How do you what you do?

Oh dear oh dear …. things didn’t go the way I had hoped. This is an interesting face but not the likeness I was after. Now if this was a painting then it could be fixed but with a drawing it becomes more trouble than it is worth. Far better to start over again and build the lessons from this drawing into that.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Such a fool boy – do you miss me? – Sketching again

Colour Sketch

 

 

I just can’t stop making little sketches and doodles whilst cruising the internet – I guess the reason why I enjoy this is because it really is spontaneous – no plans – see an and then make a sketch based on it.

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Making a likeness of a person

Julia Stevenson

 

I’m working on a drawing of the actress Juliet Stevenson at the moment.  The inspiration for this drawing is a new series on Sky Arts called Portrait Artist of the Year.  It is a competition to find, well, the Portrait Artist of the Year and the first episode was recorded in London.  The set up is pretty standard fare – a number of artists from England had 5 hours to make a painting/drawing of, in this case, three well know people.  The three were Juliet Stevenson, Robert Lindsey and Alison Steadman.

Now I know I would just wilt under the pressure of trying to produce a painting under the lights and people watching but I thought it would be interesting to try and do that within my own safe environment.  My first attempt is Juliet Stevenson.  One of the most interesting this that I got out of the programme that there were 17 versions of a likeness which in many ways is really quite reassuring as it means that we all see things differently and what one person might think is a likeness to another is nothing like the person being captured.  Such is life.

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More back catalogue

Another back catalogue sketch…again not sure I’ve published this before…however this was made with my 5s so the image will be much higher quality.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Back catalogue sketches

Moving some old sketch books I’ve come across some interesting drawings I made in the earlier part of the year

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Doodling by the Computer – I’m stronger than yesterday

Today Today

I really have a bit of a quite day…not really done much at all for no real reason.  However this has meant I have had opportunity just to doodle and mess around – these are a couple results of this strenuous work.

The Tide is High – Get the Feeling

BTW the more I use the iPhone 5s camera the more I really love it.  What does that say of me?

 

 

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Something new for the studio

Just bought a desk top easel …can’t wait to get going.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Sunday Morning Walk

Sunday Morning Walk

Nothing like a stroll on a Sunday morning with your new iPhone to get to know one and another.  Already I thing this is a match made in heaven

 

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The never ending story

Storm clouds must be gathering over the celtic rugby nations and Italy today – BT Sports has just bought the exclusive rights to European Football matches from 2015. The realisation that BT mean business must be a real wake up call – Sky no longer is the only big beast in the sports pay TV market. This means real trouble for the Rugby European club championship (RECC)

For a while now I’ve been passing occasional comment on the collapse of the current RECC, known as the Heineken Cup, which the French and English clubs have withdrawn from and are going it alone. It was supposed to be about who controls the RECC – club or Country however the real war was between Sky, current rights holders, and BT Sports, the rights holders of English premiership rugby club competitions – the French were a willing bystander in this fight as they saw the BT Sports offer to the English clubs as a means of increasing their revenues.

Over the early part of the autumn there was always a hope amongst the non Anglo-French rugby nations that there was some form of compromise. This hope has been totally shattered. BT Sports really do mean business and they really do want the rights to ALL English premiership rugby club games – which means destroying the current RECC because of the aggressive way they have bought the rights for the much, much more expensive football equivalent. When you are willing to spend over the odds for one sport then you are serious about other rights you own for others, in this case English Premiership Rugby Union – especially their European Club Rugby games.

So what will the outcome of this? Well I suspect in the not too distant future, probably before then end of the year, the non Anglo-French rugby nations will sue for peace with their Anglo-French counterparts. The national rugby unions will finally have to embrace the reality that they no longer control their clubs and we will take a blinking step into the new world order. Goodness knows where this will take us.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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iPhone

Shadows

Do you want to know what makes many Apple users so goddam smug.  So smug in fact you just want to slap them in the face with a dead fish.   The reason for all this smugness is their equipment just works.   We can all argue about well it should do as they are developing for a closed environment and all the other very valid, very knowing arguments.   But the truth is they are right,  they have every right to be so goddam smug and you know what I’m one of those smug bastards!

Today I upgraded my ageing iPhone 4 for a brand spanking new iPhone 5s and everything in the process worked.  The Apple store sold me it, the very helpful staff member changed my number over to my old one.  I took it home, plugged it into iTunes and within 15 minutes it was working as it should with all the data from my old phone available to me.   Of course before I get too smug and self congratulatory there is one turd in the basin, just sitting there winking at me.   You know what I mean or should I say Who I mean.   Yes I now have Siri on iPhone and it as useless as the version on my iPad.   These things are sent to try us.

The image is the first I’ve made on my new iPhone.   It took a small fraction of the time it took, when the KitCam app would work on my iPhone 4 to be produced.    Funny that.

 

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