The Hummingpecker

This was inspired by a discussion about working methods on Kevin Cornell's excellent site - Bearskinrug.co.uk

Woods

This is a bit of a cheat. It's a drawing I did a long time ago but found the other day. I'll do some new ones soon.

Derelict Building

This brick building is opposite where I work and has stood empty for a long time. I don't think it'll survive much longer.

I drew it from life but again used a photo for the initial colour reference in photoshop. Later I changed the colours a bit and finally I roughed it up in Painter.

Maybe one day I'll be able to paint this kind of thing without the photo for the colour reference. I'm always surprised what colour things are when you use the colour picker.

Clifton

The posh bit of Bristol. People pay huge amounts of money to live in these houses which don't conform to the laws of perspective. I drew it from life but used a photo for the colours. It's interesting also to see how accurate your drawing is when you overlay the photo (the curve of the crescent at the top is way off).

Crane

I went out at lunchtime to do a sketch. I drew for about 8-9 minutes before I got rained on so I came back in and coloured it in. I tried to do the value painting method (3 shades of grey first then add colour with a layer in 'color' mode) It sort of worked but only really started to look interesting when I added a photo of the cranes rusty texture I had snapped a few years back.

This Week

Here's a job that did happen. I did a series of vox pop animations leading up to the election. The interviews were with people in the street who weren't going to bother voting.

There wasn't a lot of time and they wanted about 2 minutes a week. There wasn't much money either - so I had to do it all myself. I'd get the sound and edit it down on on Monday morning, on Wednesday night it was on the TV and I'd have started the second minute for Fridays show! The only way I could do it was to keep the characters very simple - built out of a kit of parts that could be re-used again and again.

Phone

The first picture I've drawn from life in perhaps a year. I'm so ashamed. Still, it's a start. (The idea of flood filling parts of the sketch is shamelessly 'borrowed' from Stephane Kardos. His excellent sketches are here) Let's hope it's the start of some more 'proper' pictures.