Quickie Art Post

Hello there

I've been sat here at my desk for twenty mins trying to get my head around doing a Cabin Fever, and have opted instead to show you some scraps of art I've done these last few days.  Genuinely falling asleep at my desk, and have got heat-grump rising too.

So this is quite the mish-mash of things, and there's not actually that much of it, but you'll be able to tell they each took time.  They're all digital this time too, and  it never feels right to do progress pics with digital stuff. In fact, even the finished pieces never feel right to put up here, because they don't feel like proper art.  We have known for a long time that I have a personal sticking point with digital art, much more favouring the physical hard copy, me.

Still, I'll show you some wonders from the iPad Procreate program, that I've wiled away the hours doing this week.  Except for when Jon Williams came up to visit/look after me for a couple of days, then I just got dragged around Kidderminster because his missus had bought some stuff on eBay that he had to pick up.  Which was probably the real reason for his visit, and he wanted free cups of tea so popped into mine too.

I'll tell you about that in a sec though, because I had the last laugh by making him hang about in Kidderminster whilst I bought some stuff for future art projects.  I've started the planning of that and will show you in a bit.

First up though, carrying on from those Victorian-style pics I did last week, that then fed really nicely into a Castle Diablo story idea, here's the third one of the trilogy from that story.

Somebody asked last week (I am VERY aware of all the comments and promise it is high on my to-do list) if I had invented these people, and the answer is sadly no.  These portraits are adapted from real portraits, with a little artistic license here and there, but not much.  They aren't publicly available pics, they were genuine personal artefacts of - I presume - the people in them, and I'll again emphasise how amazing they've been for inspiring stories based on the nuances in the images.  I've not got the "Twins" story exactly plotted (that pertains to this pic and the other two from last week), but I've definitely mined deeply from what the images inspired in my own imagination.  I may have found an ace new way of getting the writing juices flowing.

In other work, during a lonesome insomnia evening earlier in the week, I decided to try to watch Lightyear - the Toy Story spin off film that's just come onto Disney Plus.  I was expecting to be indifferent at best, but I absolutely loved it.  That perfect success of escapism that makes me quite emotional when it happens as it feels so rare.  Naturally, this drew me towards drawing something from the film (digitally again), and there was a gorgeous bit of cinematography (or the equivalent of cinematography when it's all done in a computer) that I desperately wanted to draw.

So I did (it's not a spoiler)...

I've definitely gotten very pulled towards pencils of late.  I'm not fantastic at them but I think I'll get better.  The reason I did it digitally is because I also wanted the option of colour, which would be this...

That's a watercolour background which, again, I'm not great at.  I don't really know what I'm doing with painting stuff, so am very much blagging it as I go along, but I do think it's a lovely composition.  Which I guess I can't really take credit for as it was right there in the film, but I still spotted the moment dammit.  Give me that.

Finally for today's art post, here's yet another in progress piece (very early progress), that I got all inspired to do when Jon dragged me to Kidderminster.  I found this dolls house (pretty sure it's bespoke rather than a marketed thing), and bought it with the intention to turn it into a Haunted House.

That's it in the back of Jon's car.  I've no room for it in my house, no experience of how to do it, but I do have some clear plexiglass in the garage that I can make into broken windows and just take it from there.  That was as far as the inspiration got at point of purchase (it was right cheap as well, so it's a low risk investment). 

There is it on my kitchen table (in front of that Stormtrooper I've STILL not fixed and we are running out of summer), just to give you a proper perspective of quite how big it is.  I sat out in the mosquito net earlier to put some sketch ideas together of what I'd like to do with it, so here are those...

And with a couple of colour ideas...

It could be a winner, right?

I do feel a bit weird massacring something that somebody clearly spent a lot of time making, but am choosing to think that it had a lifetime of being lovely before finding a new life adapted into a haunted house.  Which happens to all houses, I hear.

That's as far as I've got really, and as I say, I've no clue how to actually do it.  I am sure you'd be able to buy dolls house scale things, but think I'm gonna have a go at making them myself in the first instance.  I should be able to cut a load of tiles using the Cricut machine, and the little gargoyles and stuff I can sculpt myself.  I'll also have to waterproof it, because the only place it's going to presently fit is in the garden...

And that's me for today.  Jon and I recorded a Reboot for Monday (with a call to Rob up in Edinburgh too) and I shall be editing that as you read this.  Everything should be all back on track from next week, so I shall see you then, all bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Hope you've had a lovely week, and that you have an equally lovely weekend ahead of you.

Sending all the love 

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