Self portrait

I particularly like painting portraits and figurative stuff on brown paper and cardboard as it contrasts really well with the pastel hues in skin tones, plus it's free and recycling. I timed this self portrait to try and concentrate on the planes of the face, rather than the features, to help with composition and to keep the piece fairly unstructured and show the brush marks, a style which i love to work in but find quite challenging.

I took half hourly breaks so I could come back to it with fresh eyes, this helps with balancing composition as your eyes aren't automatically drawn to the last place you painted like they do while you're working on it. I always quickly check my line-sight measurements when i return to a painting or drawing to make sure i've not gone too far off course while focusing in on details.

This photograph was taken about half an hour in, I'm disappointed I lost the shape of the nose sketched out here, I'll have to work harder to focus on that next time.

I'm quite lucky that the cardboard is almost exactly the same shade as my eyebrow, it's hard to paint eyebrows in acrylic as it's such a solid medium, it's literally a layer of plastic once it's on the paper and not hugely suited to transparent or opaque textures, which eyebrows are. 

You can see that next to an old self portrait I did a few years ago it's way less overworked around the eyes, I can't seem to make two eyes look in the same direction. I can see that I've made that a bit into my style since the last one, where I left it with one eye, now the face fades out into cardboard and slight structure around the chin and left side. I think I'll play with doing that all over the face, I'd like to have left some more of the cardboard colour showing through around the creases of the lids or maybe the corner of the eye to add a bit of depth.

What do you reckon? anything you think I could do to improve? Anything I could do in future to make the picture look more finished or do you think I left it at the right time? I do love a good natter and constructive criticism

Hugs and cake

Frocktopus

xxx

Sketchbook and journals of the last 10 years - Paintings

I applied for a commission with Milton Keynes hospital and to do it I had to go through decade of journals, paintings and sketchbooks to scan in my very favourite pieces. There's a lot so this time I'll show you some of the paintings.

                                       

It's really inspired me to get painting again, been working on a self portrait today and really loved it. I'll show you next time.

Love and cake

Frocktopus

xxx

Watercolour Historical Fashion Illustration

I've recently bought myself a set of water brushes and don't know how I got on without them, especially as they mean I've been working in watercolour again. it's very easy to make watercolour painting muddy, especially as I tend to work in thick layers, the same way I do with acrylic paint so I tend to use a thick white liquid watercolour for the highlights. I'm going to try more pen and watercolour wash work soon.

The brushes in the picture are Pentel aqua brushes, they're one of my favourite things, I don't really go in for a lot of kit but these work really well and it means I can keep them, an ink pad and a sketchbook in my bag at all times. If you fancy a pack you can find them here, there's also loads of different types out there for varying degrees of money, mine were £3 for three with postage.

On a sad note this painting was done for a local steampunk magazine, unfortunately there was a bit of messing around involved and, not to be a downer on things, I have learnt a valuable lesson not to work for free for a business if you've already heard worrying things, there's plenty of better ways to get your artwork out there. It's not only a waste of time but devalues your work and the hard work of other artists. On a happier note I have discovered an artists union that is trying to stamp out this kind of thing.

You can still have a read of the articles author Sandi James's diary of steampunk events at her blog sandi by gaslight though, it's really sweet and there's loads of fantastic photos of amazing costumes people have made, the fact Sandi makes historical and steampunk clothing really comes through.

Love and cake

Frocktopus

xxx

Watercolour and portrait

I've been reacquainting myself with water colours after buying This inspiring book about urban sketching, as it's still way too cold for me outside at the moment I got some delicious mussels to paint, all in the name of art of course, the garlic and butter was purely aesthetic I assure you.

I've also drawn a get well soon card for my lovely steampunk friend Rhys, this is him in his evil scientist getup from the asylum last year.

Love and cake

Frocktopus

xxx