Bare bones.

Hey. This is just a brief follow-up on yesterday's post, I thought I should add the underlying drawing that lead to the finished product. This is in order to illustrate the actual value of simplicity. When it comes to brief sketches I still prefer pen and paper to a tablet any day, you can always digitise the drawing and work from there. Anyhoo, here it is for you to compare with the one below...

From Work

Dangerous New Weapons.

Well, to my dismay I have just created a pretty nice pic with shocking ease. How? Photoshop of course. This isn't some altered photo, although a photo was used as reference(don't ask about its origins).

Now for anyone who paints realism the hard way(and by this i mean the RIGHT way), you wil know the amount of painful thought that sometimes goes specifically into figuring out the correct colours. This problem is straight out the window when an eyedropper tool and a digital photo is handy and the rest is history. Looking at so much mind-blowing digital work out there, I still can't help but wonder how many of these artists could actually cut the mustard if you gave them a pencil or a brush. Moral high ground perhaps, but being able to pay the rent at the end of the day is what matters, so i suppose the means aren't quite as relevant when you're doing it for a living. But a hundred years down the line, a painting will still be a painting, but we all know transitory digital can be.

PS: And if push comes to shove and the world ends, at least we can burn paintings for heat.

Here's the product:

From Work

And don't worry, most of my work is still old school messy and stinking of turpentine.

Pop up.

Amid working on some fairly unpresentable pieces at the moment, I decided to have a bit of a scribble in photoshop, which i haven't done in a very long time, but it's always interesting to see how your approach to this kind of thing has changes as a result of all the other things i've been doing practically.

The bonus is that this isn't messy and there aren't any fumes to make you pass the fuck out.

Maybe I can take this somewhere. We shall see...

From Work

Friday night lights out.

This is what artists get up to while you guys are all out partying hard. Not that i'm moaning, I have a blast doing this kind of thing.

From Work

The Motions

I did various bits of scribbling paint, but the last one went most smoothly, so that's what you're getting.

From Work

Fits and starts once again, but it's a start.

Well, here's this week's progress, been scribbling o this and that, but I'm loving getting to work on a new set of paintings that will hopefully grow into a series. Here's a preliiminary sketch for the most recent one, so you can see what a mess they all tend to start out as!

From Work

After the fact.

I posted details of my recent show of work in Auckland below, so scroll down if you're curious, but here's some of the work that came from it. I'm tearing into a new body of work, so we'll see what i can come up with. I will probably also be getting the work of the last few months out of my system, so they should be popping up round here soon...

So it begins...

Hey all. I have just begun tackling a brave new body of work which I will do my utmost to keep you posted on as it progresses, but it’s looking promising so far. The planning stages are being seen to while the wheels turn to get the actual work off the ground. If this all seems fairly cryptic, then good! But good it will be too, so stay tuned and I’ll keep you distracted if you so wish.

Take care and I trust you’re all good.

PS: The work I HAVE been doing so far this year will be show here or elsewhere, so sit tight…

Another day at the office. But never really.

Today I’m beginning to tackle the mountain of work I have before me. This is in terms of getting all my ducks in a row and digitizing everything I’ve produced thus far during my stay in New Zealand. It’s been a frenetic few months and several thousand kilometers traveled (not counting flights!) have lead to a number of sketchbooks riddled with ink and watercolour(bit of a mess, but I’m still learning) as well as an exhibition and a few paintings for friends.

This is just summing up what has already been done. What this trip has also accomplished is to fill my head with such a vast number of ideas and projects to be tackled that I am itching to start, so soon it will be a whole new chapter in terms of what mess I’ll be spewing forth, so sit tight.

Below I’m posting a series of photos form a morning spent painting on Baylys Beach in Northland. The piece was done as a wedding present for my mate Adam in Waihue. It took about two hours to complete and in the end I had to stop, because with the changing light I kept adapting the painting and at that rate I would simply have been painting all day and ended up with a sunset!









More will follow, there’s a lot to show!

Glaciers, Cowshit and Headway.

Hey everybody, just a brief update. I’m still in New Zealand and have managed some degree of productivity, so I’ll hopefully be able to share some of my new work with you soon.

The immediate news is that some of my ink works are going on display at the Flagstaff Gallery in Devonport, Auckland, next week to coincide with the Rudolf Boelee exhibition they are running. There are also a number of paintings I have just finished of my travels thus far, the fate of which is yet to be decided, but I’ll keep you posted on that.

I do realise that for most of you this is waaay out of reach to get to, but if you happen to find yourself in Auckland, get on the ferry and wander up Victoria road in Devonport, the place has a lazy kind of buzz to it.

The gallery URL is www.flagstaff.co.nz for those who are interested.

Right, I’ll leave you to it. Take care and look after yourselves.

H!



(Click this bad boy for the full view...)