Blue (seagull #2) – mixed media, 205 x 290 mm, 2013
Seagull #2 – Akaroa, 2012
I hope you like this week’s Shoot it, Sketch it. The water and the seagull standing on the wall are two different paintings that have been combined in Photoshop. The gull was sketched in graphite and then painted using acrylics thinned with a gloss medium. The background and wall are thicker acrylics that have been applied with a palette knife.
You’ll be seeing a few more paintings over the next month as I come to terms with my new artists’ acrylics and the knowledge that I’ve just accepted a commission to do a large peony rose on stretched canvas! I do love a challenge : )
This week’s Shoot it, Sketch it photograph was taken around the corner from our house last autumn. You can just make out the curve of the little footbridge in the blurry distance. Is it just me or does the light shining through the willows look like fairylights?
Smartlea Street Bridge – ink, watercolour and digital, 215 x 175 mm, 2013.
Smartlea Street Bridge, detail – ink, watercolour and digital, 2013.
The short story ~ the sketch is an ink and watercolour painting that has been altered using a kind of digital-resist effect (a combination of Photoshop filters that mimic the wax-resist technique used in making batik).
The long story ~ I’m going through an experimental phase. I’m curious to see what happens when I venture out of my comfort zone (ink drawings with lots of fiddly details and carefully considered watercolour and acrylic paintings) — I want to explore different ways of seeing things and be less concerned about the end result. What if…? That’s what happened in A trip down memory lane and it’s what happened here. Smartlea Street Bridge began as an ink and watercolour sketch which I then drew over with a brush pen to thicken the lines and make some areas inky black. The final image was created in Photoshop by inverting a scanned copy of the painting and applying various filters. The batik effect was discovered through trial and error.
Being out of my comfort zone does have one little drawback — it’s not very comfortable. I’m having to resist the urge to edit the light and dark areas to make them look more like the original photo. But so far, so good…
An unexpected outcome doesn’t always add magic to an image. Serendipity is a wonderful thing but, unfortunately, not all accidents are pleasant surprises.
Toy museum is a good example. It’s an ink sketch that I scanned and coloured digitally. While I was drawing it, I realised it would have to be reworked ― a stray line here, an unfortunate expression there ― but rather than starting again (something my tutors at design school would have insisted on), I kept calm, carried on and decided that I would correct modify those bits later. It’s not cheating; it’s a kind of mixed media that includes digital tools : )
If you compare the sketch with the final image, quite a few things haven’t changed at all, but I had trouble with some of the faces and so I edited them in Photoshop. I tweaked a few other things as well but not too much — I didn’t want to take away the personality of the drawing.
Ironically, knowing that I CAN change something later means that I tend to relax and enjoy my art more and then, more often than not, I DON’T NEED TO change anything. And I like it when that happens too.
I spotted this abandoned accessory on a riverbank and thought it would be a good subject for Shoot it, Sketch it. The quality of the photo isn’t great (it’s another camera-phone photo) but it’s more than good enough for sketching purposes. After all, to quote photographer Chase Jarvis, the best camera is the one you have with you.
I was inspired to take the photo because the artificial pink and white looked wonderfully eccentric against the natural green. The black/white/pink image is the one I set out to create — and I’m very happy with it — but I also really like the emphasis on texture in the ink and graphite image (shown below, before I added the colour in Photoshop). And now, becuase I don’t know which one I prefer, I’ve posted both.
Sun Shadow triptych – acrylic, ink and digital, 2012.
Photos of the solar eclipse, 14 November 2012.
Last week’s partial solar eclipse as seen from Christchurch, New Zealand. The photographs were taken at about 10:00, 10:30 (at its peak) and 11:00 a.m. I didn’t have a fancy solar filter so these are photos of the shadow of the sun. They’re not the most spectacular shots of the event (!) but they did inspire this week’s painting : )
Follow the links to see what Bec from Clouds of Colour and Alana from The Little Leaf have done for Shoot it, Sketch it this week.
Anna Cull ~ Art & Music 