Stannis Baratheon finished, also Renly Baratheon is done too

Well, I've really got my skates on this week, I've finished two characters from my Game of Thrones epic drawing quest:

Stannis

Renly

That's all of the Baratheon brothers finished! I totally forgot to draw any poses this week though.

Hopefully some of you more eagle-eyed readers noticed I changed the theme on my blog. I've gone from the vibrant, orange, in-your-face colour scheme to something more muted and subtle.
Some of you may have noticed the theme change, but did any of you notice the new web link I added to my blog? It's in the menu on the right-hand side. I have my own website now! Granted, it's a free website, and it's very basic, but I have one, and it showcases some of my work. Go check it out: http://kimberleykirk.wix.com/illustration

Something I bookmarked a couple of weeks ago is the following web link: http://www.creativebloq.com/illustration/master-art-figure-drawing-new-artists-model-21619041 I'd love to get one of these but can't stretch financially to afford it. Especially as my wooden mannequin is rubbish. Guess I'll have to keep using my pose app on my phone for now.

Also, the amarylis has come back to life, and looks better than before! not sure why it's come back, but it's welcome in my house:

And on a final note, here is my Pinterest of the week: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355204907501/ Daffodils are my favourite flowers, and I have a bunch in bloom where I live. Also my boyfriend bought me a bunch last week, and they've all opened. You may remember a post where I sketch a daffodil on my tablet using a free app, I didn't realise how grey I made the final picture! http://kimshibbybob.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-lady-in-greyscale-and-daffodils.html

Cat WIP

I think I'm over my laziness now, I've been working today on drawing my friend's cat today (she tasked me with it on Monday as I didn't have any ideas on what to draw), and I have a few progress photo's:

Milly, the spawn of satan

I've quit Facebook again, as I spend way too much time procrastinating on there. I'm still on Twitter though. Funnily enough, I do feel like I've got more done since quitting Facebook.

I bought a new colouring pencil kit the other week (a half decent kit this time, not cheap pencils), and I haven't used them! Instead I've been using the kit my parents bought me for Christmas, the cat pictures above have been done with a graphite pencil only. I have an amarylis, and I'm waiting for it to bloom before using my new colouring pencils. It's nearly there:

How many flower heads?!

In November I bought 10 yoga classes at my local leisure centre for £10, which is a bargain. However, the site I bought them from stated it was for yoga, but the leisure centre stated it was for Pilates. When I arrived it had changed again - to Stretch and Tone! Whatever, I enjoyed the class anyway, and even after going to the class on Thursday I'm still aching today. I've also been doing a daily yoga practise using the DoYouYoga Youtube video's, however I can't do them for a little while now as I put my back out today.

Anyway, I'll continue with the picture of the cat and see how far I get. I'm also going to try upgrading my laptop to Windows 10, I'm really apprehensive about it as when I upgraded my tablet the integrated Wacom pen driver wouldn't work anymore. Plus, the tablet kept crashing, so I reverted it back to its original operating system. Here's hoping my laptop copes with the upgrade.

One last thing that I nearly forgot, it's my Pinterest of the week, hope you enjoy! I think it's really pretty https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355204375006/

30 days of lacking!!

Well, I've had a better stab at drawing more this week:

Random lamp study

Quick ornament study

Another hand study

30 days of graphic design. Redesign the nearest shop's logo. This is only a quick sketchy idea

30 days of graphic design. Pick 3 designers and make a new design mixing their styles. I chose Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister & Paula Scher 

I've also watched a film, Inside the mind of Leonardo Da Vinci, which I've found immensely interesting. For example he was an illegitimate child, and because of this received no formal education during his childhood, yet to look at his sketches you'd think he'd completed an engineering degree at university! It's another proven point to me that you don't need to be educated to a higher standard for something in this industry (although I'm sure it helps of course).

I'm not sure if I'll carry on with this particular 30 days of art/graphic design, as I feel it's not drawing. While I enjoy making the initial sketches I don't have the time in the day to make a fully refined drawing every day. After coming home from work, eating dinner, etc I'm lucky to squeeze in an hour to sketch (and most days I don't!). There's loads of other '30 days of art' out there, so I'll find one that will give me the motivation to finish it!

Anyhow, not long now until the first holiday of the year, but first we have AC/DC to see before that in a few weeks! I only have 1.5 weeks left at my current job, it's all happening at the moment!

Being ill and not doing much art, more research

I've been lazy again this week and not done any art except a small logo mock-up for my freelancing (which I will post at a later date). I've also been ill since Friday (nothing serious, just a sore throat but it knocks me for six...), and usually most of my art time is on the weekend, and I've just not felt up to it :( I have been doing some browsing and researching instead though, which I will share with you :)

A few months ago I downloaded the Freelancing Handbook by +Creativebloqq, which is immensely hepful. I've printed my own version and scribbled and highlighted all over it, and this is what properly kickstarted my interest is going freelance. Now there is a new book, although I've not downloaded it yet: Pay Me or Else free e-book at http://thenuschool.com/pay-me-or-else/ I'm not affiliated with CreativeBloq at all, but I follow them on twitter and they usually have something of interest for me to look at every day.

I've been toying with the idea of doing an art collaboration after inspiration in my home town where someone has opened a venue for this kind of thing (although it seems to be for sculptors). I've also been toying with the idea of joining the local art community. They have a free exhibition at a church where I live, I was going to go this weekend but I really don't have the energy to talk to people with me being ill right now. Hopefully I'll get down there this coming weekend.

I've also decided I don't draw enough AT ALL, so I am going to try and make drawing a daily habit, even if it's only 10 minutes. I've found a community on DeviantArt which seems cool, so I'll give them a go: http://improvementdaily.deviantart.com/

Also I know my library do free magazines, but they've never had a good selection. However I checked again this weekend, and they now have Artist's & Illustrator's, and Imagine FX :) So I can now read these magazines for free, happy days!

Anyway, last week I forgot to show you my WIP of my Rainbow Art & Design logo, please see below, enjoy!

Well, that's all for this week, I was contemplating sorting out my greenhouse, but I haven't got the energy to do much at all today (it's taken me 3 attempts over the day to get this blog entry written!), so I'm going to watch the re-run of Britain's Got Talent, have a bath and have an early night, hopefully I'll be better next weekend, have a good week!

Starting my landscape piece & Schoolism

Well, what a wonderful week of weather we've had here in Blight! (That isn't sarcasm) We've been going for a walk every single evening, so I've not had any time to do art or research going freelance this week! That and the fact I committed to spring cleaning the house the next weekend we have crappy weather (which is this weekend).

I did however start my new painting on Sunday last week, as we didn't get the internet back until Monday. I bought a new easel from our local stationery shop, and now I have something to rest my canvas on.

I've had an idea for painting a bigger picture for a while, and last Sunday I had this dilemma with my spare time in the evening; play South Park's The Stick Of Truth, or start my painting, so I did the latter, and I'm glad I did:



Believe it or not that's supposed to be a sunrise!

I've spent 2 hours on that piece so far, acrylic on canvas, and I'm hoping to work on in some more today. I did do another piece before this, on a tiny canvas, it was a Formula 1 car, but I forgot to take a photo of it (I'm writing this at the in-laws so no option to take a photo either), and it's rubbish, I could not get the cockpit to look right! I'll post the picture next week.

I've also signed up to Schoolism's Kickstarter campaign, where I get 2 months' of access to one of their online courses. I've been interested in Bobby Chiu's stuff for a while, so it's great he's making his courses so affordable.

Portrait WIP progress, inspiring talks, and research

I feel like I'm losing my mojo with my life at the moment. This isn't going to be a woe-is-me post, but I'm struggling to find any motivation to do any art or research the things I need to.

I've forced myself to work more on my WIP this weekend, although I've been extremely busy:

All I have done is add extra colour, I haven't touched up any of the skin, hair or hoody. This week I'm hoping to finish off all of the main colour, and then start refining his face and hair.

Every morning I have breakfast, but I'm getting really tired of seeing depressing new bulletins, so this week I've quickly gone through my news app on my phone when I've got up,and then watched some inspiring videos on the internet. I've seen a couple of things this week I want to share with you:

TED Talks - Kickstart your Creativity

There are 5 videos on here, all of which I thought were good. I didn't think I'd like the last one, but after watching it it's given me a lot to think about. To me art has always been creating something that others will think is good, no matter what it is, but my horizons have always been very narrow: traditional media (pencils, paint, etc) and digital painting. But then seeing this guy embrace his limitation showed me there's multiple ways to create something interesting. I'll try to keep a broader mind when creating traditional art.

Youtube - InPursuitOfArt

Art School, University or Self Taught - My Worthless 1st Class Degree

https://youtu.be/741QcPO04As

If you have read my previous posts you'll know about my inner struggle with deciding to start a university degree or not. My partner has not been keen for me to start this for several reasons, the biggest being worth, and I agree with him. For the amount it would cost me would put me into quite a bit of debt. Also I'm not sure Uni would teach me necessary skills (there is a part in the video above where the guy started learning about perspective AFTER Uni!). Also, I would want to go to Uni for the networking, but the course I would do would be homelearning, so aside from forums I would have very little change to network unlike a brick-and-mortar Uni.'s

I've been looking for another opinion on whether Uni is worth it. Every job I come across in the field I want to work in requires a degree OR strong portfolio, of which I have neither. I have read a lot of stories though where people are in a job they love and didn't go to Uni. In my mind I used to have the view of going to Uni = instant job prospects. That might've been the case 20 years ago, but not anymore in the UK. My best friend has a Uni loan for law, and all that happened after she graduated was she working as a cash manager in a bargain store. Now she works in a care home. It doesn't seem right that's she qualified to work in law, but could only get sh*tty jobs. I don't want to spend a lot of money, and invest a lot of time into something that may prove useless, especially when I can spend that time practising and networking. So I think my mind is now set regarding this issue; I won't be going to Uni to further my art education.

Anyway, just to break up the rant above, we picked up the trailer tent on Friday! We've had it out today, and given it a good clean down. Tomorrow we're off to buy some canvas cleaner and waterproofer, also some other bits-and-bobs like pans, cutlery, etc, so we can just go on holiday at a moments' notice!

First set-up, ha!

Also, I lost another pound at Slimming World last week, that's 8lb off in total! I've not had too much in the way of chocolate today, although I didn't go to my parent;s for a scrumptious Easter dinner :)

I've managed to do a bit of research this weekend too. I can't find ANYTHING in the way of art conventions in the UK, I don't think I'm searching the right parameters. However I did manage to find some pricelists that studio's charge, and they vary wildly. I need to look up more places so I have something to base my prices on, that and the fact I need to start working out what I need to stay above the breadline.

Also from the above I've noticed company names seem to be quite snappy, or fresh, or memorable, something which mine isn't, so I'm thinking of changing the name. Mine is so 90's, and I think people would forget it in a heartbeat, so now I need to choose a new name!

Company name.

So next week I should have a more snappy name to brand myself with, finish the WIP and research some more. Have a good week!

Lighter nights and portrait WIP

Not much to report on this week, I've gotten further with my coloured pencil drawing of my best friend's little boy:

When I drew him in pencil I didn't think his cheeks looked chubby enough, (as he has cute chubby cheeks), but now I've fleshed him out a bit and done a bit with his hair it doesn't look so bad now.
I spent ages trying to get the shadows correct on his face, but then I wanted to lay down some different colour, so I have a quick 10 minutes on his hair and started his hoody. I'll carry on working on this during the week.

The clocks went forward an hour today, so it's 7.31pm and it's still light :) I think the sun has set now (hard to see behind all of the houses on my estate), but it means spring is finally here :) Although it is going to be miserable and rain tomorrow. Ha, I'm a typical Brit, talking about the weather!

I've gone back on Tropico, it's nice to have some chill-out time on that. That, and the fact I haven't gone anywhere this weekend. I've bought a trailer tent so I can holiday in the country when the weather gets better, and that's about it!

And at Slimming World last Monday I reached my first half-stone award! In 5 weeks I've lost 7 pounds, keep it coming!

I've finished reading the Freelance Handbook, and made LOADS of notes. I've downloaded Evernote, so I have lots to research now, such as legal stuff, setting fees, wellbeing, resources, etc.

I did manage to critique a couple of pieces on DeviantArt last week, but I think for now I'm going to give my weekly tasks a rest, as let's face it I don't really do them despite trying to make myself accountable on here. Instead I'm going to focus on research the Freelance Handbook, and carry on with my WIP.

Have a good week everyone!