Short but sweet

There's not much to report on this week, as I've done no art! I've tried to work on my digital drawing of Cersei Lannister this afternoon, and I've spent a couple of hours working on her hair, but I realised I hadn't done it long enough at all. That's and my laptop crashed, so I've thrown my toys out of the pram and not doing anymore today. My mood isn't helped by the fact I had so little sleep last night due to being in the sweat box of a spare room my nan has. So I'm pretty grumpy today, and in no mood to do art to make up for the fact I haven't done any all week.

On the upside I've bought more paper (although it's still not the same stuff, but it's got to the point where it will never be the correct paper as it's been discontinued, so I'll have to make do with what I have).

I finished the Shaw Academy Graphic Design course, and found the last 2 lessons pointless; needless to say I won't be signing up to their advanced course, nor paying to take the final exam to get my certificate of completion. I have seen a short course to do at a university, but after seeing what this online course was like that I've just done I need to go through the university course with a fine toothcomb before committing money to it.

I'm doing a school holiday art course starting on Thursday for the next 6 weeks which will be interesting, I've managed to get some of my colleagues to join me too.

I've also started following a blog: http://drawboy.blogspot.co.uk/ but I'm finding my blog isn't generating much traffic though Blogger, so I'm thinking of moving it to WordPress and see what they're about.

Anyway, I'm not one for sentimental inspirational quotes, but I'm feeling down in the dumps today, so here's one for my Pinterest of the Week: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/494833077785572089/

The start of Jaime Lannister!

Well, my laptop is still working! I also had a fantastic holiday, I didn't want to come back, who would with pictures like this?

Porto Cristo, Mallorca

The day after I came off holiday I decided to make my back yard a usable space, it's a good suntrap for the afternoon and early evening, and it was just a dumping ground before. Now it's nice: 

Anyway, I've not done much art again since coming back (and I did zero on holiday), but I've been working on Jaime Lannister today:

I did do another Cersei Lannister test on the new paper, and I really didn't like it, so I've gone back to my original paper that I did Cersei Lannister on, and I'll be using that going forward. Plans for next week it to just carry on with this project :) There's a website coming back online, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, it's called Briefbox. They were hacked last year, and took the opportunity to sort out their security, and upgrade the website too. I'll have a look at it when it's back online. The owners post briefs online for you to work on (ie logo design, graphic design, illustration, etc), but they're made-up. It's quite good to use to practise. The old website is still accessible: http://briefbox.me/

I've also come across a concept I like the look of: A bullet journal, you can read more on it here:  https://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelwmiller/how-to-start-a-bullet-journal?utm_term=.do6YMLDBQb#.brOxvy6M3A

Anyway, I'm off to watch the Canadian Grand Prix (my favourite, Jenson Button has just dropped out of the race as his engine set on fire), so I'll leave you with my Pinterest of the Week: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355205688849/ For once it's not anything arty, but I feel like since just before my holiday and after my tolerance to idiots is improving!

Game of Thrones: Still working on Cersei Lannister

I've not had much time to work on my art this week; I've restarted Insanity so I've been going to bed early to give my body time to rest after the intense workouts. I did finally pick up the paper I think I'll get on with, but I only got it yesterday, and I've since been in Derby visiting family so I've had no time to do anything with the paper yet. I have done some work in Photoshop this week though while I've waited for the weekend to come around so I could buy the paper:

I can't show you the timelapse video for this; it took nearly an hour to render a video that was poor quality, so I'm not going to upload it to YouTube. I've also since broken my laptop, it still works for now, but I dropped it while it was plugged in, and I dropped it on the edge it was plugged it, so the case and ports in that area are cracked and bent out of shape. It does still charge (fortunately, but I'm now uploaded everything to the cloud incase the laptop gives up the ghost), but I'm worried when I try to fix it I may damage it more. Currently I can't shut the lid. I'll have to see how it goes.

In other news, my long-awaited holiday is next weekend! I'm away for 2 weeks, so there won't be any blog posts. I will take a sketch pad on holiday with me, but the likelihood of me drawing anything is pretty slim, as I will be sunning myself round a pool drinking beer.

So, as I don't have anything further to update, I'll leave you with my Pinterest of the Week before my laptop dies a death: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355205811079/ I just think it's a very pretty piece, I love the colours and the concept of the peacock big cat.

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!

First Game of Thrones timelapse has landed!

I've had a week off from the crazy drawing, I've been pretty busy at work, so it's been nice to have a break during the week. I have started colouring Cersei Lannister in though, although I'm concerned it doesn't look like her:

I also came across these common problems posters for graphic designers, they're quite amusing: http://www.creativebloq.com/posters/posters-sum-designer-problems-111517875

Aside from that there's not really much to report on, so I'll leave you with my Pinterest of th Week, the colours are so vibrant on the first piece! https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355205709830/

Cersei Lannister finished, now struggling with Ned Stark's hands!

So I finished Cersei last week:

And I've made a start on Ned Stark, although I'm struggling to draw his hands, so I've left them off for now:

I went for my night out in Sheffield last night, and it was a blast, I had so much fun! I think everyone else did too. We went to a place called The Smoke for food, followed by a bit of light-hearted gambling in the casino next door (I managed to make £10 stretch for nearly an hour!). After that we had some more drinks and danced the night away. I don't feel too rough either today, especially because I mixed my drinks: rum, prosecco, wine and lager! Although I've found I have no patience for anything today, so I've kind of given up on Ned Stark.

We also went out on Friday night to our local pub, where a band called Smells Like The 90's was playing, and the music was very good, the singer changed his voice to sound like the bands they were covering, and we have everything from The Verve, Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Rage Against The Machine and Nirvana.

Our lottery numbers didn't come up for the Irish, so I'll have to keep playing and hope for that win.

Well, I have no plans for the coming week, my boss's boss is leaving on Wednesday so the whole office is going out for lunch. I'll leave you with my Pinterest of the Week, the colours and level of detail is stunning! https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355204907823/

Struggling with Cersei Lannister

I've spent quite a bit of time on this, but I'm struggling with her face, and also her hand holding the wine glass:

I've spent more than an hour on this

I also know I need to sort the wrinkles out on her sleeve. I'm not sure if I'll get round to finishing her tonight, I went out for a meal and drinks with the family last night, and I'm feeling a little tired from it :)

As it turns out last weekend I managed to play 14 hours on Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, as well as do other things such as cook a Sunday roast and wash the windows! I've only managed a more respectable 5 hours this weekend.

I've seen something else I'd like to buy in the future. I have some good conversations with my boyfriend on my drawing skills, and he's always telling me I'm better on paper than I am digitally. The Wacom Bamboo Spark seems like a good investment, and I will probably buy it one day. There's a review here: http://www.creativebloq.com/hardware/review-wacom-bamboo-spark-11618921

Something else I've agreed with my boyfriend is if our 3 numbers come up on the Irish lottery again then we'll go to the British Grand Prix this year.

Well, that's it for this week. I have no plans during the week, but I'm going out with my workmates for an afternoon in Sheffield on Saturday. I don't think I'll get too drunk, but you never know!

And before I forget, here's my Pinterest of the Week: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/314548355204907532/ I've bought a watercolour set, I wonder if I can paint something as nice as this?