Monday, October 21, 2013

The RHA Drawing Marathon

I'm looking forward to facilitating at the RHA Drawing Marathon tomorrow.
Molly will be one of the models.
Here is a drawing I did of her last week at Brian's life session at the United Arts Club.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

The Nutcracker Artwork

I was messing about with this image for an event that the IGI (Illustrators Guild of Ireland) are going to do with The Art Park in Dublin.
The illustration of the Nutcracker was originally done for an exhibition and a book for Whowhatwherewhenwhy Belfast.

Monday, October 14, 2013

The Art of Superstition Opening Night

We had a wonderful launch of The Art of Superstition at the Copper House Gallery on Friday.
Here are a great bunch of photos by Mario Sughi that capture the atmosphere very well.






Friday, October 11, 2013

Portrait Sketch of Francis: Tidied Up


I worked in some background and beefed up the tone and colour in this portrait sketch of Francis  that I did first as a demo at Kennedy Art.
Above all I wanted to emphasize that amazingly strong profile that Francis has, so I pushed the gray background colour right up close to his profile, leaving just enough of the dark underpainting to make a rough outline around his face.


I usually don't let my students use green paint at all in portrait workshops because it's very hard to manage when when used  to create shadowy skin tones. I prefer to just to use blues for those cooler notes.
In this case Francis had been wearing an Ireland jersey and all my students had painted the shirt in, so I thought I would too. It works well as a block of colour and serves as a useful counterpoint to the warmer hues in his face.

My next workshop at Kennedy's with spaces available is on the 30th November.

Contact Kennedy's if you'd like to come along. 
ph  + 353 (1) 475 1749
info@kennedyart.com 

Monday, October 7, 2013

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner


Here is my piece from the latest IGI (Illustrators Guild of Ireland) exhibition, "The Art of Superstition", which opens this Friday at The Copper House in Dublin.
My picture illustrates a scene from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Prints of all the exhibited pieces are available at the Copper House website

.

Friday, October 4, 2013

From "A Bag Of Moonshine"

Here are a few pictures from my very first book, "A Bag Of Moonshine" by Alan Garner.
It only sold a few thousand copies so not too many of my blog visitors will have seen it.