Burlesque Drawings & Watercolours

A double headed monster post today. This week I have been mostly teaching myself watercolours and working on more burlesque themed illustrations.

The watercolours are pretty humble beginnings but I am progressing with them pretty well. They are of Kedleston Hall's grounds as well as random forests from my rather large back catalogue of tree/forest photos. I was off plein air painting today but the rain was relentless so I bailed and spent my bank holiday in the studio instead.

For the Burlesque stuff a massive thanks once again to Miss Rain Photography. You can get to her blog from my friends section on the right hand side.

The models here are Missy Malone as the devil on white, Sherry Trifle as a trifle (!), Scarlett Daggers in the dark vignette image, Trixie De Licious tweaked with a nice new blue background, Frankii Wilde as a devil on green paper and Anna Fur Laxis as a sailor. I started playing with my old Psy-Chics idea again too. The big head on its own is my playing with stylisation. I also did an interpretation of another one of Frankii following the same style. Whew! I also have some oils on the go but none are quite ready to share yet.

Working Hard

I have been really going at this week and have had a lot of fun playing. Here's what I have: Another one of the fabulour Missy Malone. She is more like a Gil elvgren girl than the real models he used. So much fun to draw! I am quite pleased with the style of this one... Massive thanks to Emma at Miss Rain Photography for the photo ref.
Millie Dollar from one of Miss Rain Phoography's awesome photos. Oil on canvas board 24x30cm
I am continuing to try and get a handle on gouache and watercolour. This one is larger than the last two. About 8" tall. I did quite a few before these that no one will ever see... its a tough medium!
This is my best life portrait so far. I managed to knock it out in an hour and a half. It just seemed to come together quickly. Hopefully I have turned a corner and it was not just a fluke. Find out next week :) A quick oil sketch from another of Emma's photos. This one is a bit of a departure from the ref. I have since discovered that the model is the wonderful Trixie D Licious.

Hope you likey! Off to read some more Loomis now.

wippage

Doing a digital colour version of that Vendetta drawing. C&C welcomed.

Illustration Experiements

Here is my first batch of illustration experiments for the burlesque drawing series (on sale in the near future). I have decided to try and at least cover my material costs as I go along with my art comings and goings and this will be my first venture in doing so. My wife is starting her own business so we are real skint for the time being! The missy ones are reffed from a photo that Emma did (MISS RAIN PHOTOGRAPHY). The Vendetta's are from I snapped at the last Dr Sketchy Nottingham. The drawing in the previous posts are the basis for these images. I have used all sorts with these. Pen, pencil, posca, watercolour, gouache & markers.

The 2 landscapes are from photos that I have taken. They are very small (6x3" approx). I am teaching myself watercolour gouache. Early days heh!

missy malone

Hi all. This is a drawing I am using as my guinnie pig for some illustration tests. It is of Missy Malone. The photoref is by Miss Rain Photography. I have been making a set of ilos using this and the vendetta linework as tests for a new body of work. Been having great fun playing. Will post more soon!

closeup

Twins

This is a digital illo that started off as a lunchtime speedpaint. I have been doing a few pieces playing with a more illustrative aesthetic. Silly subject as the speedpaints often are but I really enjoyed how this one developed. I used ref from Mr Janum stock over on deviantart for the girls (amazing body of ace stock ref photos).

Bits and bobs

Hi everyone. Bit of a mixed bag this time. There are a couple of drawings that are part of some illustrative stuff I am doing. They are of Vendetta Vain from the last Dr Sketchy Nottingham.

We also have a 2 and a bit hour painting from life done at the Malt Cross Life drawing group and a 15 minute drawing in compressed charcoal from the week before. I recently bought a book of Sargent charcoal drawings and am going to do studies of them. Here is my first. I nearly gave up but was glad I persevered. I struggled with the tooth of the charcoal paper: getting back to the white of the paper was hard. I imagine I just need to practice... tips from any experienced charcoal-ers are welcomed!

En Plein Air

I have managed to squeeze in 3 seperate en Plein Air painting days into my easter break. I think its the most fun that I have had paintings so far and will be doing it as much as I can in the future. All of the following paintings are 30cm wide and were done on my little pochade box setup.

The first trip was to Bluebell forest near my parents farm house. It was an interesting day: my debut at doing plein air work in public. It was much less of an ordeal than I had suposed it would be though. People were kind and despite it being very busy i was not interuppted all that much. About 2 hours each on these 2.


My next trip I was accompanied by the excellent Mr Sean Donaldson a fellow concept artist from my team at work. We journied over to Dimmingsdale near Alton (of Alton Towers fame). Dimmingsdale is a mind blowing location and I think we will be revisiting it again and again. We were spoilt for choice but settled down for the afternoon in front of the famous chained oak. It is in a bad way but was a very exciting subject to paint. Sorry for the glare on this photo! I think this is about 5 hours worth of pretty intense painting.

My final trip we got together a little group. Neil F Roberts, Aidan Wilson and Jon Cave (excllent fellow who runs a life drawing group at the Malt Cross on wed evenings in Nottingham) all met in a car park off of the A52 (sinister I know) and then went location hunting in the vicinity of Belvoir. It was an ace day.
Neil got me to take some wip shots of my first piece (i also included a photo of what I was painting):

We then went to a lovely country pub, had a pint of ale and then set off to find location 2, based on the barmaids recommendation! We got a cracking view of Belvoir castle from a nearbye village. Ace! Here is my last one on the easle.