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.

A little bit of art...

I've not done much more in the way of art this week, but I did give the picture of the fluffy cat to my best friend as her 30th birthday present. I've also had another idea I want to start, I want to draw all of the main characters from Game of Thrones, although I'm not sure if I want to do them in a realistic style or a cartoon style. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I have done a few quick sketches of bunnies doing yoga poses. It's a series I want to work on, as everyone seems to be into cats these day, I think bunnies are just as cute!

Bunny (child's) pose

Tree pose

Downward bunny (dog)

My idea from last week that was spawned from my dark mood hasn't been touched. Although I'm pretty sure I could've finished it by the weekend, as the week got progressively worse for me at work. I'm learning from my mistakes though, and it's only one person that winds me up (although she winds me the f*ck up!), so I'm not too bothered. I was really tired last week, so it made me really emotional. I'm over it now though:

Not really

However, I feel like I'm going to go into a food-coma, as I've been to an all-you-can-eat restaurant and made a pig of myself.

Anyway, if any of you feel like you're stuck in a creative rut the following might help; my Pinterest of the Week! https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355204608653/

New year, not new me

Another week, another lack of excuses of why I haven't done much art ;)

I'm feeling more lacklustre than usual at the moment, I think with it being Christmas time and lack of routine has left me feeling a bit bummed out. I'm a creature of habit. Good job I found this infographic:

I'm also a bit bummed-out about my financial situation. I'm not broke, far from it, but I'm trying to save up to buy my own house, and it's proving a lot harder than what I though. I've been renting for 3 years now, and I had hoped to have my own house by now, but I keep spending money on going to the pub and on holidays. So I've called up my nearest and dearest and told them we will be hermits this year. We *should* have a half-decent deposit saved by the end of the year.

Here's my doodling I did with my new sketching kit. This is purely done with a pencil, then inked. I'll do a cleaner line version when I get the time, but I want to colour this in.

I've also made progress on my dragon, not sure if the cave looks cave-y enough. Also the rabbit is kind of lost now:

Well, that's about it for this week, of course I will *try* to make more art... but we all know how that turns out with me! Last but not least, here is my Pinterest of the week: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/175640454195289005/

Scaly things

Last week I kind of cheated with my dragon. I wanted to draw scales, but couldn't be bothered to draw every single scale individually, so I made a custom brush and painted them in. I didn't think it looked too bad.
The next Schoolism video showed me how to paint eyes and scales, so I've gone back to the drawing board with the scales on my dragon and refined them:

It looks subtly better now. Oh, and I did some work on the rabbit! I will probably shrink it even more though.

I'm hoping to get the Schoolism course finished now, I'm on lesson 7 out of 9, and I still have 2 weeks to do it. I've also quit Slimming World now, so I'll be getting my Monday nights back. I'm also still a week behind on my writing course, and I'm still as blasé about it as I was last week.

Nothing much to report on from the past week. I have a busy schedule for the next 6 weeks (including, but not limited to: work visit's, seeing my nan, Xmas party, work away-day, Amsterdam and Xmas to name a few!). I think December will be a quiet month for drawings, as I'll be so busy, I'll try to get some things done though.

Also, I've come across a few websites where you design something, and if you upload it to a particular website it can be printed on things like phone cases, cushions, you can earn a commission from it if people buy it! Let me know in the comments below if you're interested and I'll post the links next week.

Anyway, that about wraps it up for this week, I've re-discovered a playlist on youtube, it's called a Study Playlist, but it's good for having as background music while I draw: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx65qkgCWNJIs3FPaj8JZhduXSpQ_ZfvL It's totally not my style of music, but sometimes I don't like listening to someone sing while I'm studying/drawing as I find it off-putting.

And here is my Pinterest of the Week, hope you have a good week everyone! http://lisapace.com/files/2014/07/1601284_802860943081664_2679415269977914934_n.jpg (sorry, I have a thing about rabbits)

Here be dragons!

As it turns out I did do the first Schoolism video wrong, so I've had to go back and redo it. This week I had to do a 3-tone sketch of my design, and it still has to look recognisable:

I'm going to watch the next video once the Formula 1 is done with, although I got wasted last night, and as a result today has been wholly unproductive, and this blog post will be fairly short. Although we did go and watch the fireworks show at my place of work, the fireworks were pretty spectacular. The even has to be called Guy Fawkes night, they can't call it Bonfire night as they can't have a bonfire in the middle of the forest.

On the walk to the pub yesterday I did manage to get some nice autumnal shots on my phone of our local park:

I've completed week 2 of my writing course, I had to listen to a line from a radio station and build a story on that. The line I had was 'Once you come out of a situation like that, it's like coming up from the sea-bed'. Week 3 starts tomorrow.

I've not watched any interesting videos this week, however I do have a Pin on Pinterest, hope you like: http://www.zeutch.com/graphik/moleskine-doodles-50270#

Becoming a recluse!

I finally knuckled down to do some homework this weekend, and have literally not left the house all weekend. I've completed video 2 and assignment 2 of the Schoolism workshop I'm doing, and just about completed week 2 of the Start Writing Fiction course I'm doing with FutureLearn.

I've just finished watching video 3 of the Schoolism course, and realised I've just been drawing animals, not creatures, as the title of the course suggests 'Painting Creatures', duh! So now I need to go back and create some creatures. That'll be in next week's blog entry. However from video 2 I've been learning all about drapery, and had to sketch a couple of things to learn different drapes:

With hindsight the rhino didn't have that many folds in its skin to study, I should've picked something more wrinkly...

Video 3 is going back to my original creature sketches, but I now need to draw some creatures, not animals that already exist.
Also, for week 2 of my Start Writing Fiction course I need to write the start of (or complete) story, no more than 500 words. I'm finding the course quite interesting, and it's harder than I thought it would be, but I'm getting some good feedback from other people on the course.

I've seen this video before but thought I'd share it, as I particularly like the part about showing up to do your part of something, even if some other part of you struggles: https://youtu.be/86x-u-tz0MA

And, as promised I would do a Pinterest of the week. I spent a fair bit of time yesterday trying to find something, then I happened across something which I knew would be right, as it's so cute. Hope you enjoy! http://www.duitang.com/people/mblog/50764978/detail/

The start of my Schoolism subscription

Still back in the old habits I'm afraid, but it's not for lack of trying this week. I've watched the first lesson by Bobby Chui, and whilst there wasn't much visually in the video there was a lot said which has given me stuff to think about. He talks about the virality of art, and what makes art viral. So my assignment was to think up 10 creatures. I've thought of 3, and drawn 2. I don't know how far we're supposed to take the drawings, so I've done it quickly in a cartoon style. What feelings do the following inspire, and would you share them to friends or just move on with whatever you were doing at the time?

Something I know I need to work on is perspective, particularly in the top drawing.

The cool thing about signing up to Schoolism is that (if you sign up for the full course) your work is critiqued, but as I've done mine through Kickstarter I don't get that option. However I see feedback videos that Bobby Chiu has recorded, so I'm still learning a lot from those.

Anyway, I've not done, or seen, much else in the art world this week. I've kind of enjoyed the downtime of not having pressure to draw something every day, however trying to think up 10 ideas for creatures that could go viral has been so difficult. I'm thinking maybe the Tea Dogs idea could be one, however it would need a witty quote to go with it to make it truly humorous. I think I'm just going to go for 5 creatures rather than beat myself up over the fact I can't think of 10, otherwise I will probably spend the rest of October trying to think of good creature ideas. I only have until the end of November on my subscription, so I need to get a move on!