Graham Hanks Art & Writing

A Song of Autism

2012-01-12T00:43:00.002Z

As mentioned in my previous post my Son Adam has been found to be Autistic. Even though we sort of knew there was something wrong with him, it was still a shock to the system to realise we had an Autistic child. As part of the process of getting used to the Idea I wrote a very short poem about him. This poem is meant to show the beautiful side of autism - most people only see the behavioural problems, not the behaviours that are endearing. The illustration by the way is Adam in one of his favourite dressing up costumes.

A song of Autism

On tippytoes he comes
In a world apart
Beware of loud noises
For they'll give him a start

He's living in a bubble
Watching rainbows dance
And feeling the water
As it runs through his hands

A child within a child
Who knows why he cries
Yet this magical boy
Has a smile in his eyes

A part of our world
He struggles to be
But wonder is there
For those who can see

So hush now friend
Don't scare him away
Just give him your time
And he could make your day

For Adam

(Image and words Copyright graham Hanks 2011)

Writing or painting

2012-01-12T00:19:00.003Z

Kaldar, an illustration for Tenara.

Lot of things happening here but not on my blog. I've hardly posted at all for some time now and then only briefly. Part of this is because we have discovered that our son is Autistic and I have been putting most of my time and energy into trying to get him the help he needs. Anyone who has had children with significant needs will understand what I mean when I say it takes up a huge amount of your time. Both getting help in place for the child, and actually implementing a structured enviornment for that child (Autistic children especially need a very structured world tailored just for them).

The second reason I've not been posting much is that I've not been painting much so have not had a lot to post! This is partially because of the time spent trying to help my son, but is also because what spare time I've had has been spent more on writing than painting. I was approached by a new publisher who is producing an online fantasy writing magazine, and they wanted to publish my short story tenara in their first issue. Which is fantastic news given that i wasn't even trying to get published yet! However it did mean that I had to re-write a lot of the story to expand on it, and to tidy up some sections. As there is a big difference between writing a short story for the fun of it and writing a story for publication, you have to be a lot more professional as it were. It didn't bother me having to re-write the story as it gave me the chance to develop the characters more solidly, and to add more tension to the tale.

Souleater, illustration for Tenara

Then of course me being me I had to produce some illustrations for the story, which of course took up even more of my spare time. But it did mean experimenting with some interesting multimedia techniques so that was ok.

I havn't neglected painting completely, in fact I'm experimenting with some new paintings at the moment. Though it may be a while before I'm ready to post any of this new work as I'm still developing the idea. At the moment however I'm really not sure what direction I'm going to be taking over the next year. Part of me is very tempted to switch priorities and make writing my primary activity and painting my secondary one. Certainly at the moment I seem to get more satisfaction from writing - maybe as a painter I'm getting a bit jaded, or maybe its just the challenge of something new.


Tenara, illustration for the short story

Short Story

2011-09-03T10:29:00.002+01:00

A bit of a Departure for me here, I've recently started to write stories, Fantasy stories to be precise. It started while I was on holiday a few weeks back, I got this idea into my head for a Novel and it just wouldn't go away, so I started to write!

Its been a strange experience for me, because apart from writing articles and tutorials I've never actually been a writer. Learning how to punctuate Dialogue for example has been an eye-opener, its just not something I've had to do before (well not since I left school 30+ years ago)

The novel is still very much a work in progress, but in the meantime I have just written a short story, based on another concept that I came up with (I just seem to keep getting Ideas these days lol)

Graham Hanks.

Painting update

2011-08-13T15:58:00.001+01:00

Just realised I've not posted any updates on this painting despite making progress, theres still a lot of work to do yet (especially the hands and trousers) but I'm happy with the overall progress so far.

I think I still need to make some alterations to the glass as ite still a bit tilted to one side, but I'm really happy with how the actual glass looks :)

Some progress at last

2011-06-01T12:47:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately I've not been too well just lately, I've been having dizzy spells and difficulty concentrating, which of course has impacted on my ability to get any work done.

So its quite a relief that I'm finally starting to get to the stage that I can do some painting again, and the first project I've returned to is La Fee Verte, which I'm quite happy with so far.

I'm particularly happy with how the Glass & bottle are going, glasses are always a difficult subject to tackle (theres still a few minor adjustments needed to the symmetry of the glass)

I've also added a greenish glow to the side of wes's face which kinda works well too I think, I'm after creating an effect of the Absinthe giving off a slight glow to add a little bit of mystery to the painting.

I just hope that my recover continues enough for me to get more work done soon!

More progress on La Fee Verte

2011-03-17T18:45:00.000Z

After a brief conversation with my good friend Enzie Shamiri on Facebook I realised I havn't posted up any progress pics for this painting - so here is the current state of progress on 'La Fee Verte'

Theres still a long way to go but the face is a good likeness I think :)

Basilica in Pastels

2011-03-10T22:28:00.000Z

Another one of the series of Pictures I'm doing of Venice, This time the Basilica in Unison Pastels on Pastelmat Paper.

I went for a slightly different approach with this one in that I've deliberately left parts of the picture foggy and unfinished and used colours in a non realist manner to give a more dreamlike appearance to the painting.

I started to do some paintings in venice last year that were meant to be dreamlike in their appearance but struggled because I was using Acrylics on paper - not exactly an ideal combination (but thats what we were asked to use on the painting course I was on at the time)

Venice Windows

2011-03-06T13:21:00.003Z

Venice Windows Unison Pastels on Pastelmat

I've just finished this Pastel painting of some windows I photographed in Venice last year. I just fell in love with the bold patterns cast by the balconies in the beautiful Venetian light and had to capture them!

If everything goes according to plan I should be rteturning to Venice in October with a group of students to do more sketching and to take more photographs to work from.

At the moment I'm still in the organising stages of this trip, but if anyone is interested in spending 5 nights (4 whole days) Staying on the Venice Lido, exploring and Sketching Venice then contact me soon so I can get an idea of the sort of numbers I'm organising for.

Dates will most likely be: 7th - 12th October 2011 at an approximate price of £300 pp (including flights, hotel, Breakfast & Tuition services)
if you want to bring a non drawing friend with you (or just don't require the services of a tutor) then the price will be approx £250pp without tuition fees.

These are just my initial pricings at the moment, but I can't really see them being too far out.

By the way, Venice has a reputation for being very expensive, but if you know where to go it can actually be very cheap, I've found it possible to get by on less than £10 per day quite easily!

Edit : Having worked out the costs more thoroughly the price for 5 nights will be £350 pp, £275 for non artists, also payment would be required in full by 25th april 2011 in order to allow me to book hotels ect,

La Fee Verte

2011-03-02T12:48:00.000Z

I just got started on this painting last night, its a portrait of a nice young man by the name of Wesley Perriman pouring a Glass of Absinthe (his favourite drink, which is also known as 'La Fee Verte' - The Green fairy)

I've only done about 3 hours on this so far but I'm pleased with how its coming along already although looking at this photo I think I need to redraw the glass and the glass jug next to it, they are looking a bit lopsided!

The jacket and waistcoat are not going to be these colours - this is just an undercoat, I find that blacks look better with a purple/blue underpainting to give depth to the blacks, and the waiscoat was deliberately given a different under colour so that it will look subtly different to the coat (they are both very dark grey/black)

Having said that though, I'm very tempted to keep the waistcoat in that nice burgundy colour as I kinda like the way it looks :)

Sentinels

2011-02-25T15:24:00.000Z


Sentinels, a portrait of Ida & Lyra Larsen

Finally finished this painting last night (well at about 2am in the morning so I guess you could say it was finished today really!)

Again, though its a 'portrait' I've taken some liberties with it - especially with the clothing, I'm finding its more fun to let my imagination run loose than to create a straight representation of what I see, and i like the sugestion of a story that the image implies.

Time to get started on a new batch of paintings now - I already have one in the pipeline involving a Steampunk and a bottle of Absinthe :)

Finished at last

2011-02-22T16:20:00.000Z

Moonwitch - oils on canvas board

It seems to have taken me forever but I've finally finished this painting of Sylvie T (I had a 2 month break from painting due to just not having the inspiration to paint) the reference photo came from the online gallery of SylvieT on Deviantart

Its not a perfect likeness, but then its not meant to be a true portrait, I was trying more for an atmosphere than an exact copy of the photograph, Sylvies photo was meant to portray herself as a witch and I've worked on that theme to try and create a magical feel to the painting.

The moon was actually a last minute addition, it just sort of started to appear in the painting of its own accord and I developed it from there (Hence the title Moonwitch) though TBH I had envisaged a moonlit scene from the beginning so I guess it was a sort of natural progression.

When I can get my Giclee Printer sorted out I'm planning to produce this as an archival quality limited edition print on fine art paper, I'm not sure what the price will be yet though.

Pastel Scenes from Venice

2011-02-06T00:16:00.000Z

I was sorting through some old artwork the other day and came across these pastels that I'd sketched while in Venice last year, and on returning home I'd dumped them in a corner out of the way because I was so dissapointed with the results.

I'd used conte pastels while I was there and although they are great for figure sketching and portraits I found them somewhat lacking for townscape work, too sketchy (almost like working with coloured pencils) and in the end I gave up on my plan to spend my spare time sketching views of venice from life.

Looking at the pictures with a fresh eye I could see that although i was unhappy with the finish, they were still nice looking pictures so I decided to re-work them with the lovely Unison pastels I've started playing with recently, Unison pastels are hand-made in Northumberland and their colours are amazingly intense and vibrant, and they go down so smoothly!

The results of using the Unisons to rework the images was fantastic, all of a sudden the images had the depth and luminosity that I had been looking for (unfortunately photographs don't do these justice, the colours on the originals are a lot deeper) If only I'd had these pastels last year in venice - I think my artistic output would have been soo much better and a lot more prolific.

Because these were drawn from life with no rulers ect some of the pictures are a bit skewed in places with lines not quite straight or not quite vertical ect (mind you venice is a bit like that anyway) but thats ok because I was trying to capture the atmosphere and light of venice not create architectural drawings :)

Luckily although I never got much sketching done, I did take loads of photo's of Venice so I have plenty of material to do some more of these urban scenes, I just hope I can find the time to get on with doing them.

My Clever Heather

2011-01-31T19:25:00.000Z

My 6 Year old daughter Heather saw the picture in the previous post and asked if she could do a drawing of a horse too, so I gave her a pencil and some of my pastels and sat her down with the same reference photo.

while I prepared dinner she drew and coloured this picture of the horse entirely by herself with no help from Daddy at all, just by observing what she saw!

My heart absolutely leapt out of my chest with pride when I saw what she had created, I think this little girl is definately going to follow in her Daddys footsteps and become an artist when she grows up (which she keeps telling me is her ambition)

Animal portrait tuition

2011-01-22T17:36:00.002Z

Horse portrait by Mark foulston (one of my students)

Although my art lessons have usually been about Human portrature & figurative work, I've recently been finding myself teaching animal portraiture to some of my students too, usually because they have come along with pictures of animals they want to paint or draw.

I've decided that since the subject seems to be growing more popular with my students I'm going to expand the private tuition at my studio to include animal portraits from now on.

I'll be updating my website soon to include details but if you are interested then you can contact me at: grey@grahamhanks.co.uk

Paintings update

2011-01-10T17:47:00.001Z

I've been a bit lazy about posting updates on my current paintings just lately, but here are the two most current paintings as they stand at the moment.

Sometimes I worry about how slow my paintings can be to put together, but then I remember that many of the old masters took a lot longer (leonardo spent years working on the Mona Lisa), its a symptom of our throwaway society that we expect everything to happen at lightening speed - even painting but i'm not convinced that this is always a good thing.

Green Man

2010-12-27T00:24:00.000Z

This is a pastel painting I was commissioned to produce of a Green man for Ian McRae the husband of artist Nicki Mcrae as a Christmas present, it was a lot of fun to do and certainly different from a lot of my usual stuff.

I've been getting very interested in pagan Norse and Anglo saxon subjects recently so this was a good opportunity to do something a bit mystical, the green man is the personification of the forests and represents the forces of nature at its most potent, literally the forest as a living sentient being.

New oil paints

2010-10-23T12:45:00.000+01:00

I've just recently invested in some handmade oil paints by Michael Harding, they are supposed to be some of the best oil paints in production today, and perhaps more interesting for me is the fact that there are no fillers or preservatives in these paints - just top quality pigments and linseed oil (and in the odd case a touch of wax, apparently ultramarine blue for example is completely unusable without a small amount of wax to fix the consistency of the paint).

The way these paints are made actually fits in nicely with my personal philosophy about oil painting in that all you need for a good painting is oil and pigment, everything else is just over complicating matters, and in some cases can actually harm your paintings. I'm sure I'll get a lot of flack for saying this but there are a lot of artists out there who are constantly searching for the 'secret recipe' of the old masters in the hope that it will help them make better paintings and unfortunately they are completely missing the point - there is no secret recipe! it was the skill of the old masters that made their paintings awesome not the composition of their paint, modern scientific analysis has proven that many of the great old paintings were in fact just made with oil and pigment!

In fact I would go so far as to say that although its good to look at the old masters for inspiration, especially in terms of painting technique and brush mastery, trying to copy their paints and palettes is a waste of time for several reasons, not least of all because the lighting conditions in which the old masters worked were very different to the modern world we live in, when most of the great classical paintings were created the majority of them were designed to be displayed in candlelit churches, and candles give off a much redder and lower intensity light than any modern lightbulb.

Sometimes in the National Gallery they will demonstrate this by showing people an old painting in the artificial light of the gallery - then they switch off the lights and light some candles so people can see the painting as it was meant to be seen - the transformation is huge the painting will suddenly seem to glow with an internal light that just can't be seen by daylight or modern artificial light, and the colours are transformed too because of the red shift given by the candlelight.

Bearing this in mind what use is a palette designed for candlelight in the modern world of electric lighting and brighter daylight filled buildings (the amount of light in todays buildings is much higher than our ancestors were used to) the colours that would have made a beautiful portrait in pre electric lighting times would only result in a slightly green/blue tone under contemporary conditions! so its up to the modern artist to adapt to the enviornment they find themselves working in and to find the colour palettes that work in contemporary lighting situations!

Heather revisited

2010-10-19T11:11:00.000+01:00

Some of you may recall the painting I did of my daughter at the beginning of this year, on which I used an abstract background, although it was an interesting experiment at the time after months of living with the painting I decided it just wasn't me, so I've completely re-painted the background in a style that is more representative of how I normally paint.

The abstract idea was interesting but way too chaotic and just took too much attention away from my daughter! for those who don't recall how it looked before here is the first version of the painting:

more details painted

2010-10-02T21:43:00.001+01:00

I've been adding some more detail work to this painting, the girls headdress is now finished and I've added a 'timepeice' type pendant to her, this pendant is not in the reference photo but is instead loosely based on some of my personal collection of clockwork pocket watches (I just thought it would look good here)

This painting is taking quite a while to complete because of all the textures and details I need to tackle but that's fine by me, I'm actually happy to be producing a piece that is technically demanding, in this day and age of throwaway products where everything is expected to be produced at lightening speeds its nice to be able to take my time and produce something that is finely crafted in traditional oils :)

Progress report No2

2010-09-29T19:57:00.000+01:00

I'm also making good progress on my Steampunk mother painting, this is definately my favourite painting so far, Hope you like it :)

Progress report 1

2010-09-29T19:24:00.000+01:00

Although Ive been beavering away at my paintings I've been forgetting to photograph them and post the progress, My painting of Silvie T is making steady progress, the arms are still quite rough at the moment and the face maybe needs a 'touch' more colour (that necklace is going to be a challenge though)

Update on steampunk Mother

2010-09-19T09:49:00.000+01:00

I've Done some more work on the faces on this painting, there's still one or two bits I'm not happy with yet, but I'll soon get those sorted out :)

I'm really getting into this new series of paintings, its more fun when you have lots of interesting textures to deal with, and steampunk certainly gives you that! and this couple are great to paint anyway, the mother is very statuesque and her daughter has a very independent but cute look about her :)

SilvieT

2010-09-17T15:51:00.001+01:00

While I'm waiting for the Steampunk painting to dry so I can do more on it, I've started on another 'Alternative' portrait, this is about 2-3 hours work so far and is a portrait of another Deviantart member SilvieT, the original photo can be found here

Still loads of work to do on this of course but I'm happy with the early stages so far :)

I seem to be using Deviantart quite a bit for reference images at the moment, not least of all because a lot of the stock images offered on there are model led - that is rather than a photographer hiring a model to dress up according to his fantasies the models themselves are choosing the clothing / poses so the resulting photo's often say more about the model than the photographer, which I like a lot because then the paintings hopefully say more about the sitter and their self image.

Steampunk Mother

2010-09-15T11:41:00.000+01:00

I've been getting bored with my output over the last few months - starting pictures and not finishing them, so I've decided to change direction a bit and go back to my Alternative roots - I was a punk Rocker / Goth back in the seventies & eighties and have never lost my affinity for the alternative lifestyles

This is my first work in progress on this theme, its based on a stock Image of Ida Mary Walker with her Daughter (her stock photos can be found here mizzd-stock ) I loved the whole steampunk look of the image along with the Mother / Daughter relationship

Obviously this is just the early stages of the painting (maybe 2 hours work) so its quite rough at the moment, but i'm definately enjoying this more than some of my other recent work :)

New Photography Section on website

2010-07-17T10:54:00.001+01:00

After my recent trip to Venice I've started to become interested in photography again - that is photography as an art form and not just as a means to record what happens around me, something I've not done since I learned professional photography as part of my Art college training many years ago.

As a result of this re-kindled interest I've created a new set of galleries on my website just for my photographs:

http://www.grahamhanks.co.uk/html/photography.html

These are just photo's from my Venice trips so far, but I'm planning to expand on this section over time as I explore photography a bit more.

Venice Summer Academy (Part 1)

2010-07-15T17:36:00.000+01:00

I've just recently come back from a week long painting course at the Venice Summer Academy run by Prof Wolf Werdigier, I heard about it from an internet post and thought it sounded really good - not least of all because its based in Venice and they hire professional dancers to act as models (I'd already visited Venice for the Carnivale in February so was keen to come back again)

The Pazzio Zenobio where the Summer Acadamy was held

To be honest it wasn't quite what I was expecting, it was mostly abstract / expressionist painting and though I have nothing against that kind of painting it is not really my sort of thing! when I see a model in front of me I want to paint what I see, not paint them in bright reds greens and blues!

The two dancers that acted as models for the week

I did start out trying to do the expressionist thing, but every time I found myself toning the colours down to something more subtle - this didn't please the Proffessor too much of course, paint brighter and paint bigger he kept saying, but I just couldn't do it, the bold colours just hurt my eyes too much!

Study of the male model

I didn't mind getting looser with my paint and painting in broader / bigger strokes, it was just the colour thing I couldn't get into, and after 3 days I was getting quite fustrated with the whole thing and came to an impasse where I was struggling to do anything at all, because even though I really wanted to paint in the expressionist way that Wolf wanted me to, my perfectionist personality also wanted me to paint the models as beautifully and realistically as I could, and the two styles just counteracted each other with the result that my paintings became very confused in their style.

Study of the female model

Eventually I decided to stop painting the models, I knew that I couldn't resolve the issue of wanting to paint in a naturalistic way - so I switched tack and began to just paint from my imagination, putting down all my impressions and feelings about venice from memory, this way I could explore the vivid colours that Wolf wanted from me because I wasn't painting from any kind of reference other than my memories.

Continued ......

Venice Summer Academy (part2)

2010-07-15T17:35:00.001+01:00

As mentioned in my previous post I gave up on painting from the live models and switched to painting my impressions of venice instead, I ended up producing two big paintings on this theme to be honest neither of these paintings were all that good in my opinion - partially because I couldn't give them as much time as I would have liked and partially because I was painting in acrylics on cartridge paper which are a poor choice of medium for me.

Lost in Venice (acrylics on cartridge paper)

Unfortunately I gave the two Venice paintings to a Friend on the course to take back to America with her - but due to a mistake she got separated from the paintings at Venice Airport and now its uncertain where the paintings actually are! maybe when I've got time I'll redo the subject but painting in my own way (and in oils)

A Dream of Venice (acrylics on cartridge paper)

Despite my struggles with the abstract expressionist elements of the course I had a great time and really miss being there, I made loads of artistic friends (not just painters but sculptors photographers and writers too) and the whole atmosphere was one of intense creativity, it was fantastic mixing with artistic people from all over the world and for that alone I would thoroughly recommend doing one of the courses there.

Getting together for a meal at the end of week exhibition

Its worth noting too that despite our different styles of painting I found myself agreeing with so much of what Wolf taught - so many times he said exactly the same things that I tell my own students about painting but from a different angle, so maybe our worlds are not as diametrically opposed as they would initially seem, certainly for me it was really interesting learning about the language of abstract colour- some of which may perhaps find its way into some of my work.

Continued ....

Venice Summer Academy (Part 3)

2010-07-15T17:35:00.000+01:00

After a week of all the cultural input of being in Venice I found myself very inspired and motivated to stretch myself more as an artist & photographer, so on the final day when we were free to do as we please I took my camera for a walk and decided to start taking photo's with an emphasis on the creative process of looking instead of simply documenting my time there. It was fun searching for the unique light, colour, shapes and patterns of Venice (or even just interesting details) something I've not done since studying photography as part of my art college training, and I have to say it was a most enjoyable experience that if anything gave me a greater appreciation for the visual structure of the city of Venice.


Light falling on Venetian Red Wall

Of course just being in Venice in itself can be a great artistic inspiration, its a place of great culture and art, visually the light and colour is just beautiful, and even the architecture though often crumbling has a charm unique to this beautiful city - its easy to see why Venice attracts so many artistic people, in fact while relaxing in the Campo St Magerihta I got chatting to a young man called Daniel who was there with his employer and he was telling me that they spend most of their summers there because of the culture of the city.

Campo St Magerihta where much of our socialising took place

On the second encounter with Daniel he introduced me to his employer Angiola Churchill an American artist and Art Educator - a very charming, intelligent and sociable lady who I'm embarrassed to say I'd never heard of before (apparently she is a very well known artist in America and one of the first women to become a college professor over there) and we had a long discussion about the filmmaker Peter Greenaway who they had just seen in a lecture about the relationship between painting and film, unfortunately I missed that particular lecture as I never knew it was on until afterwards - which is a shame as I've always liked Greenaways approach to film.

The Zatterre - one of my favourite places for an afternoon stroll

Another effect of my week in Venice is that I'm now giving a lot of thought to the work I do, not so much my techniques but the ideas and philosophy behind my working practices - these have always been there but I've not really given much thought to them until now, but talking to so many creative people has made me realize I need to consider the intellectual aspects of my work as well as the technical side.

2010-06-27T12:43:00.002+01:00

Having Just read a comment on my blog about this painting it suddenly occurred to me that I never actually posted the finished painting on here (even though it was completed a few months ago)

So here is the finished portrait of Heather in oils with gold leaf, hope you all like i

(I should probably publish some of my other recent work on here too, though to be honest I've not done much painting recently as I've been a bit lacking in inspiration)

Workshops at Community Centre

2010-05-27T23:41:00.000+01:00

Just a note to let everyone know that I won't be holding the classes at the Scawsby Community Centre on Friday nights anymore, the simple reason being that nearly all my students decided that they prefer the lessons held at my private Studio!

The only problem now is that I have to change all the posters / website details to reflect the change in location for the classes - no rest for the wicked eh!

Painting of Heather by Erin Emily robinson

2010-03-29T12:47:00.001+01:00

I’ve been meaning to post this up for a while now, this painting of my daughter was done by my lovely friend Erin Emily Robinson, a very talented painter from Canada.

Erin asked for permission to paint my daughter after seeing some of my paintings and photo’s of heather, so naturally I agreed (always nice to see paintings of my daughter by other artists)

New Friday Night Workshops

2010-03-20T08:45:00.000Z

Just a quick message to say thanks to everyone who made Friday nights workshop at the Scawsby Community Centre a success, it was nice to see you all there, and it was great to see all my students progressing so well!

P.S. I'm not holding the Thursday afternoon workshops at the Brevon Gallery anymore.

Nicki Finished

2010-03-14T10:52:00.000Z

I've finally finished my portrait of Nicki McRae, and I took it to london on Friday to see if I can get it accepted to the Royal portrait society annual exhibition (I took my portrait of heather too but like a plonker forgot to take a photo of it first) I just hope that Nicki Likes it :)

Nicki alterations

2010-03-09T18:37:00.000Z

My portrait of nicki is progressing nicely, though I decided to make some alterations to the pose!
I decided that her aem needed to be out across the canvas to balance the composition a bit more :)
I just need to get on and finish the eyes and hair now!

Heathers Portrait

2010-03-05T19:34:00.000Z

I've got some more work done on my Daughters portrait too - I think I'm happy with the overall effect of the bac ground now!

More progress on Nicki's portrait

2010-03-05T18:35:00.000Z

I didn't manage to get any work done on this yesterday because of the workshops I teach, but I think I've more than made up for that today, there's still some way to go on the face yet, but I'm happy with my progress so far.

Nicki continued

2010-03-03T17:00:00.001Z

More progress on my portrait of nicki, I’ve more or less finished the back ground now, although I may do some colour adjustments here and there :)

Sunshine Award

2010-03-02T22:07:00.001Z

Well this is a First for me! Ive been nominated for a sunshine award by fellow blogger Lokelani Forrest The Sunshine Award is a blogger award for creativitiy and positivity, and its an honour to recieve it!
Apparently the rules for accepting the award are:
Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
Link the nominees within your post.
Let the nominees know they received this award.
Link to the person from whom you received this award.

This has actually made me realise that I don't browse the world of blogs as much as I should do! however here is the list of my favourite blogs (in no particular order)

Enzie Shamiri
Trevor Lingard
morgaine art
Nicki McRae
Alisons Art
Julie Broom
Notes from the Rookery
fractured fairytales
petra sohns
benjamin lois
stephanie greaves
vesna art

I know I should really write something about these blogs - but I'll just let you visit them and explore for yourselves :)

Portrait of heather

2010-03-02T16:01:00.001Z

This is a work in progress of another portrait I’m working on – this time its of my daughter Heather :) this is oils on canvas board with applied Gold leaf :)

Nicki Work in Progress

2010-03-02T14:59:00.001Z

Having done a study this is the initial stages of the actual painting of Nicki McRae, having seen the picture I did of Alison Suchs, Nicki specifically wanted an abstract background for her portrait too :)

This is just an underpainting so far – there is a lot more work to be done before its finished, but I’ll be posting my progress on here so Nicki can see how its going :)

Quick Study

2010-03-01T15:08:00.000Z

This is a quick study in oils that I did last night for a portrait I'm doing of my lovely friend Nicki McRae.
The final painting will probably have a bit more depth in the shadows and will be a bit more carefully drawn too (made a few mistakes here and there)

Great progress at my weekly portrait classes

2010-02-28T17:44:00.002Z

Pastel Drawing by mark foulston

As ever I’m very proud of the progress being made at my weekly portrait classes, its great to see my students coming on so well!
For those who can’t make my Thursday afternoon classes I’m planning to start up some additional Friday evening classes at the local community centre, I’ll post up more information as soon as I know the details.

Venice carnivale WIP

2010-02-22T20:49:00.001Z

This is a work in progress shot of the first of my pictures to come from my trip to the venice carnivale, its 50cm x 70cm pastels on pastelmat, I'm painting the background gold to reflect the gold mosaic interior of the basilica (that and the fact that i'm getting into gold leaf in my paintings LOL)

Another Nude study

2010-02-22T17:56:00.001Z

I’ve just done another nude study as part of the life drawing media thread on wet canvas, this one is conte pastels & lump sanguine on Clairefontaine Pastelmat

Lump Sanguine is basically a natural red chalk as dug up from the ground, its been used by artists for as long as art has existed – even the cave drawings often used Lump sanguine! of course these days its mostly found in pencil or pastel sticks which is more convenient, but the natural sanguine is a lot nicer to draw with.

because its main constituent is hematite (iron oxide) which is the natural colour of dried blood sanguine makes excellent flesh tones when mixed with white chalk (or white conte pastels as here)

Weekly Workshops

2010-02-21T17:53:00.002Z

Just to let everyone who attended my classes this week know that I’m proud of you all for producing such great self portraits :)
Its nice to see my students progressing so well in such a short space of time!
I’ll see you all again next Thursday at 2.00pm

Venice Carnivale 2010

2010-02-16T11:26:00.001Z

Carnival Costume

I’ve just come back from a long weekend at the Venice Carnivale, and Wow! what a fantastic experience it was, Venice is a Beautiful City anyway, but during Carnival season its absolutely buzzing with activity.

Flag juggling in one of the Squares

Me in my Carnival Hat on the Accademia Bridge.

I think the best thing for me though was the Carnival Costumes, every time you walked into a square there were People in the most lavish costumes you could imagine, it was like stepping into another world!

Needless to say there are going to be many Venice carnival paintings coming from my studio in the next few months!

Nude study

2010-02-10T15:21:00.000Z

This is a quick study I did from a photo posted in a thread on Wet Canvas, the theme was to do 'life' drawings in different media, this one was in acrylics and took approx 3 hours to do:

I don't usually spend this long on a life painting, usually when working from a live model I only have about an hour to do the painting so 3 hours is actually quite indulgent!

Its an interesting experience doing it from a photo, you have loads more time to work - but the photo can't reveal all the details you would normally get from a live sitting (the human eye has far more tonal range and resolving power than any camera)

I'm in the middle of another 'life' painting from the same thread but this time in pastels, and may havs a go at using oils too :)

New Blog design

2010-02-10T14:21:00.002Z

I've decided its time for a change, and so I've ditched the Black layout of my Blog for a slitghtly cleaner and brighter White layout :)

Private Workshops 6th Feb

2010-02-06T14:52:00.002Z

Just a quick post to say thank you to Mark & Robert for attending the Saturday Afternoon Lessons, I’m proud of how well you both did on your first attempts at portraiture!

Mark & Robert both wanted to do the Weekly Workshops at the Brevon Gallery, but due to work were unable to attend in the afternoon, so I agreed to run an additional private workshop on Saturday Afternoons for the Same price.

Portrait workshop Thurs 04 Feb

2010-02-05T16:19:00.002Z

Just a quick post to say thankyou to everyone who attended the workshops yesterday! it was a lovely afternoon of painting and drawing, and I hope to see you all again next week :)

Portrait of Enzie Shamiri

2010-02-03T14:21:00.001Z

I’ve finally finished my portrait of my Artist Friend Enzie Shamiri (20”x16” oils on canvas).

Enzie is a very talented portrait painter from California who has a love of orientalist art, which is why I’ve painted this with an Eastern background.

Hopefully this will be winging its way to Enzie in America in a couple of weeks when the paint has finished drying properly.

Workshops re-scheduled

2010-01-27T17:43:00.001Z

After discussion with the Gallery owner and the students that attended my first workshop it has been decided to re-schedule the weekly workshops from Tuesday evenings to Thursday afternoons from 2pm – 4pm.

This should make it easier for many of the older clients who don’t like travelling into town at night, and also allows the Brevon Gallery to have Thursdays as a ‘workshop Day’ with my portrait classes in the afternoon and the life drawing in the evening (and possibly some other classes in the morning)

I apologise if this causes some inconvenience to prospective students, but I’m hoping it will make things easier for more people to attend the classes !

Weekly Portrait Workshops

2010-01-20T20:44:00.001Z

Just to let everyone know, I’m startin up some weekly portrait painting workshops at the Brevon Art Gallery in Doncaster.

These workshops will run from 6pm – 8pm every Tues and will cost £10 per lesson or £36 if you book 4 weeks in advance (if you miss a week don’t worry you can simply transfer the fee to another week)

these are open ended workshops ie you don’t have to start or finish on any particular week and can take as long as you like to produce your ongoing paintings.

As an extra service to my students I can obtain materials at a greatly reduce price compared to the shops (typically 40% discount) making starting up a lot cheaper for first time painters :)

for more information please visit my website at: www.grahamhanks.co.uk

Portrait of Alison Suchs

2010-01-11T18:00:00.001Z

As part of a portrait swap event on Wet Canvas I produced this portrait of Alison Suchs (her portrait of me and my boy Adam is a couple of posts down from here)

As you can see I’ve started to take my portrait work down a new route, combining my abstract work with my figurative work, to create a new look that will hopefully liberate me from the constraints of traditional portraiture while still allowing me to work in the detailed manner I’m used to.

The Abstract elements are actually a continuation of ideas I was exploring at Art college 25 years ago, where I was investigating the spatial composition of my subjects – such as with this study of a seated figure:

this eventually led onto more abstract compositions like this study of my back garden:

Because of time limitations of my career in sculpting I never really took the idea any further and it wasn’t until I returned to painting that I decided to re-examine these old ideas, at first I started to produce pure abstracts like this:

To be honest I found these new abstracts to be un-satisfying to produce and was going to abandon the idea altogether until I decided to experiment with using them as the basis for backgrounds to my portraits, (the lines are not just random, they are part of the spatial relationships that exist within the portrait) and so far its been a very successful and enjoyable experiment.

The portrait of Alison is just the first of a whole series of paintings using this new style, I already have a couple more on the easel as I write this :)

Dolphins by Liz Harvey

2010-01-11T17:02:00.001Z

My wife is a big fan of the marine themed watercolours by Liz Harvey, so as a Christmas present i commissioned Liz to produce a painting of Dolphins for her (my wife is also mad on dolphins)

I think Liz did a fantastic job on the painting, and it now takes pride of place in our living room :)

Artists & Illustrators Magazine

2009-11-30T22:51:00.001Z

I've just recently been featured in the Christmas issue of Artists & Illustrators magazine, there is none of my work in the article, I was just asked what I'd like to find under my Christmas tree this year - which was great because the lady who wrote the article approached me to contribute purely because she liked my work so much, what an honour !

I've scanned the article and posted it below ( click on the pic to get a larger view)

Portrait of me and my boy

2009-11-30T22:26:00.001Z

This portrait of me holding my newborn son Adam was made by artist Alison Suchs as part of the portrait swap challenge on Wet Canvas, I absolutely love this painting and can’t wait to see it in the flesh as it were, once I have my portrait of Alison finished I’ll post it on here as well :)

Life Painting

2009-11-21T16:31:00.001Z

I’ve recently started doing life drawing again after a break of about 25 years, I find its a great way to improve your observational skills :)

The other night I decided to put my pastels away and have a go at some speed painting instead, if you have never done this its a great exercise as it forces you to make every mark count! and for a 50 minute pose I’m quite pleased with the results, I’m definitely going to try doing more of these!

Portrait by Erin Emily Robinson

2009-11-09T10:38:00.001Z

I’ve recently completed a portrait swap with a lovely artist from Canada called Erin Emily Robinson, the picture above is the beautiful portrait she did of me in pastels.

Its quite an experience seeing yourself portrayed by another artist, and portrait swaps are a good way to get to know other artists from around the world too :)

Just in case you are interested here is the portrait I did of Emily, its in Gouache, pastels and gold leaf:

Golden Section Software

2009-11-03T21:29:00.006Z

Like a lot of artists I’ve found myself exploring the ‘Golden Ratio’ or ‘Divine Ratio’ as its also sometimes known, a geometric formula that’s supposed to be found in everything from simple plants to spiral galaxies - even the human body can be broken down using the golden section.

The formula is a very useful tool for artists in composing paintings and drawings - in fact Artists and Architects have been using the golden section as a guide since the time of the Ancient Greeks.

In order to make the process of testing out compositions using the Divine Ratio easier I decided to write a small piece of software to automate the use of compositional grids in setting up compositions, and have decided to make it publicly available for free.

To find out more and to download a copy of the program just click Here

Golden Triangles

2009-10-29T00:17:00.001Z

I’ve been experimenting with compositional tools just lately, especially ones relating to the ‘Golden Mean’ a system for creating perfect proportions that has been around since the Ancient Greeks.

A lot of artists will probably be familiar with the Golden Mean and Fibonacci spirals, but there are actually other ways in which the Golden Ratio can be used, the Pentagon for example revolves entirely around the golden Ratio, as is the Pentacle created from it, and the triangles formed by the Pentacle inside the Pentagon!

so I’ve created a viewfinder using two mirrored Pentagons which explore all kinds of golden ratio relationships, which I’ve printed onto Clear Acetate.

As an experiment I’ve overlaid the design over my latest work in progress and I’m very happy with the way the drawing falls so easily into the geometric patterns, I have a feeling this is going to be one of my favourite compositional tools for quite a while now.

if there is enough interest I may even sell some on my website for other artists to play around with :)

New Website

2009-10-25T20:24:00.001Z

Its taken nearly 3 weeks of development, but my new website is finally finished and fully operational here: My New Website

I now have an online shop where you can buy prints of my work, and anyone wanting to attend my courses can now book online via the workshops page, please take time to visit and maybe add yourself to my followers page!

Christmas Portrait Workshops

2009-10-21T18:59:00.001+01:00

With Christmas coming up I’ve organised some portrait workshops where you can bring along a photo of a family member and produce a portrait of them as a Christmas present.

The first course take place on the 21st & 22nd November and is a pastel drawing workshop, which costs £100 for 2 days tuition including approx £46 worth of art materials to take home with you afterwards.

The second course is a portrait painting workshop which takes place on the 28th & 29th November, this workshop costs £120 for 2 days Tuition and you get approx £70 worth of art materials to take home with you!

All you need to bring is a photo of your loved one and you will go home with a beautiful portrait that you would be happy to give away as a presesnt.

For more details or to book a place please visit my new website at:

Graham Hanks Website

Open Ehhibition

2009-10-14T13:17:00.000+01:00

I've just had two paintings accepted to the annual open exhibition at the Doncaster Museum Art Gallery, which is kinda cool :) these are the paintings that were accepted:

Woman in Red hood - Conte Pastels on paper

Blue Tribe Tuareg - Oil on canvas

Lets see if either of them sells :)

A Proud Father

2009-10-09T12:24:00.000+01:00

I've just finished this pastel painting of me and my son Adam wearing our straw hats:

It was based on a photo my wife took of us during the Summer, which I submitted as a reference photo for a monthly portrait challenge we hold at my favorite Art forum www.artforums.co.uk

The painting was made using a mixture of different pastels (Conte, Winsor & Newton and Unison Pastels) its interesting how the different brands handle so differently to give different finishes, Conte Carres pastels for example are very precise whereas the Winsor and Newton pastels are much more painterly in their application and Unison are just very smooth and silky. Individually they are all good pastels to work with but combined together you can get results that are much broader and more varied in terms of technique.

fustrations

2009-10-07T09:48:00.002+01:00

i've not been posting much on here or my website for a while, partially because I've been busy but partially because I've been going through a crisis of confidence over the last 2 or 3 months.

I think it all started when i went for my first mentoring session with an organisation called CIDA who aere supposed to help upcoming artists to establish themselves in business as succesful working artists.

The painter who was assigned to me was a nice man but the first thing he said to me was that he thought my work was more like illustration than fine art, and then started going on about how I should work on loosening up my style and being more 'loose and sketchy' in how I paint and draw things - after a year of perfecting my skills in portraiture to become more precise it was quite disheartening to be told my work was too precise!

after that meeting I became quite dissilusioned and my work rate dropped off due to being disheartened, but then I've noticed that there is a lot of that sort of attitude in Yorkshire, if you are not an expressionist or at the very least an impressionist then your work tends to be dismissed by many artists and members of the art establishment here.

the pressure to become more impressionistic in my art was so persuasive that I actually started to try to be more loose in my paintings, but that just made me feel worse because I wasn't happy with the results and began to lose even more confidence in my ability to paint well, after all if I can't paint in a loose and impressionistic manner then I can't be a very good painter!

but I've taken stock of things just lately and I've come to the conclusion that these other people are wrong to try and influence the way I work, I'm an individual not a part of the herd - if they want to paint in that way then good luck to them, but why should I be pressured into doing the same!

as an artist the most important thing is to express YOURSELF not what others think you should be but what you truly are, I'm a quiet introverted person, very cautious in my relationship with the world, and I'm an obsessive perfectionist, anyone who knows me well knows I cant help trying to make everything I do perfect, its a symptom of the mental Disorder I suffer from - Social Phobia Disorder, which in laymans terms is basically an extreme form of shyness, luckily I've had couselling for it and am on medication that helps me overcome many of my problems and lead a relatively 'normal' life, but I'm still a compulsive perfectionist and get depressed if things aren't just so.

bearing this in mind its hardly surprising that my art is also obsessed with perfecting details and getting everything just so, to do any differently would be to deny the sort of person I really am, and this is what my detractors in the expressionistic camp don't seem to get - by being precise and controlled I AM expressing myself as an individual, I'm just not expressing myself in the way that 'they' think I should.

I've decided that its time to stop listening to the biased views of other artists and listen to the inner voice that is me, if other artists don't like that, its their problem not mine, I need to paint in MY style not someone elses otherwise there is no point in being an artist for me.

rant over :)

Some Townscapes

2009-09-12T20:58:00.005+01:00

Its been a while since I've updated my blog and website, partially because the kids have been off school so we have been away on our summer hols ect and partially because I've gone self employed as an artist and have been swamped with getting all of that up and running.

Anyway here are a couple of my most recent paintings, both townscapes of my home town Doncaster, these were painted as part of a competition held in conjunction with our twin town Wilmington USA, the two winners of the competition will be going to Wilmington as part of a cultural exchange so it will be very exciting if I win!

To be honest I'm not overly happy with these paintings, but then I havn't painted townscapes for many years so I'm well out of practice.

I am however planning to do more townscapes as and when I get the time as I've really enjoyed doing these :)

Adams Hat

2009-07-23T00:44:00.003+01:00

I've just finished this pastel portrait of my son Adam wearing his straw hat, I'm quite pleased with the finished image.

Lollipop Girl

2009-07-17T09:53:00.002+01:00

This Portrait of a Friends Daughter was done for a portrait challenge on Artforums.co.uk its Conte pastels on W&N pastel paper, I'm quite pleased with how its turned out

Dilemnas

2009-07-01T13:06:00.002+01:00

Its been a strange day for me, because of being ill with stress I've been on sickness benefits for the last year - a situation I've not really been comfortable with TBH but if I went back to my job as a scaffold engineer I'd just make myself even more ill so I've had to remain on benefits for now.

It was as a therapy for my health problems that I started to paint again after an absence of 10 years from the art world, and in the last few months I've decided to become self employed as an artist so that I can hopefully come off benefits and support myself again (hence the planned workshops in August)

I'm hoping to be self employed by the end of July at the latest, though at the moment I don't actually have anything lined up in the way of commisions ect, in fact the workshops will be the first proper self employed income for me.

of course part of the problem with planning to set up in the art business is that you need to get your name out there so people know who you are, something that starts long before you actually start trading as an artist, its a bit like setting up a shop - you have to let people know you are going to open a shop before you actually open up - otherwise how do people know your shop is going to be there?

there are however pitfalls to this, such as with the workshop I'm advertising for August, I intend to be self employed by the time the workshops come up, but I needed to get word out well in advance to generate interest (& customers)

the downside to this advance advertisement is that I've just been visited by a compliance officer from the benefits office - someone has reported me claiming that I'm trading as a business while claiming benefits (because of the advertising of the workshop) quite a frightening experience being threatened with possible prosecution for benefit fraud.

I had in fact hoped to have come off benefits by now, my original plan was to become self employed at the beginning of june, but various problems made that impractical so the process has been delayed, but I'm certainly no benefit cheat!

nowhere on any of my wbsites have I advertised paintings for sale or published price lists, nor have I tried to organise any business ventures before the date of the workshops in August, but still I'm being investigated by social security because of a planned business venture that hasn't happened yet!

So what do you do? stay on benefits for life and never try to better yourself by advancing your carreer, or try to plan for a future as a self employed artist then possibly get prosecuted for telling people that you intend to start a business venture in the near future? at the moment I'm really wondering why I even considered trying to get myself off benefits if this is the hassle that results from people getting the wrong end of the stick.

Portrait Drawing Course

2009-06-24T22:58:00.003+01:00

Ever wanted to draw portraits of your loved ones but don't know where to start? Then this workshop is ideal for you.

Held at the Brevon Art Gallery Doncaster on August 8th-9th 2009, from 11AM - 4PM this 2 day course will take you through all the steps necesary to produce beautiful portraits in conte pastels.

Over the weekend you will learn how to:
look for patterns in your subject,
transfer a drawing from a photo,
create rich skin tones with just 3 colours,
and how to create 3-dimensional looking faces.

The course costs £100, which covers 2 days of expert tuition plus all the materials you will need for the course (GreatArt are supplying a full set of 12 Conte pastels, pastel papers and charcoal pencils for every artist attending the course) free refreshments will also be made available during the workshops

The Brevon Art Gallery is located in the Doncaster town centre, within easy walking distance of several town centre hotels and only 10 mins walk from the train station.

For more details and a booking form, please get in touch via my Contact Page (Link to the Right)

Blue Man Tuareg

2009-06-17T16:33:00.003+01:00

Ive been putting some serious hours into this painting over the last few days and I think its nearing completion now, I just need to add more texture/detail to the headdress.

Nearly There

2009-06-16T11:42:00.005+01:00

I've been making a lot more progress on the portrait of Enzie Shamiri, most of the detail is there now, I just need to add some glazes to give more depth to the colours.

I've also been experimenting with Gold leaf in the jewelry, though thats not as easy as it looks, I definately need to work on that aspect to perfect it :)

Magazine Article

2009-06-02T22:47:00.003+01:00

Well its an exciting week for me, I've just had my first magazine article published. Its in the July issue of Artists & Illustrators and its a how to guide to drawing portraits in the traditional Conte crayon colours of black, white, sanguine and bistre. The above portrait of my wife Mandy was the picture I used for the step by step tutorial.

As a sort of follow on to this I'm holding a 2 day workshop at the Brevon Art gallery in Doncaster on the 8th-9th of August again on drawing portraits in conte pastels the course will cost £100 for the 2 days and every student will be provided with a set of materials to take home with them.

(please note that this is not a residential course, but there are plenty of good hotels within easy walking distsnce of the Gallery)

Getting my act together

2009-05-07T14:19:00.008+01:00

Painting a portrait at the open studio event

After spending a while a bit lost and having no motivation to paint following the recent bereavements I've finally broken from the rut and started to get some work done again, I had to really since I was taking part in an open studio event the other weekend where I was doing painting demonstrations for the general public.

I got started on two portraits during the weekend, the first one was a portrait of my wifes childhood friend Maxine, a lovely woman who we don't really see enough of,

this was based on a tiny photo-booth picture from when Maxine was about 19 years old, though she doesn't look that much different now!

The other portrait I got started on was the painting of my American Artist friend Enzie Shamiri, for which I did the pastel sketch a while back,

I've actually done some more work on this since that weekend so this is the painting as it stands now. Because Enzie has a love of Orientalist Art I decided to add an eastern style background to the painting, which I think works quite well in this situation. of course there is still loads of work to do on this painting - this is still very much in the early stages, but I'm happy with the way its progressing.

I've also done some work on my self portrait which has been rather neglected in the last couple of months,

I've altered the design a bit since my last post, I've added a section of blue fabric to the lower left corner to balance out the blue shirt, and I've decided to add a picture of my kids to the painting too - which is what the cream coloured square to the left of the square will be when its finished.

Lets just hope that now I'm back in the swing of things that I'll be able to keep the momentum going.

treasure what you have

2009-04-21T12:04:00.003+01:00

those of you who visit my blog on a more regular basis will notice that I havn't posted on here much this month, this is because its been a difficult month for me, near the end of March my Grandma Died from multiple organ failure, it was a long and protracted process and difficult to see, at the end she was like a frightened child and all we could do for her was to hold her hand and reassure her. Then a few days later the news came out that my cousin had died in a house fire - along with his wife, two little children and their unborn child who was 2 weeks away from being born. When news first came out about the fire I didn't even realise it was my cousin, it wasn't till later I found out who it was in the news.

so I've had two funerals in two weeks, my grans funeral was bad enough, but the funeral for my cousins family was awful, it was so tragic seeing the coffins of the children, especially knowing they were the same age as my own two little ones, they should have been playing with my kids not being cremated, my wife just cried her eyes out all the way through the funeral and I couldn't get rid of the tears either.

To be honest I've not been very good at visiting family in the last few years, I only saw my Gran maybe once a month if that, and I never visited my cousin even though he lived 10 minutes walk up the road and had kids same age as my own little ones - it was so long since I'd seen him that I didn't even realise he lived there (one of my other cousins who live nearby didn't know either so it wasn't just me) Something like this makes you realise that you need to treasure the family you have and make more effort to spend time with them - before its too late.

Dancing Red Shoes

2009-03-31T23:03:00.003+01:00

This painting is now finished and I've decided to call it 'Dancing Red Shoes', the image came from a snapshot of my daughter dancng in our living room that I tidied up and altered to suit.

Self Portrait

2009-03-31T22:14:00.005+01:00

I havn't got much painting done over the last couple of weeks because my grandma has been very ill and then died a week ago, but I've started to paint again this week - takes my mind off things.

I've done some more on my self portrait, I've got some detail painted into the guitar now and made some major changes to the face, mostly because I decided it wasn't a true representation of myself.

I decided to add a beard, largely because its actually very rare for me to be shaved these days, even though everyone says I look 10 years younger when I'm clean shaven - I just prefer having a beard.

I've also added my hearing aids as well - no point trying to pretend I'm not half deaf, after all thats a part of who I am too.

Enzie Study

2009-03-17T12:34:00.006Z

I've just finished a Pastel study for a painting I'm doing of Enzie Shamiri, a very talented portrait painter from California. The painting won't have a blue background like this it will more likely be a warm brown, though I havn't decided for sure what I'm doing as yet.

The left eye (her right) is not quite right but I can fix that in the actual painting so I'm not overly worried at this stage.

New Easel

2009-03-12T00:16:00.004Z

I've been wanting a new easel for a while now because my portable easel just isn't sturdy enough to take the bigger canvases i'm using these days, but with the financial situaton at the moment I just can't afford to buy one.

So I decided to build myself my own easel instead, all it took was a trip to the timber yard and an afternoon of joinery and for £20 (about 28 $) I came up with this:

It has a built in clipboard for reference photo's, a built in Pallette holder, and best of all once the painting is secured into the frame, it can be raised or lowered to give better access to different parts of the painting without the canvas having to be removed from the easel.

The photo below shows the canvas lowered all the way to the floor to give better access to the top half of the painting:

it may not be as good as some of the professional easels, but it does everything I want of it so I'm happy

Edit: I've now uploaded a step by step tutorial on how I built this easel onto my website, just follow this link http://www.greywolf-art.co.uk/tutorials.html and click on 'building an Easel' to download the PDF.

update on portrait

2009-03-01T13:25:00.002Z

I've finally got some more work don on my self portrait, this was always intended to be a longer term project but with all the other stuff going on at the moment it seems to be taking forever!

My trouble is that I get so involved in all my projects that I tend to overload myself with work, which when you are a stay at home dad helping to raise 3 kids tends to leave you struggling to keep up with yourself - not that I'd have it any other way, I'd get bored without a challenge.

In addition to my painting projects I'm also preparing a course in portrait painting that will start this week, and I'm now starting to write a book on portrait painting too (that will definately be a challenge - I've never written a book before!)

victorian range

2009-02-23T16:31:00.009Z

I was browsing some blogs today and came across a post by Otilias Veranda about her wood fired stove and it brought back so many memories for me.

When I was 12 years old (was it really 34 years ago?) my parents were Stewards of a social club in a mining village called Askern Nr Doncaster, unfortunately the club secretary ran off with the club funds causing the club commitee to close the club and file for bankruptcy.

As a result of the bancruptcy, even though my parents were only employees of the club, not owners and the debts were not theirs, the utilities were disconnected due to the huge unpaid bills.

And so it was that we found ourselves living for 6 months without gas or electricity, luckily the living accomdation above the club still had the old victorian style cooking range, not unlike the one pictured below:

the wood/coal fired range had a central open fire with ovens at the side warmed from the heat of the fire and a cast iron rack over the fire so that pans & kettles could be place over the fire for cooking, and a heated space for drying laundry.

living without modern appliances for 6 months certainly gives you an appreciation for the lives of our victorian ancestors, the kitchen range was the centre of houshold life for most working class families, it was the main source of warmth, food and hot water.

You might think that living like this was a big hardship, but it was actually not that bad, my own memories of that time are actually very happy, I was well aware at the time that we were living in a time warp and actually found it an adventure going back in time like that.

I still remember things like havimg candlelight baths in a tin bath with water heated up in pans on the range, feeling the warmth of the open fire as we bathed, then snuggling up in a huge towel on a chair in front of the fire afterwads.

And theres the memories of my mother cooking over the open fire or in the coal fired oven, while we sat in the kitchen making our own enertainment, there was just a cosyness to it that you just don't get in modern homes.

while I love my computers and electric lights, I must admit that there is a part of me that wishes I could have an old fashioned kitchen with a wood fired range, to be able to sit around the kitchen fire on a cold winters evening, cooking food over an open fire.

P.S. while searching the net for pictures of ranges the bottom picture made me laugh - theres no way you would have let the fire blaze away like that - the food would have been cremated in no time, you had to keep a nice steady glow to the fire without too many flames licking all over the pots and pans.

pastel of young girl

2009-02-23T01:40:00.006Z

This is a study in Conte Carres Pastels for a painting I might be doing in the near future, the reference photo came from the reference section of the wet canvas website, the sketch was done with just the 4 basic traditional sketching colours, black, white, sanguine and bistre.

I deliberately left the pastel marks largely unblended as I ike to see the 3D structure of the face, though the pastels do seem to have blended together naturally as I've worked on it (I think I maybe over worked the picture in my enthusiasm) you will need to click on the picture to get a full size image with all the detail.

To me this is the main point of doing a study for a painting - to rationalise the form and structure of the subject before commiting to paint, producing a smoothed out finish actually destroys a lot of the important reference information you need when you get to the painting!

I've really developed a love affair with my conte pastels,their relative hardness makes getting fine details relatively easy wile still giving the strong bright colours of soft pastels.

Time for a Hug

2009-02-16T01:13:00.003Z

I don't think I can do much more to this painting now, so I guess its finished, I decided to call this one 'Time for a Hug' as that pretty much sums it up, Hope you all like it.

Blue Man Painting - initial sketch

2009-02-14T12:17:00.007Z

While browsing the net a couple of weeks back I came across this photo of a Blue Man Tuareg Berber by Phil Douglis :

http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/72911054

As soon as I saw it I just knew I had to do a painting, that blue headdress is just amazing! especially when combined with the handsome young man, and having contacted Phil he has kindly given permission for me to use his photo as a reference for a painting.

This is just a preliminary sketch I've done to help define the structure and form of the face (I find this helps sometimes when working from a photograph)

This has been drawn in Conte Carres pastels, which have become my favourite sketching medium these days, unlike most pastels carre pastels are actually quite hard and more like soft pencil leads in consistency, which means less powder and more control of detail.

Hopefully I'll get started on the painting in the next couple of weeks, I'm just in the process of preparing the canvas and transferring the drawing at the moment.

nikki nearly finished

2009-02-11T02:21:00.002Z

the painting of nikki and keira is nearly finished now, I'm just waiting for the current paint layer to dry so I can glaze the shadows to get some extra depth to the picture, I'm also going to add some blue glaze to the sky to make the colour a bit richer.

Documents for Portrait course

2009-02-10T01:05:00.008Z

I've recently agreed to do a short course on portrait painting for my local art club, it will probably take place over a period of about 6 weeks or so covering everything from the initial drawing through all the stages of producing a finished oil painting.

As part of producing this course I've started to create some reference materials and decided to host some of them here so that anyone attending the course can download them if needed.

The first of these documents is a guide to the method I sometimes use to transfer photo's to Paintings / Drawings

Click here to View or download PDF

and here is a set of printable scale rulers I created that can be used with the above tutorial if you don't have access to proportional dividers

Click here to View or download PDF

Nikki progress

2009-01-26T12:11:00.003Z

I've been doing a lotmore on this painting over the last couple of days and I'm quite pleased with how its gone so far, I still havn't hardly touched the red trousers and the hand next to them yet though. it might be a couple of weeks beforeI can get more done on this though because we are re-decorating the studio in the next week

Heather Dancing

2009-01-23T01:09:00.003Z

I did some more to this painting last night, its starting to look more like heather all the time, but I need to do something about the hair on the left of the picture - it still isn't quite right, I think I'll do some alterations tomorrow while my wife is visiting her firiend for the afternoon.

One World One Heart Pastel Giveaway

2009-01-20T01:03:00.011Z

I've just come across this Event for the first time today and I think its a great Idea

basically from the 19th Jan to 12th Feb, Art Blogs all over the world are giving away free gifts to randomly picked visitors, the idea being to get people visiting each others blogs and make new friends.

So, My giveaway is this pastel study for a painting I'm planning to do in the near future called 'Fatherhood - the greatest gift of all'

This has been done in Conte Pastels on W&N pastel paper, and is an original work of art not a print or copy.

The winner of this Pastel is Debra from Michigan USA, the picture will be in the post in the next few days !

to find out more about this event visit: http://oneworldoneheart.typepad.com/

Oh and if you like my work why not add yourself as a follower while you are here

More progress on self Portrait

2009-01-20T00:55:00.002Z

I've got some more done on my self portrait over the last couple of days, the face is getting nearer to completion (needs more work onthe ears though) and I've worked in more shading ont the shitrt and waiscoat

Nikki WIP

2009-01-16T01:07:00.002Z

I just got started on this painting tonight, its from a photo of a painter called Nikki Macrae holding her little girl, the composition and subject just took my eye and I decided I had to paint it.

I've included a link to Nikki's website if you want to see some of her work

WIP Self Portrait

2009-01-14T23:45:00.002Z

This is my latest Work In Progress, another self portrait - this time without the moustache, in order to keep the thread from the old blog I've included all the main stages cpompleted up until now.

There is still a lot of work to do on this as yet, but I think its progressing nicely so far.

heather Dancing (WIP)

2009-01-14T23:12:00.004Z

This is another oil painting inspired by a photo, my wife snapped a pic of heather dancing in the living room and it looked so good I decided to paint it, in the reference photo the hands were quite blurred due to the movement so I had to sort of guess a bit at the hand details.

This is still a work in progress so I will post further pics as I get time to do more to it.

Heather and Adam

2009-01-14T23:08:00.004Z

this oil painting was inspired by a couple of photo's of my two children Heather and Adam holding hands (they are very affectionate towards each other a lot of the time) i actually combined the two photo's into one to get them looking at each other.
I ended up giving ths painting to my mother for christmas

Three Dogs

2009-01-14T22:45:00.003Z

I don't generally do animal portraits, but my Mother asked me to paint this for my Brother as a christmas present, its a portrait of my brothers Dogs Sam, Sha and Max.

As a first ever attempt at painting dogs I don't think I did too badly

Closeup of Sam

Closeup of Sha

Closeup of Max

Unfortunately Sam is no longer with us as he had to be put down some time ago

Self Portrait with Moustache

2009-01-14T22:32:00.008Z

This is a self portrait I did a few months ago in oils, I've since got rid of the moustache as I didn't like it (it was my wifes idea to grow it in the first place) by the way, before anyone comments - my face really is that lopsided, it wasn't a mistake in the drawing

New Blog

2009-01-13T16:58:00.002Z

Hi, Ive decided to start a new blog here on blogspot after having problems with the gallery on the new version of Wordpress, its a bit of a pain because I can't just import my old blog into blogger so I have to start all over again, luckily all my galleries are on a new website now anyway so I don't have to re-do all of them.