Dark And Moody Happy Me

I took this picture today.

It has everything I'm looking for for my next drawing. It is industrial and architectural. It has a strong perspective and lends itself to be portrayed in a dark manner. It's far and away removed from the practise work I have been doing which has included a watercolour of a tree on a field's edge.

What I want to be doing is drawing and painting. The two can sit side by side but I can't make that work. It doesn't work in my head so it'll never work on paper. The drawing part I'm happy with. Hours and hours of working my pencil has paid off. I've been re-united with my graphite stick and I couldn't be happier, we work well together.

I've come to the conclusion that painting will be something I do for fun, maybe I'll get better, maybe not. So how do I quell the need to bring brush to hand? The answer is water soluble graphite sticks and ink. I can use the graphite in the same way I always have but with the option of getting a wet brush and further blending and experimenting. The ink was a happy coincidence. I read a blog called 'Drawn To Life'. Sian who writes the blog was working with ink and I thought I'd give it a go. I liked it. It's like watercolour but less forgiving but I seem to have got used to that quite quickly.

So I have settled at last. Graphite, water soluble graphite and ink. Now that I'm comfortable I've raised my own standards and in doing so my work will be larger and take more time which I like the sound of.

There will be results and I'll post them here just not in quite the volume of the last six months.

By the way Sian's 'Drawn To Life' blog is worth taking a look at whether you're thinking of getting artistic or you already are.

Slow Burn

So who fancies a game of chess?
This is me sending out an open invitation to a game of correspondence chess. I'll explain then you decide if it's for you.
For a start it's really quite old fashioned. It's all done via snail mail on postcards. I've designed special postcards because the official correspondence chess ones require way too much information. This is a game, not a test! The rules are quite simple. You and I play chess at our own pace, no clocks, no pressure. There's also no space for technology. No using a chess computer of any sort. My brain against yours. The games take as long as they take. You make your move in the time it takes for you to do so, same for me.
So there you go. If you like the idea then comment on this post or if you have my email address then contact me directly and we'll start a game.
I'll go first and be white for our first game but after that we'll come to a decision somehow.
This is life in the slow lane.
It'll be fun.

No More Blank Canvas

I'm a stickler for detail.
Planning and preparation play a big part in my personal projects. I need to know that something can be done and if so how it's done before I make it part of my work. As you know since last year I've been drawing a lot, playing with real and virtual mediums including 3D. I now know what can and can't be done by myself and my software. This gets me to planning and in this case it's my rough storyboard sketches. This is worthwhile because as I have found out the positioning I did in my head for each frame was a bit off. It's much better to see it all on paper and make the necessary corrections.
With that done it's time to go into production of my first comic strip which will be on Wednesday.
It's a day I'm looking forward to.

My First Character Sheet

My eyes are square.
I've just spent the last seven and a half hours making stencils for ArtRage.
The idea is that I can produce precomposed layouts for my Skint comics. I'll still need to draw a lot by hand and then turn that drawing into vector art for print and the web but the scaling and positioning can all be done on the PC prior to getting my pencils out. The character sheet above is an example of what my stencils look like and as time goes by I'll add different shots and poses to my arsenal.
At the beginning of this cartooning mission I'm on I wanted to do everything by hand with only the final inking done digitally but as time has gone by I've realised that the look I want is way too precise for pencil and paper alone, besides, I'm good with software so I should use everything at my disposal.
I'm at the stage now where I'm ready to start on my first strip as my method is pretty much nailed down. The final result will take time and as usual it'll look effortless but that's what all the hard work so far has been for.
I'll let you know when the first comic strip goes online.
It won't be just yet but it's definitely on the horizon.

Elusiveness Found

Once in a while one gets something really good.
I found ArtRage as an iPhone app. I found the interface clean and easy to use and the range of tools was good. I decided to take a look at the PC version and liked the look of it and the feature list was good so I purchased the ArtRage Studio Pro version.
After using it for a couple of days I can say that it is by far the easiest, most pleasurable piece of software and that it lives up to and beyond my expectations. What it is is a tool for artists. What it is not is a tool to turn you into one. There are plenty of helpers to make your digital art easier and a couple of cheats but beyond that it's a fully stocked set of materials and a blank canvas.
It's going to be one of the pieces of software that gets used all the time for all kinds of different things.
It's my new right hand man.