Mirror, Mirror!I keep looking in the mirror today. Not for reasons of vanity, but , because i'm wary of the horse's nose going awry. I've told you before about how the mind plays tricks on you when you are painting, and tries to make you paint what you think you see rather than what you do actually see. The way around this is to either, flip the canvas and picture on its head and paint it that way, meaning that you are paying more attention to shadow and tonal values rather than a recognisable image, or, to do it the way i've been doing today and looking at the image in a mirror. I hope you can see the progression from yesterday's posting. I've still got a few more layers to go, and i'm finding it hard not to put in all the details rather than leaving this layer more 'blocky', but again, that's a discipline i'll need to practise.
Tomorrow, i'll maybe do a little more to the horse's head, and perhaps start to fine tune the grand old Duke himself, though i've got other pieces i'm working on that need some attention too. Have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra! Davy Aye, Eye!Painting today has been a wee bit ..meh! (does that wavy hand thing). The good points are that I feel i've measured the eye better and adjusted other measurements too - moving the nose strap down slightly, starting to realign the nose, which had gone a bit Frankie Howard saying "neigh, neigh, and thrice neigh!" So, although, not a success, as such, I feel as if the painting is moving on a bit. It's just the second layer at moment, so 3 parts thinner to 1 part medium, hence i'm trying not to get the details too fine yet.
I've got the whole day to devote to it tomorrow, so i'll post again tomorrow night to bring you up to date. Hope you're having a creative day too! Davy In the year 2150 when the tellybox is reimagining Fawlty Towers, all the actors will be played by robots. Here's 'brobblebot 3000' one of the finest actors of his iteration portraying hapless waiter Manuel. Hope yer having a creative day, and i'll see ye tomorra!
Davy Just a wee update on the progression of the 'Wallflowers' series of paintings. So far i've sketched each of these pieces out using some raw umber, and the next stage as we can see in the first two paintings is to block in some tonal values - i've done this with the grey value scale. Im using thinner with this layer so and the result is that you can still see the canvas through them, but that's what happens when you follow the fat over lean principle. I'm painting each of these pieces in layers, which means that each successive layer has to be a bit more stretchy than the one below it, so that the paint doesn't crack. To this end I add a bit more medium (the 'fat') to each layer as i progress...think of an oil painting like one big sandwich, each layer getting fatter...er, now i'm feeling hungry! This final guy below, well he's still a very skinny sandwich..just the canvas, toned ground and raw umber sketch at the moment. I think i'll start fattening him up tomorrow or Friday, or else he'll end up eating all the wee butterflies. I'm going to set up a page for each of these paintings, on the website, at the weekend, so that I can show each progression. I'm always fascinated when i watch how other artists works come together, so hopefully you'll get a kick out of mine too!
Have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra! Davy A Fairground AttractionI was tidying away some boxes today and found an old shoebox full of mixtapes. Funny how certain songs can take you back to a moment in time. So Brother Louie by Modern Talking started playing, and i'm back in 1986 at the local funfair in Campbeltown. I'm crossing between the Waltzers and the Dodgems, and you can smell the candyfloss, and diesel, and for some reason there's a certain static in the air, and i've got that wee bit of excitement building up in my belly. Honestly, no alcohol was involved, but for some reason that giddy feeling had my head spinning. Probably the hormones building up, well i was almost 14 and starting to notice I wasn't quite the same in regards to crushes as my pals, and obviously the guys in 'Modern Talking' were quite pretty. So today on 'National Coming Out Day', what would I tell my wee teenage self at that time? Enjoy the crushes, enjoy just being a crazy teenager, don't keep worrying that you'll 'just have to get married and try and live a 'normal' life. Everything will work out...and that at the same time there's quite a few people, at school going through the same thing. So happy 'National Coming Out Day' to everyone, and as a wee celebration here's that song from Modern Talking. Have a sweet night, and i'll see ye tomorrow!
Davy Every year we say it as if it's for the first time, but the nights are fair drawing in right enough. The best bit about cooreing doon for the winter is that I get a lot more reading done. I picked up these wee beauties (below) from a wee charity shop in Paisley. The author is Lillian Beckwith, and the last time I read these books was when i was a wee boy staying at my Granny's farm. Aye, i know the books look like they are falling apart, but trust me they're such a good read. They detail the author's experience of her times living on the island of Bruach, in the Hebrides. Each tale in turn funny, poignant, and sometimes spooky!
Now it's duvet weather i'll be curled up with these, and then...well maybe i'll make a start on the books i bought...and should have read at university. "Food for future years!", is what somebody I know calls books he's bought and never had time to read. Have a fantastic day and i'll see ye tomorra! Davy Playing The DaneI've been seeing the #ShakespeareSunday hashtag pop up on twitter for a few weeks and I kept meaning to draw something for it. Well, yet again I forgot to draw something but remembered I had a wee sketch that I always meant to do something with. So, here's a cute little Shakespearean actor giving it a bit of "hey nonny nonny!" Now that i've found him again i'll maybe give him a wee tidy up and use him for something 'dramatic'.
See ye tomorra, Davy A few years ago i worked in Borders Books in Glasgow, and absolutely loved the place. Bookshops are magical places and they all seem to attract people to work there that are all doing something else with their time and using bookselling to support themselves financially, whilst pursuing, study, or creative endeavours. Amazingly I worked with so many fantastic people in one space who were actually film makers, artists, writers, actors, musicians and stand up comedians - it really was inspiring. I also loved our customers, some of whom would come in daily just to say hello. I even enjoyed the thrill of the chase when it came to finding the correct book from some scrap of information the customer would have about it. I think every bookseller in the world has been faced with a customer saying, "Do you know the book? You must know the book...it had a blue cover!" And here, in celebration of booksellers the world over is a wee sketch of that very same customer! So, happy bookshop day, and remember to be nice to your local booksellers, especially in the run up to Christmas...trust me, if you give them a smile, and a word of thanks, they'll truly appreciate it!
Davy Words And Pictures!If you've been following the blog you'll know that i've been setting aside more time for painting on canvas, and i've been sharing the pieces i'm working on in the form of 'Diary Of A Painting'. Here's a wee glimpse of 'Wallflowers', that i've been working on today. I'll go more into the backstory of this painting when I do the full 'Diary' blog, including why, like a few pieces, I started it last year, and it's only now that it's getting more of my attention.
One of the fantastic benefits of devoting time to painting is that i'm rediscovering my joy of listening to the radio whilst working - it really has been amazing, and i've been discovering quite a few wee gems on the BBC radio player. So far this week i've been listening to - HG Wells's 'A Dream Of Armageddon', Gerald Scarfe's 'Donald Gets Drafted 'The Void' Toby Jones's 'The Villian In Six Parts' 'Down With Skool - The Art of Molesworth' 'Don't Be Rude On The Road' Seriously, give your telly a break and tune in to the radio, there's some absolute brilliant programmes available. i'm already lining up 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?' For tomorrow! Have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra, Davy Amazon's Problem With Image Theft - From My Own ExperienceAgain, I need to stress that I am not putting the boot into Amazon. Every online marketplace has its problem with criminal counterfeiters. Also, apart from a couple of notable and frustrating exceptions, Amazon has been quick to pull down my designs when notified that they are being sold illegally, and not by the various Print On Demand (POD's) that I work with. What I have realised through having to have so many hundreds of products taken down (mainly pillows and t-shirts - the crooks favourite items), is that certain patterns emerge. If i'm noticing them, then surely Amazon can get their computer coders to add a little algorithm to the code to stop this at source, to recognise straight away when something is a little bit 'fishy'. I mean, it's not 'Rocket Science' as Spaceman Jezza details below in this 'cut out and keep' artwork for Amazon coders. It's also handy for consumers too. These are the certain clues that i have experienced in having hundreds of products removed from the Amazon marketplace. It's not a one size fits all set of clues, but, it's what i've come across so far in my own case. Again, it's intended to help Amazon, as maybe they just don't realise how frustrating and time consuming it is for artists to have to spend days and weeks trying to get their own artwork removed from image thieves operating on the Amazon marketplace. For the moment Amazon are on the 'naughty step', but i'll detail in future blog posts a couple of simple things Amazon could do to help their brand. On a related note 'Spaceman Jezza' now has his own t-shirt on Zazzle! Speak soon!
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Whit's he up tae noo?The blog posts of David Brodie, a Scottish artist based near Glasgow. Archives
October 2018
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