All things 3D

Found a new passion to occupy my time recently.  Not that I have lots of spare time as it is!  I have been playing around with paper, pencils and even silhouette paper and scissors, creating 3D images.  They are only effective if you view them from a certain angle, but it has been great fun.
Made a couple of videos too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9pmIhSDPvQ&sns=em

Here is my little robin for C . . . 

A full explanation of this can be found at my other blog which I use as a newsletter for my local art club.  Please visit these two blogs and, if you can, participate in this worthwhile appeal.

www.watercolourswithlife.blogspot.com

www.ncac12.blogspot.com

Thanks.

Loose portraits.

I thought I would add a reference photo along with one of my loose watercolours.  In this way you can see that I choose a focal point in most of my loose portraits.  Once that is established, there is no need for too much detail to be added, even to the point of dispensing with facial features, like the mouth in this case.

This is titled 'Wonder' and hopefully you can see that there is enough in the little girl's expression to justify such a title.  Makes me 'Wonder' how minimal and loose an artist can be in his / her attempt to get the message across.

The ref photo is from Barbra Tester, a member of paint my photo.  A site that has supplied me with most of my ref photos.  www.paintmyphoto.ning.com

A site well worth joining if you are an artist.

Warm & Cold

With the weather outside changing dramatically now that we are heading into winter, I thought I would add a nice warm sunny watercolour.  This is called 'Cuddles' and is both warm in colours and  in subject.  The reference photograph came once again from the Paint my photo.ning website.

This was quite a bold attempt to put warm hues directly next to cool ones.  Lots of reflected lights here.  The red on the elderly lady's cardigan has been bounced up towards both of their faces.  You can see on her sleeve, the colour has been bleached out.  This is the way it appeared on the ref photo.  I like to think that the colour has moved directly from there up to their faces.  It is just a little thought I keep in my mind when I am doing this type of painting.  It helps to keep everything in harmony.

So now we move into the winter months, and to mark this, here is a much colder painting.  Just two colours used here, ultramarine blue and rose madder.  Once again the subject photo is the flute player.  This is actually version three of this subject.  

In this painting the focal point is the area around the hands, although her foot is fighting for a bit of attention too.  Creating more than one focal point can be worth considering.  It encourages the eye to move over the painting. Her face is only hinted at.  This was quite deliberate on my part.  I feel that those hands and feet deserve centre stage.

Finally, here is a flier for a lecture / demo / workshop that I will be doing at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum next month.  If you are in the area drop in.

A statue and a leaf.

This watercolour of a flute player is taken from a photograph by Steve Lyddon on the Paint my Photo site.  I just knew when I saw it that I would do a watercolour version of it.
I intend to redo this as some of the proportions are not just quite right, but the general idea is there.
My intention was to give the painting that 'fresco' look.  Steve has taken quite a few photographs of
statues and most of them look very appealing to an artist.

There were just three colours used in this project.  Turquoise, Indian red and Yellow Ochre.  For the marble-like tones on the face I used the turquoise with just a touch of Indian red to tone it down.  For the darker colours I did the opposite.  My Indian red had a touch of turquoise.  The yellow ochre was added near the end to warm up certain areas.

I didn't pre-draw any of this, which is a pity as the arms and hands didn't turn out the way I wanted.
Here is a picture of the painting taken about half way through.

I would have preferred to stop just after this stage, but this has been a worthwhile exercise.  Watch out for the new version on here soon.

Around about the same time,  I cut a silhouette profile of my granddaughter, Jessica, from a leaf.  

This was quite difficult as the cut tends to want to go along the grain of the leaf surface.  It probably 

isn't too good for my scissors either.  Here is the result below.

Elvis Presley Silhouette

Kind of addicted to these crumpled banknote silhouettes.  This one, created recently, is a silhouette profile of Elvis created from a crumpled 50€ banknote.

I have always been a big fan of Elvis from as far back as I can remember.  I have lost count of the number of drawings and paintings I have done of the King of Rock n Roll.
This depiction is unique.  I could never have foreseen me doing this years ago.  Silhouette images have been a passion of mine for some time now.  I enjoy the silhouette cutting jobs that come my way, but this new angle is also exciting.

I am sure that other ideas for recording silhouette profiles will come along soon.  Handshadowgraphy is another interesting representation of projecting silhouettes using hands and a single light source.   It is an amazing form of art which brings movement into the art form too.

I can thoroughly recommend New York artist, Kumi Yamashita.  She does amazing work with light and shadow, as well as other art forms.  You can see her work by clicking HERE

The Queen escapes!

Following on from my crumpled paper silhouette, I have been searching around the house for paper that lends itself to folds and creases that stay permanent.
I found that paper money suits best, so I thought I would have a little fun with a £5 note.
This fiver has been long since spent, so don't go looking for it in any art galleries.   :-)

This was a my first challenge to try and achieve an actual likeness from crumpled paper.  So the challenge was too inviting to resist.  I just HAD to do a silhouette of the Queen tying to escape through the back door of a bank note.  I hope I have succeeded in this little project.

No offence Lizzie!  If this ever reaches you . . . enjoy.