It's been a while....
I've been painting (as yet unfinished) drawing ( as yet unfinished) writing (you get the idea....) and at some point will have a wealth of material to upload and unleash upon an awed public but finishing things is hard and you know, 'Dave' is now showing Man versus Food (the dogging of food porn) and ITV4 has started showing the new series of River Monsters (Smug Angler versus Giant Fish) and what's a girl to do? How can I possibly finish anything with all that going on? Oh yeah and you know, working, childcare, housework actually having some sort of life- yadda yadda yadda.
Anyway in the interest of having something to show for my last two months conspicuous absence I have today completed a little mini project, just to show I can actually finish something once I start it.
Having always had a bit of a 'artists block' (too pretentious?) when it comes to drawing myself I decided to try and master my unsymmetrical features and draw the same picture four times in different mediums. I was also curious as to what style would work best and actually it has produced varied results. The household are divided as to which picture they prefer, I have a clear favourite but won't air it as I wouldn't want to swing any ones opinion.
I started with a photo of my eyes taken on my phone camera... as follows
This is taken with no filters, I have just cropped the rest of my face- as it is preferable to seeing all of it.
I then instragramed the uncropped picture as it wouldn't let me upload an odd shaped picture for some reason- curse you instagram!
Then I used the phone app Picasso- which is a very basic drawing tool like paint for your phone and the £2.50 stylus I got from ebay to draw the following picture- for the record I have only been using this app and stylus for about three weeks and as of yet I have not perfected it but I am certainly improving! This somehow manages to look vaguely like a 1980's makeup catastrophe but in a cool way....
This was then followed with 'old faithful' HB pencil for your classic style line drawing which is always a joy to draw, there is something about soft grey lines on white paper which is pleasing to the eye (mine at least!)
The inevitable next step was coloured pencils, but I decided not to use naturalistic colours as I was working from the instagram photo and thought that something a bit more surreal might work, I think I managed to pull it off, even if I did end up looking a bit alienafied.
Lastly I used the biro for a hard line graphic image. These images for me always end up looking a little bit contorted and I think this has to do with the permanent nature of a pen line, although I don't often use a rubber when drawing I tend to use a very soft line which I then harden when I am satisfied it is in the right place, you don't have this luxury with biro so occasionally your picture will end up looking a little bit squinty eyed- regardless though I have a fondness for this kind of caricature exaggerated image.
and so there you have four very different images, each one with it's own merits and a completed study all in one evening! Hooray! (I was going to add one on black paper with white pencil but lost the will to live...)
I would be interested to hear which picture people prefer if you can be bothered to care.
So now, back to painting my masterpieces, writing my bestsellers and completing my winning entry into the Comica graphic short story competition this year (yeah right!)
