Jakes Art Blog

MISFITS II

2011-12-19T05:12:00.001-08:00

Calling this done I think, thanks for the responses on the last post. Here are indivdual sheets and a few closups as well as a revized main image.

MISFITS

2011-12-16T05:27:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone. This is a WIP of an ilo I am working on of the marvelous MISFITS characters from E4. Just for fun, I have really loved the 3 seasons of this show and just wanted to do something with the characters. Feedback welcomed as I intend to spend a bit more time on this one yet.

compressed charcoal

2011-11-26T12:41:00.000-08:00

Been playing with compressed charcoal. Heavily inspired by on of my art heroes, the fabulousMr Nathan Fowkes. If you are not familiar with his exquisite work then check it out here: MR FOWKES. I have miles to go but i really progressed a lot with these two... I took progress photos as I worked on one of them and made a little 3 stage gif so you can see what i was doing a little. They are both a bit overworked and i need to work on my simplification a great deal but this will come with practice hopefully. Model is Missy Malone (again :) reffed from the shoot with Miss Rain a few weeks back.

mark making experiments

2011-10-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am playing with some new techniques. These are all drawn using a hatching technique where I attempt to follow the surface forms. Next up I am going to try a more contemporary illustrative thin line technique...

The two lady heads are both Missy Malone and the chap is Joey a local life model. Apologies for poor photos of these drawing the light was failing and so they are a bit grainy..

Dr Sketchy Nottingham October 2011

2011-10-16T04:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't shared any of the fast drawings from the Dr Sketchy Nottingham sessions for a while. We had a blast yesterday and people did some great work. Here are my favourites from the session:

The first two were 10 minute drawings and the 3rd/4th were 5 mins. I was very pleased with the last one.

2 new paintings

2011-10-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Two new ones. One was a birthday present for a friend, its a double portrait of his two marvellous little lads (one of which as been dressed as Superman for a full year now!!-he only responds to the name Superman man now and even dresses as Clark Kent over the top of his Superman suit, brilliant!!)

The second piece is of Aisling Grace Flaherty its been floating around my studio half finished for months but I finally grabbed another session on it and got it finished. I am pleased with the handling on this one. My first piece in the Burlesque series was of Aisling so its nice to get back to her once more. The photo ref is another one of Emmas: Miss Rain Photography.

3 paintings

2011-09-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

Here are 3 recent paintings. The landscapes are both wedding presents for friends. Lake bled in Slovenia and St Ives in Cornwall Both are from photos that the respective grooms took. The portrait is my wonderful wife Becky. I started it from life (2 hours) and then finished it in another session from a photo taken during the painting session.

Life painting

2011-09-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

We had an all day life session a couple of Sundays ago. It was ace to be able to take my time and not have to paint from life at a manic pace. I am hoping to do more of these all day sessions. Roughly 5 hours painting here.

If you are in the Nottingham area and want to attend Jon's brilliant life session on wednesday evening then pop along to his facebook group. He is a great teacher and an extremely nice guy to boot!

LINKY TO LIFE SESSIONS

A break from watercolours

2011-08-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

I was painting in the studio today and decided to photograph some bits and bobs that i had lying around.

I have knocked my watercolours on the head. I keep dabbling across to many different areas and am ending up Jake of all trades, master of nowt! I loved doing them but realistically I have miles to go before I end up with anything decent...

I had a bit of an epiphany and decided that I really ought to try and limit my art activities to concept art and oil paintings as they are my two main joys. So here are my last couple of watercolour bits as well as a few plein air oils.

I am busy doing a film project with some mates and also have a a batch of concept art and some oils in progress but its all pretty long term stuff.

Chin chin my dears. What what!

Sudbury Hall
A seagull
A sunset. The horrid separation of the green fields and the orange sky kills me on this one but I was learning lots about application through Nita Engle's wonderful book.
Lots of Nita Engle texture technique on this but another failure overall
A splendid tree painted en plein air from the grounds at Sudbury Hall. I love a good tree.
Plein air oil from Sudbury. Ran out of time but learned a lot through doing this.
I did this one ages ago but only photographed it today.

stuff!

2011-08-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I updated this thing. I have been super busy with various art stuffs. I just finished a coule of sheets or robot thumbs and decided to upload a few other digital bits and bobs that were gathering computer dust. The first one is reffed from a famous photo of the lovely Brit Eckland. I did it a few months ago as a warm up for doin the burlesque drawings.
I have a few things that are nearing completion so pop back soon!

A lesson learned!

2011-07-30T03:22:00.000-07:00

On a recent painting trip it rained and I kept painting anyway. The rain fell on my palette and painting but the oil and water seemed to stay separate. I did my best en plein air piece so far...

I left it alone in the studio to dry and came back a few days later. I was pretty gutted by what I saw. The whole piece was now covered with a network or cracks and all the darks had chalked out. Stupid rain and stupid Jake! The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the board I used had a heavy amount of old (several months dry) paint on it so the old thin over lean rule was broken.

I will be adding a big umbrella to my painting kit asap.

Here is the piece including a detail:

Pennies for paint

2011-07-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

My lovely wife has started her own business so we are pretty tight financially now. I need to make my art pay for itself so am selling off my en plein air and burlesque work here:

ORIGINAL ARTWORK FOR SALE

The prices are extremely modest as all I need is enough to buy paint and supports. It might be a fine old investment for you. If you see something on my general blog that you are interested in that is not on my art for sale blog then please shout up. Thanks guys!

Prints For Sale

2011-07-07T14:44:00.000-07:00

The incredible Missy Malone is now selling prints of the series of pin-up illustrations I did of her. Pop along to her website & buy a set! I am proud of this series, they are great fun!

BUY PRINTS HERE

Huge thanks to Miss Rain Photography for Emma's wonderful photography. You can see Emmas work here: http://www.missrain.co.uk/

Holiday Watercolours

2011-06-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

My lovely wife and I spent last week in Dorset. I managed to do a fair bit of painting with my watercolours. The landscapes are about 50/50 plein air/ from photography.

These first three are separate to the holiday. Fist is a drawing of Millie Dollar, the other two are more gouache paintings of Lud's Church.

feedback wanted

2011-06-16T05:20:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
I am going to be selling soe prints of this series. Missy Malone will be taking them on the road with her to sell to her adoring fans. Initially we were going to just use the pencil lineart but I got a little feedback and made the toned versions below.
What do you all think? They will have a very low price point per print (less than £10) but I think the toned versions make it feel like more of a colecatble set...

Tassles and Trees

2011-06-11T01:15:00.000-07:00

It seems that my art practice is mostly about tassles and trees at the moment. I am really enjoying both avenues a lot so i guess you will be seeing more of both! I have a lot of different stuff in this dump. I have been sticking at my watercolours (still working hard despite finding them so hard. I feel I am making decent progress though. Whenever I make a really bad mistake it certainly teaches me a thing or two! Getting just the right amount of water on the

paper is a big issue and also trying to get my head around the water content of my colour mixes dictating the tonal value is a killer!

I was very pleased with this one: watercolour of Anna Fur Laxis from another of Emma's Dr sketchy photos. It was done very quick as is so often the case with th ones I end up liking. Anna just won a big prize in Las Vegas so well done her. Her routine at sketchies was the best I have yet seen, brilliant stuff!

Next up are my landscape watercolour efforts. slow progress but enjoying the medium a great deal.

I have been neglecting my master studies and will be sinking a week or two into them soon. This one is a Velasquez. He was quite simple the man!

Little watercolour of Franki Wilde.

You have all seen this one before but i got to varnish it and take a better photo. It looks much prettier this time around!
My first studio painting on my 'In a forest theme'. Loved doing this one!
That is all for now! Thanks for stopping by my dearest old chums!

Missy Malone Oil Painting

2011-06-04T09:56:00.001-07:00

I have finished a new painting. It owes a massive debt of thanks to Emma who took the great photo and to the incredible Missy Malone who is an absolute pleasure to draw and paint. Her eyebrows are simply incredible!

Woohoo!

Burlesque Drawings & Watercolours

2011-05-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-22T11:09:00.001-07:00

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

2011-05-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

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

Illustration Experiements

2011-05-18T14:57:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-17T05:03:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Present

2011-04-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

Hi all.

I painted this last week for my finest of friends Hannah, for her birthday. She is a truly splendid individual and it was great to make her a gift that she really seemed to like.

The painting is of her son Ted on the beach in Barcelona with his lovely auntie Heidi.

This one is on linen canvas and took around 10 hours. I have also included a wider shot so you can get some idea of context. My paintings never look so good on the blog as they do in the flesh and a friend suggested I take photos that show something of the surroundings in them.

Dr Sketchy April 11

2011-04-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

Dr Sketchy Nottingham was particuarly ace today. Fun fun! These are all very quick... a whopping 15 mins on this one: 10 mins:

5 mins:

15 mins.

Cheers !

Studies and practice!

2011-04-13T11:54:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone.

I am going back to the fundamentals for a while. I recently spent a morning at the studio of the wonderfully generous painter Marcus Hodge. You can see his work here: MARCUS HODGE

He was educated in Spain and is a tremendous direct painter. I cannot thank him enough for the time and expertise he gave me. He reviewed a selection of my recent paintings and then set me one hour to do a Sorolla self portrait study. The main aim of this was so he could see how I currently approach a piece. He then reviewed my terrible attempt and then proceeded to demo on the same canvas how he would have approached it. It was incredibly enlightening and has given me a great deal to consider in my work.

After that last studio painting taking so much time I was ready to get back to doing some studies and Marcus provided me with a few pointers as to what might benefit me the most. First up are a few master studies. I have limited myself to one and a half hours per painting on these. They have been great fun to do. Master studies are one of those things that I did digitally but really had glossed over. It is so interesting to paint from something where someone else has already solved all of the difficult decisions for you!

These are all oil on canvas board 40x34cm (I Think!) First 2 are Velasquez and the 3rd is a Sargent.

These next couple are from the portrait group as normal. They were done before I met up with Marcus. They are both done using the Zorn limited palette (well an equivilent one: titanium white, yellow ochre, cad red and lamp black). I still can't get these done in the hour and a bit painting time but I try!

I painted this next one in the garden on saturday. An hour and a half. It is my father in law Phil. He is an excellent chap and kindly sat for me. I wanted to take it further but got bored bless him!
This last one was pretty much a disaster but since this is more of a journal than a portfolio I will share it here. About 5 hours Plein Air in my front garden. The subject matter was tough and my greens are just foul! The first of many to come, onwards and upwards eh? haha!

I don't know if anyone actually reads my blog but if you are interested in representational painting then I would heartily recommend these 3 books as being incredible useful:

Richard Schmid: Alla Prima
Harold Speed: Practice and Science of Drawing
Harold SPeed: Paining techniques and materials.

Tsunami Charity Digital Painting.

2011-03-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I decided to get involved with the Tsunami CFSL Project:
This image is based on two seperate news stories. The first was one about a dog that stayed with its injured mate. The second was about the town of Kesnnuma, which was devastated and had its tuna fleet dumped on top if it. It was some deeply affecting, iconic imagery. Get involved with the project if you have time. There are some amazing pieces submitted already.

A lttle about process. I gathered my ref and then thumbnailed different compositional ideas:

This shot below was my 5th thumb but i did not save it off before i fleshed it out to a more resolved state. Here I am still working in monochrome, concentrating on balancing out my tonal composition and the values of the various areas against each other.
You need to click on this one to make it larger! I added colours and details and got critique from friends once i reached a stage that i thought was going in the right direction. I cannot over emphasise the importance of getting feedback on your work. There will always be something that can be tweaked or fix that you are just not seeing. This piece has consolidated that reference is very important for me when working on something effectively realistic: I did not have my usual chopping and changing, nor did i end up painting vaguely (without direction) as I so often do.

Scarlet and Jonny

2011-03-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
I have finally finished my first larger studio painting. It is on MDF and is 1m x 0.5m , considerably larger than the stuff i have been doing since I started painting again. I have had a set of panels made up at an extreme wide screen aspect ratio and will be bringing in some filmic composition into my upcoming pieces.
Th models in this piece are a very interesting real life couple. Ellie is a burlesque performer who works under the monica of Scarlet Daggers. Jonny is in a band called the Speedkings. They live a fine old life together! Here is the finished painting:

This time i tried out a very deliberate methodology, based on the Golden Age Illustrators methodology. I first did sheets of thumbnails designing tonal arrangements and compositions and exploring ideas.

Then we did a photo shoot using these thumbnails as a base. It was the first time I have done anything like that and it was a really interesting experience. Emma was very generous and let me play with her brilliant equipment as well as aiding me with lighting and some technical know how. She was very very helpful and I learned a lot through the process. If you have not been along to her blog then go check it out. She constantly does inspiring and brilliant things: MISS RAIN PHOTOGRAPHY.

Once I had my photographic reference I then sifted through it all and played around digitally with composing different figures together and tweaking shots. I am doing several paintings from the material we got from this shoot but i have so little time to paint that i think it will take a while before more images are finished.Next in the process was to paint a study of the final piece. The study is only about 12" wide but allowed me to run though the process in anticipation of the larger painting. I think I got too noodly on this tbh. Next time i will aim for a broader treatment more in keeping with the style and pace of my alla prima portrait work. I did not match the format of the intended larger painting as i really just needed to concentrate on the figures.

Here is a detail from the final painting...

It has surprised me how many hours I ended up sinking into this one. I am going to be concentrating on my drawing accuracy in the early stages of my next paintings as my more relaxed approach to blocking in is ending up costing me way to much painting time. In the Alla Prima book on drawing the wonderful Mr Schmid really emphasises the importance of putting down carefully measured, accurate work in the early stages and i think he is quite right (as usual!) If you have limited time to paint with you do not want to spend that time repainting things that were not done carefully enough in the first instance.

I have read many books on painting now and nothing comes close to the sheer quantity and quality of this text. Treat yourself!

I do not normally gabble on as much as that, sorry!

Dr Sketchy drawings Feb 2011

2011-02-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
We had an absolute blast at Dr sketchy Nottingham yesterday. Wicked turn out from the gang and much fun all round. Big Shout out to Charlotte and Scarlett for organising such a consistantly fun and inspiring event.
These are my favourite drawing from yesterday plus another one (first in this post) from the November session last year (the model had the original off me). We had a whopping 20 mins on this drawing. This was a prize winner for me. Woohoo! I think its my favourite of all my Dr Sketchy images so far.Next one is 10 mins prisma colour black on newsprint with a little pentel brush pen action.
15 mins toned pastel paper with prismacolour, and black and white posca markers (these things are ace!)
5 minute prismacolour on newsprint. Zooom!
This one was a prize winner. 15 mins on toned pastel paper with all sorts of media! The red is more fabulous POSCA action.
Fun!

Recent Alla Prima Portraits

2011-01-29T01:58:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone.
I have been very busy, sorry for not updating this for so long!
I am working on a larger scale painting that is eating up virtually all of my art time Should be done in the next week or two with it.
For now here are some recent Alla Prima portraits from the sessions at the West Hallam Portrait Group. I need to watch my edges a bit, some areas of these look really harsh to me now. Also have some issues with not breaking the forms with misplaced values but having fun and learning a lot through doing these.
The top one is the Mayor of Erewash.
Cheers
Jake

Dominance War 5 mini comp entry

2010-12-14T14:35:00.001-08:00

Finished this!

50 followers. Woooooooooo

2010-12-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

I have clawed my way up to 50 followers. Good times :)
Here are a some odds and ends. One is a charcoal drawing of the local Mayor. Another page is of thumbnails of my psy-chic characters.
The other page of thumbs are compoitional/tonal arrangement ideas for a painting I will hopefully be doing of a burlesque performer who uses fire in her routine. Exciting!

The Minder

2010-11-25T12:58:00.000-08:00

Finished this a few weeks ago but wanted to make sure i liked it before i posted it up:

Girl In a Jar

2010-11-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

I painted this from a photo that I took at Dr sketchy nottingham. You can see my 10 minute drawing of the same pose further back on my blog. The performer is Amelie Soleil from the Freyed Knot group.
I am pleased with this one, I think it my most successful piece since I began with Oils again last year.

Life Drawings

2010-11-01T15:51:00.001-07:00

Recent life drawings. 10-20 mins charcoal on newsprint

Dr Sketchy drawings

2010-10-18T15:26:00.000-07:00

These are all drawings from Dr Sketcy Nottingham sessions. The first one is probably my favourite 10 mins of drawing ever. A girl in a jar. I am doing a version in oils right now. Woo hoo! Most of these are 5-10 mins a couple may be up to 15. Dr Sketchy is ACE!

Paintings and stuff

2010-10-16T02:30:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. This dump is a fairly mixed bag. The 3 broadly treated portraits are from the sessions at the West Hallam Portrait Group. The monochrome one was my first (rather bad) attempt at doing a Grisaille study. It was very interesting to do, so much quicker than painting in colour and really lets you focus on tone and edges. I will be doing more of these soon.

This one I revisited after the initial day of painting as I was not happy with the overall contrast. It got a bit fiddly in the end. Use the biggest brush you can for the job at hand!

This one is of my wife and was a much longer painting.
I did this as a birthday gift for my fine old friend Mr Chapman. He is such an excellent fellow and also is Batman!
Charcoal portrait. Begining of a long learning curve but i enjoyed it and learnt a great deal doing it!

RED PANDA INVASION

2010-10-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

HOOBA finally arrived. He far surpassed my expectations and the build quality is perfect.
I think they have a few left over at Patch Together if anyone wants to grab one!!
I took a few photos so you can check him out. Massive thanks to the guys at PT for making this a reality for me. YAY!!

Hooba available now, ready to ship!

2010-09-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hi chaps,
My first toy design is now in stock and ready to ship. There are only a handful left so order one quick if you want one.
Here is my design:

and here is the toy:

You can grab one here:

ORDER A HOOBA

Mech Knight

2010-09-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

I have been tinkering for this one over a good few lunchtimes. Props to John mad dog McCoy who showed me a few magic tricks a month or so a go. That boy has some mad skills indeed!

Frankii Wilde Pin Up

2010-08-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

I have been working on this one for a little while and am calling it done. Had an absolute blast with it.
Thanks to Frankii Wilde (the loverly model) and Luna Rain (the marvelous photographer who allowed me to kindly use her images as reference).
I am pleased with the overall pop on this one and the energy I have achieved. Good fun.

'Delicious Burlesque' event

2010-08-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Hello blogosphere!
I attended the Delicious Burlesque event in Derby on Saturday.
The talented Charlotte Thomson very kindly let me come and draw on the Dr Sketchy stand.
We had a brilliant day drawing the glamorous burlsque-ers. We did a good few drawings but I only occaisionally remembered to take a photo! Stupid Jake. Here are a few of the 10 minute portraits along with their respective sitters.
It was tough to do but it was a real buzz. I will be doing more stuff like this in the future hopefully.
Edit: my drawings are the left ones on the 1st and 3rd photos and the one on the second photo. The other 2 are by Charlotte. It was great fun working with someone who has such a different style from me.

Pinnup of Aisling Grace Flaherty

2010-07-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
I have finished my first pinnup painting. I was very kindly provided reference photography from the talented Miss Rain. You can see her brilliant work here. She also does the photogpahy at the Dr Sketchy Nottingham events which is what got me into the whole pinnup idea to begin with!
The lovely model was Aisling Grace Flaherty.

It is oil on primed MDF and is about 2x1ft in size.
I plan on doing a series of these and really loved doing this one. There are a few things that I do like about it but it is a decent begining. I am already well under way with my next one.
Enjoy!!
Jake

Animal Chase Tee Released

2010-07-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

SPUK have released another one of my old Tee designs. You can buy it here:

BUY A TEE

This is the design:
It is available in green for men, charcoal for women and also as a red hoody.

Alla Prima portraits

2010-07-04T05:46:00.000-07:00

Hi all.
I have started attending the West Hallam Portrait Group. It has been great fun. Each session I have started a new painting and attempted to finish it in one sitting. If i run out of time during the session I spend an hour at home finishing off. They are about 3 hours painting each. The drawing has suffered a bit because of the very short window of painting time. I am also aware of a few hard edges dotted around that i really should have softened off but too late now! I will try and shift my emphasis to better (slower!) drawing at the next session.
I feel like I am improving with each one and they are an absolute blast to paint. I am also finding that they are having a positive filter down effect on my other work.
There are also a few 20-30 minute life drawings here too.

Cheers Jake

Finished!

2010-06-24T05:31:00.000-07:00

The Puffin

2010-05-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

These are tonal arrangement thumbs for a mech design I am working on. It is a fishing rig named after the Puffin because of the way it stores fish that it catches.

Elvgren Studies

2010-05-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

I am embarking on some pinup oil paintings and thought a good begining would be to do some studies of the master of Pinnup art: Mr. Gill Elevgren. The first 2 are digital studies and the 3rd was done with good old fashioned oil painting.

Life Drawings

2010-04-25T02:19:00.000-07:00

Hey Blog faces.
I have started life drawing again after a year or so not attending my local group. Here is what I have been up to:This was a first for me. A pregnant model. She was very very good indeed. A pleasure to draw!
These are both 1 hour drawings. The first is on Canford card. I drew with a Polychromos to block out then nearly cocked it up with graphite powder that just slid around the toothless card. Then i was forced into using beefier materials to try and save it. The black is compressed charcoal and Conte. The white is a pastel pencil.
1 Hour again. This is on cheap sugar paper. It was drawn with my trusty old Faber-Castell Polychromos black pencil. I cannot recommend these pencils highly enough. Great! Used a white pencil for white bits.
5 mins. Compressed charcoal.
30 mins. Compressed charcoal and white pastel pencil.
30 mins. Compressed charcoal and white pastel pencil.
Dr Sketchy Nottingham. This was the best session so far for me. We all had such an ace day! The models were both superb. This one is 15 mins of frantic scribbling. Polychrome pencil and then Posca markers on grey card.
Brown wrapping paper, Polychrome black and pastel pencil white. 15mins.
Brown wrapping paper, Polychrome black and pastel pencil white & compressed charcoal stump. 15mins. This one of the luverly Frankii Wilde won me a brilliant large format Elvis book full of ace photos. Thanks!

Master At Arms

2010-04-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

This Chap is the Master At Arms for a project I am working on.
Close up on his face as it is quite a high res painting.

Hooba Prototype Made

2010-04-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hooba has finally been made in to a real life toy. He is a plush (soft toy) and is 12" tall.
You can by him here
BUY HOOBA

Giant Robot Knights

2010-03-31T05:28:00.000-07:00

Some mecha knight thumbnails. Wanted to get a kind of race car aesthetic in the colouring: mixing chivalric and contemporary stylings.

Bits & Bobs

2010-03-24T05:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone.
Collection of bits and bobs here. Some pages from my little brown paper skecthbook, some general doodles and a couple of lunchtime speedies.
Will endevour to mkae my next post something a bit more substantial!

Retro Metal Tee!

2010-02-28T02:20:00.000-08:00

Hey chaps,
Here is yet another tee design:

This is a bit different to my usual stuff, was going for a metal vibe (giant skeleton robot, naked ladies with swords, a dragon, a wolf and a lion. Roar!!

Dr Sketchy Quickies

2010-02-22T05:13:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,
These are all 5 - 15 scribbles from the last 2 Dr SKetchy Nottingham Events.
Saturday was an absolute blast!

It was a great day and was ace to see everyone!

There Was An Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly

2010-02-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

2010-02-13T03:01:00.001-08:00

Teddy Patrol Tee is up for voting!

When little Timmy is asleep his Teddy leads his other toys in the battle to stop the monsters from under his bed getting him. They love bashing monsters!
Good old Teddy.

Big Old Art Dump!

2010-02-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

Another Quick Tee Design. Year of The Tiger.

Pencils

You can vote on it here:

Some other bits too:
I have started doing speedies at lunchtime again lately, here are a few of them, all aprox 1 hour in photoshop.

'Exile'

'Crime Scene'

'Humungous''The Race'

This was a present for my friends Han and Mat this Christmas. This one was quite time consuming as it was printed fairly large! Cat Bus & Wobbleheads belong to Studio Ghibli of course. The photoref I used was a shot i took of the 3 of them a couple of years ago on our trip to Japan.

2010-02-02T13:24:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone!!!
I have finally got off my bum and done a new threadless design. This one is for a themed competition with a $10,000 dollar prize!!!
If you like it please do pop along and vote for it.

Birfday Present Paintings

2009-12-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

These 2 were for for my mum and dads birthdays. The dog is my mums Weimerana Jo. The Mandarin is done from an internet photo as my dads ducks are not in proper plumage yet.

They are once again on Gessoed MDF panels 20 x 25 cm

landscape oils

2009-11-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. I have been working on this set of paintings over the last month or so. They were going to be for the Nottingham open but after consulting my wife and friends I decided not to put them in.
The paintings are all of parts of my daily commute to work on my bike. Thus the rather odd choices of subject matter. Although i do have a weird soft spot for concrete bridges!
I really loved making these and feel like I made a massive improvement from start to finish. They are in reverse chronological order here so the most recent one is at the top and the oldest at the bottom.
Well on to the next set of paintings!
They are all little 20 x25 cm gesso primed mdf panels.

new sketchbook

2009-10-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

scanned these in at lunch. Its a tiny 3 x6 " skecthbook with brown paper. I bought the posca markers for dr sketchys but have been loving them in the little book!

The Psy-Chics

2009-10-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. This is a piece I have been working on for a while. I took a decent enough photo of it this afternoon and so here it is. Its oil on unstretched canvas which was a pretty tougth brief for me. Its about 12 by 8". I will get it framed up soon.
The sketchbook pages in my last post are a lot of the preliminary work for this one. Special thanks to Aidan Wilson and my dear old wife for the honest crits through the process.
I will be doing more with these characters and devloping the style a bit more too. For now I have just started work on a piece for the Nottingham open so i will be shelving everything else for a bit.

2009-09-29T05:10:00.001-07:00

I have just used my lunchtime to scan in some piccies from my sketchbook. Here you go:

paints!

2009-09-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

Hey chaps,
I have done my first few paints in the new studio. I went for gesso primed wooden blocks for these 3. The two little dogs are a birthday present for a friend. The crow is done from a photo i took in Japan.
Had a blast with them and feel like i moved forward an inch or two with the crow! All 3 images are very small paintings. The white dog is 1bout 4" squared and the black one a touch larger. The crow is about 8x6".
Got a week off work this week so hoping to get some canvases painted... loving the oils again!

2009-09-06T01:09:00.000-07:00

Another of my Tee Shirt designs is on sale now at SPUNKY:

ZOMBIE ATTACK TEE

Check it!!

stuff & Dr Sketchy Burlesque Life Drawing Event

2009-08-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

I took some photos of some traditional media bits and bobs i have been doing lately. My lovely wife and I are nearly done renovating our studio now and I am looking forward to getting the paints out again soon!

Yesterday me and a few of my fine fellows went to the first Dr Sketchy event in nottingham. It was ace and i have taken a few photos of some of the drawing i made. They are all 5 - 10 mins. Dr Sketchy is an awesome combination of life drawing drinking and burlesque acts. I cannot recomend it enough. We all had an absolute blast and did some good fast high pressure drawing!

recent things

2009-07-19T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Its been ages so i thought i would update this thing a little. Here are bits and pieces from the last 6 months! There are all sorts here and a lot of it is not very recent. I have been doing a lot more traditional stuff lately and will get it photographed soon.

ref study from corbis photo

ref study from corbis photo

Tee shirt for sale in the shops!

2009-04-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

Hey chaps, sorry for the lack of updates. One of my Tee designs is now avaialable to order here:

BUY IT HERE

Here is the original design:

Here is the Tee itself:

Hope you enjoy!

Jake

2009-01-07T15:28:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, sorry it has been a long time, as you have no doubt all heard FRD has gone in to administration. Boo! This has obviously taken our minds of blogs and whatnot.

I have had some very good news this week though and Hooba, the red panda toy design i did a while back, has been put on Patchtogether's On Demand service. He will be a limited edition of 100 12" plush toy. I am very excited indeed. He is only $25 so order one now. Once my toy career is more established you might well have yourself a tidy little investment...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!GO BUY HOOBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also here is a bit of an art dump:

2008-11-29T09:43:00.000-08:00

I have been working away on this as and when i can for a few moths now. I finally finished him today.

He fits in to my general ouvre of toy designs. The idea of him is that he is an alien hunter with a taste for rare and exotic earth creatures. Right now he is eating a red panda.

The munny i used was a GID so i tried to incrporate this into the design: he has a transparent stomach section so you can see the panda getting digested!

Here are some images, sorry if the photos are a bit poor, the light was failing when i took them.

2008-11-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

another tee shirt design!

2008-11-26T23:38:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone!

I have done a new toy design. His name is LOBLOB.

Loblob is an undead forest creature who got trapped when he popped his head in to an abandoned alien flying helmet. Poor old Loblob.

I thought it would be cool to have a weight in the dust section. The whole toy leans forward at anangle but is balanced by the weight hidden in the base.

the entry on patchtogether is here. If you have the time to vote on him and check out the other designs on the site that would be ace.

2008-11-08T01:23:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!
Here is another designer toy idea: The mimic.
The aliens are upping the ante in their efforts to catch tasty earth creature snacks. This is there latest weapon: the mimic. It pretends to be a cute as hell deer but really its a shadowy monster! The toy incorporates both states and the two creatures are linked by the cast shadow from the deer. I thought it could work well on shelves. What do you think guys?

As usual you can go here to vote for him, please do:

VOTE FOR MIMIC ON PATCH TOGETHER

There are a few more images of the design on the patchtogether website.

Cheers guys and gals!

2008-11-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

These are some of my favourite pages from my last couple of moleskine sketchbooks. I still think the most fun i have with art is when i use biro on paper and just doodle to see what comes out. Fun!

2008-10-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I have done a new toy design. He is a red panda called hooba. You can go vote on him here: red panda toy If i get enough votes they will make him into a designer toy! A couple of my other designs are there too, they are also still open for votes. I am not sure how many people actually visit this blog or how you are suposed to use them.

Here are a couple of pics of hooba: there are more on the entry itself.

2008-10-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

some other bits and peices too.

2008-10-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well its been a long old time and i have decided to dig this up and resuscitate it!
Here are some recent bits and peices.

2007-01-28T04:33:00.000-08:00

Some much older work from degree and foundation courses (5- 8 years old).

2007-01-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

A few more finished illustrations.

2007-01-22T13:44:00.000-08:00

Some digital speed paints. 20-30 mins in photoshop

2007-01-22T13:19:00.000-08:00

Next a few life studies. The acrylics are about 2 hours and the drawings a bit less.

2007-01-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Hello there,
This blog will host highlights of my artistic doodles and scribblings.

I will kick things off with a few studies: 2 michaelangelo and a velasquez Hope you enjoy.