 'fixative spray' from my local stationers, as what they think is fixative spray is sprayable glue!

And lastly is my Pinterest of the week, what this artist does on such a natural and tiny space is incredible: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355204564003/

Portrait of a boy - finished!!

I'm writing this entry a few hours earlier this week, as I'm sat down watching the Grand Prix and waiting for my Sunday dinner to cook.

I've finished my Portrait of a Boy piece, and submitted to the competition:

I couldn't get the contrast I liked, as both the paper and coloured pencil were poor quality (yeah yeah, I know, a workman blames his tools...) but when the total cost of the paper and pencils were about £1.55 what do you expect? I'm at least upgrading to Crayola's next time!

Once I had finished the above I've done some research regarding going freelance, and thought of a much better company name to work from. Although it seems being self-employed is a huge minefield to get set up! I'll keep chipping away at it, but for now I don't have any projects I'm working on. I've not even watched any inspirational video's, all week I've been working on getting the Trailer Tent we bought last week ready for summer. We've run out of waterproofer, so I've got some more on order, and we made the best of the bank holiday weekend by spending all of last Monday in the sun waterproofing the canvas and scrubbing the upholstery.

I've found a few art conventions to go to in the UK throughout the year. There's one in Brighton which seems the most suited to me, but it's miles away! There's also one in London (and I need to take a trip to London to go to the V&A), and Sheffield hosts a design week, which is much closer to home.

I think if anything this week I'll work on a new logo for my new company name, and once I've got the files sorted for my old name I'll post the pictures on here so you can see the design process I went through. I'll also update my Behance profile with the images too.