This was a picture I decided to do, it was always going to be a challenge because I decided it was going to be large.
I wanted to do a vectorised close up version of my youngest neice Isla, so I started with a picture I took of her (in the bath actually) and it was a lovely picture because it was her looking at my wife Cath.
I was a good photo but I wanted to simplify it as much as possible by converting it in Illustrator to a vectorised image. I wanted as little detail as possible so that you had to view the picture from a distance to appreciate it. Perhaps not the most practical of ideas as it needed a large amount of space to display it the way I wanted but I felt that it needed to be done.
I spent a long time working on the image in Illustrator. I used the ‘Live Trace’ options on the image for a long time trying to get it to as close to the image I had imagined. Then once I had got to as close to perfect I then had to get out the direct selection tool and edit every anchor point and bezier curve. I deleted a lot of the anchor points to smooth out the image to achieve the look I was aiming for.
Once I was finished in Illustrator I then had to transfer the image to the canvas. I printed out the image on A4 paper in a 3×3 poster configuration and covered it with masking film. I was planning to use the masking film directly on the canvas but it wouldn’t stick to it well enough to stop overspray from my airbrush. So I cut out the masks and used them as stiff masks and held them down with nuts and bolts to keep them in place while I sprayed.
A major issue I had was mixing the paints, I used standard acrylics watered down to spray well through the airbrush, but the problem was mixing the right colours. I made a few of the colours a bit too dark but with them being acrylics I could spray over them with the correct colour.
If its going to be simply beautiful, it needs to be simply done.
This was a picture that seemed to take an age to complete, it didn’t, but it felt like it as I was doing other things aswell. Not been in the mood to get this one finished, and with thanks to Mr Cameron I have had other things on my mind. I tried and tried to get the green shallow water right so many times, I didn’t manage to but I did the best I could given my current skill level.
The original image was a desktop/screensaver image that I liked. After looking at this image for so long it wont be my screensaver anymore.
Given the style this is painted in, it is almost an abstract. The style was meant to me rough and loose and I think I achieved that. It isn’t a style I have used before so it was new to me and quite enjoyable, I saw this style initially on by an artist on Reddit and liked it so replicated it. Finished 14/11/2011
Drawing of the Stonemen of Easter Island (again). I went with a charcoal medium this time, really unsure why I keep returning to draw these.
Heard this quote from El Greco in a programme last night: “The most powerful art is the result of the human imagination as opposed to the slavish imitation of nature”
I could not agree more.
I am really not sure what this is. I know I wanted to try out the thin masking tape I got and also the masking fluid and this is what happened. I also bought some numbers and cute stickers and that I replicated the cow in the square box. This was done using acrylics that I mixed. Started and finished 26/10/2011
This is a pencil drawing of the Stonemen of Easter Island. I have always liked the look of these behemoths and not sure why, perhaps because they have a stoic quality to them. This was just a sketch from a picture I found on the net. I initially wanted to airbrush these but the sketch gained too much momentum to paint over them. I plan to do an airbrushed Stoneman when I return to this subject.
Finished 26/10/2011
This is a self portrait from a picture taken by my wife at Walton Gardens. I transferred the image into Illustrator and traced the image and then used the colours to form an interpretation of my image. After a few crops in Photoshop I came up with this head and shoulders shot. I wanted to keep the number of colours used to a minimum so I ended up with 6 colours, any fewer and it became an abstract, I didn’t want that effect in this image so I increased the colours until I didn’t lose the point of the image. I printed out lots of copies of this in poster form over 2×2 A4 sheets then taped them together. I placed masking film on the paper, but the masking film doesn’t stick to canvas. I cut out the masks for each colour and used weights to stick down the paper covered with masking film and airbrushed each colour separately. The paints used were my own acrylics mixed thoroughly with water. Finished 23/10/2011.
A picture from a dream and the result (not quite the result I wanted) but I went with it anyway. Finished 13/10/2011.
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