Jaime Lannister colouring (mostly) finished, plus a portrait of Winston Churchill

I've really got my head down this week and finished off Jaime Lannister. There are a few bits I need to sort, but they won't be worth another video, so here are my progress videos:

Something did happen last week though after I uploaded one of my videos to YouTube. The music I add to the video comes from the Free Music Archive. I've always credited the artist, and also put the rights of the music in the description of my video. However, one artist decided they wanted to make money from their music I put in my video, despite the rights not stating this would happen. I couldn't be bothered to fight with them, so I've just replaced it with a free track on YouTube. I've since discovered that the artist puts theri music on YouTube but expects royalties. I'm a bit peeved about it, as my videos aren't intended for making money, so the fact that someone wanted to make money from my video pissed me off. YouTube don't even tell you when an artist claims copyright on the music, so it's something I'll need to keep an eye on.

I logged onto my DeviantArt account yesterday, and came across a Weekend Sketch Challenge, which I thought was interesting:

Sir Winston Churchill

Just in case you've been living under a rock we have a referendum in the UK on Thursday determining if the UK shoud leave the EU. I'll be voting, but I'm not sharing which way I'll vote as it's nobody's business but my own.

Also, I have to say my bullet journal has transformed my life! I've been using it every day, and I've noticed things are just better in my life. I'm pretty much just using it as a to-do list, but it's become my calendar too, so I can keep track of all of the courses I've signed up to.

Well, lastly, instead of a Pinterest of the Week, I'll leave you with the following video, I was listening to it yesterday as I started my Sir Winston Churchill sketch, and thought it had some good information:

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/

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/

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/

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.