Project LV One – Day 249 – Dystopia

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Guthlac

Dystopia

 

….an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one….

Need I say anymore?

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Project LV One – Day 248 – Printing Squares

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Guthlac

Printing Squares - Export

Tis the season for coming down with ailments…as the song may have gone.  All around me my friends have got a variation of the lurgy  and I appear to have pulled a muscle in my leg.  Anyway this didn’t stop me nipping over to may friend for a chat, cup of tea and then to use his ageing but rather good large format printer.

This has allowed me to tick another task on my to do list as complete.  There is something rather satisfying when you get the chance to do that…very satisfying indeed.

 

 

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Project LV One – Day 247 – Lightroom Mobile

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Guthlac

Lightroom Experiment

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
– Hamlet (1.5.167-8),

Oh this brings back memories, plotting out workflow models and then using them to optimise the process.  Hours and hours of fun I had making ever more complicated diagrams which were totally dismissed because some senior manager didn’t like how they contradicted how he, and it usually was a he, thought something was/should work.  I am so glad I am shot of that whole aspect of my life.

The problem was I was examining this afternoon is whether Lightroom Mobile can be used to streamline a digital workflow for a photographer who spends a lot of time in the field away from his lap top but could use an iPad instead as it is much lighter and easier to use.  The conclusion I have come to at the moment is that it wouldn’t be advisable as it is far from clear as to where the digital image he has captured sits, either on his iPad or the Creative Cloud or sync’d laptop.  In short the complexities introduced into the system would seem to suggest that the costs of any confusion caused would seem to out weight any gains.

This is a shame really because Lightroom Mobile is a rather nice piece of software if you have a creative cloud account and a good Wifi signal.  The interface is simple to use and actually looks someone took sometime to produce it – which is not always the case with some apps.  However, I am not certain it is the way froward for my friend.

 

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Project LV One – Day 246 – Disco

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Guthlac

Digital Sammy 002 - export

This is a digital portrait I am working on at the moment – in real world terms this is an oil sketch – not sure whether this is a creative col de sac – time will tell.

 

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Project LV One – Day 245 – Looking Back and Forward

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Guthlac

POrtraits from 2012

I think it is far to say that my portrait painting has hit a bit of a crises – somewhere along the way I seem to have lost my sense of adventure and reversed into something I am not and as usual the painting never lies.  These three paintings I made back in 2012 have more power and immediacy than the work I am producing at the moment.

Digital 2013

Again the digital work from 2013 has a passion and interest that is also missing from the latest paintings.  So what to do?   Is there something wrong with what I am now making or is it just a case of too much Christmas fare has made me just a little maudlin about what I do?

So what to do about all this?   Why have I started making some really boring works?  It really is a recent thing and I am not sure how to get out of this funk.  I guess the only way is just to knuckle down and paint my way out of things.   “Oh the pain Will Robinson..the pain the pain.”

 

 

 

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Project LV One – Day 244 – Mary and Joseph

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Guthlac

Ink drawing of Woman

So it is Christmas and I had prepared a great piece on another grey day in paradise – unfortunately as I write this there are blue sky outside so that sort of destroys the starting point.  However, the main thrust of what I was going to say still stands true – we in Britain do live in as close a proximation to paradise as you can get for a human being.  This is not to down play the great social problems we suffer and it is reasonable to suggest that evil does from time to time visit this green and pleasant land.   However, when we consider what many of our human brothers and sisters are enduring today – today is another day in paradise.

Some might be risking their lives on the seas of the eastern Mediterranean – knowing that there is a great chance they may never see land again yet compared from where they came that is a chance worth living.  Or perhaps the young children in west Africa who have been orphaned by the ebola disease. Or maybe the many millions in India who have to struggle just to make enough money just to feed themselves let alone their children.

I could go on but I think that would be labouring the point as I am sure you get the picture.  We have so many things to be thankful for here in the rich and prosperous west that we forget how lucky we are to be born here.  Many people in this country criticise the Royal because of their great wealth and influence by accident of birth but in truth we all have the same luck – just ask the huddled masses at Calais.

So whilst you are enjoying yourself today then spare a thought for the many not so lucky around the world.  Be truly thankful for the bounty that this world has given to you and remember this day was the start of a journey that ended with some being nailed to a cross for all of us.  Yes Christmas is the festival to celebrate the arrival of the son of god.  Whether you believe that or not is another matter.  What isn’t is that we should thank whoever we feel reasonable for our good fortune, however small.  There are many more out there who have it much worse than us.

Merry Christmas to you all, I hope you have a great time.

Man in Profile

 

 

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Project LV One – Day 243 – My and Rene

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Guthlac

Model head - colour

Anyone examining my Pinterest boards will notice that over the past few weeks I have been taken by the work of René Gruau.  I find his simple use of line and colour very appealing.

Pocahuntas

If you had read yesterday’s blog you will also know that I hold the artists who worked for the Disney animation studio in high regard.  They have a similar approach to René Gruau in that tried to distill the character they were animating down to very simple lines.  Of course the reason is that, when making a movie, the drawings had to be reproduced by their thousands and so any complicated design or colours would have made any sense of continuity in the movie nonsensical.

Peter DinklageWhich brings me to Peter Dinklage.  I made this drawing earlier on today.  He has such an angular face that it well suits the way I draw.  The connection between the three?  None really other than they were all made this morning.  Maybe one day someone might want to make some of it, which I doubt but never say never, until that day arrives the drawings should stand on their own.  To quite a rather hapless Tory minister, “End of”.

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Project LV One – Day 242 – Jungle Book

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Guthlac

Jungle Book Group

There is something satisfying about copying genius.  Many art historians would dismiss the work of Disney animators as merely illustrators but this would be so wrong.  If you examine the art work closely it has the simplicity of design, these were in the time of hand drawings and colouring, yet they were flexible enough to be able to portray the emotions of the characters.

I was thinking along these lines when I started watching Disney’s Jungle Book this afternoon (the first time in a very long time a real oversight on my part) .  Today it is very easy just to use stock images to create a background upon which to manipulate the computer generated imagery, back then every thing had to be drawn and hand coloured.  The time consuming nature of this leant to the lean drawing style of Disney and within this environment some of the most influential artists of the 20th century flourished.  They may not be as well known as some of the so called ‘greats’ of 20th century art but there work has touched and influenced more people through out the world – the original ‘pop art’?  Perhaps.

 

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Project LV One – Day 241 – Painting

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Guthlac

Hazel 007

One of the joys of being a relative neophyte, if you can be such a thing – neophyte is probably a binary state but I digress, when it comes to art is that you just take things as they are.   I’ve done my bit for Queen and country and now it is time for me to explore things I have never done before is probably the best way to describe why I make art.  However, on my travels through this exotic and strange world I have come to realise that art is the way that many people make their living and they have a rather intimate relationship to their studio – something I have to say I don’t have.  This thought has been rattling around my head ever since I read  a recent blog written by my friend David Manley as he says goodbye to his old studio.

I have never seen my studio as a work place, somewhere I go to find camaraderie and inspiration but clearly for many people, I guess that David is not alone in the appeal of the studio, it is far more than somewhere to paint and make a mess doing it with out too many worries.  Perhaps I still am a  neophyte after all.

Pallett

Talking of painting those of you who pop along to this blog from time to time will have notice I am working on Hazel again.  I would love to say that I suddenly had a rush of inspiration as to how to rescue a rather disappointing painting but the truth is much more mundane than that – I just couldn’t leave it sitting on my easel in the state I had left it.  So rather than high flying imagination just a sullen realisation that I just couldn’t leave it like that.  I’ll let you decide which is the truer artistic impulse.

 

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Project LV One – Day 240 – Up with the lark

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Guthlac

Amy Adams

When you have nothing to say then say nothing.

 

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