Cherry Blossom - Work In Progress

Yesterdays upload glitch has magically resolved itself so I can finally share with you my current work in progress (well, one of them anyway) It was only a matter of time before a geisha made her way into one of my burlesque paintings, this one started off as a speed doodle but has developed so well that I intend to turn her into a finished piece.

Originally I had no plans to add the cherry blossoms, they were a spur of the moment idea but now I love them so I will be re-drawing them in a little cleaner before finishing the sash and fan.

Don’t forget that I will be at the vintage fair at The Vic in Swindon tomorrow with fantastic artist Jennie Anderson and our Burly Boo stall. Pop along and say hello if you’re in the area.

Technical Difficulties Once Again!

I was hoping to share with you one of my many current work in progress tonight but sadly Blogger says no! My recurring upload problem has… well... reoccurred.

I shall now go and spend several fruitless hours trying to get assistance and answers to my problem which I’m sure will do no good but hopefully my problem will mysteriously disappear again within a few days like last time.

Wishing you all a glitch free weekend!

New Website and Folksy Shop

I’ve been quiet for a couple of weeks but I haven’t been idle. In preparation for the vintage fair next weekend I’ve been revamping my website and creating a Folksy shop which is now up, running and stocked!!!

So please pop along to my website at www.amatheya.co.uk and let me know what you think of the new layout and design and drop by my new Folksy store http://folksy.com/shops/Amatheya and let me know what you think.

Hopefully I’ll have some new artwork ready to share in the next two weeks!

Pendants

I’ve now completed my first 2 pendants for the vintage fair next month. They were a bit fiddly but I think I’ve got the hang of it now. They are made with glass Cabochons and nickel free vintage style backs.

Peacock – Finished

I’m calling this little lady finished.

Peacock is going to be another print that will be on sale at my local vintage fair in February, details of which can be found here www.thevicswindon.com/get/events.

Peacock - WIP 2

I may have got a little carried away with the feathers!!!

Peacock – WIP

I haven’t posted for a few days but I have been working hard on my next burlesque painting for the vintage fair next month. I tried a slightly different technique with this one, first creating the line drawing, then roughing it in grey scale and finally applying colour. It’s made it a lot easier to get the effect that I wanted.

I’m nearly happy with the body now and just need to spend some time working on her face and hair. I also need to do something slightly more exciting with the feathers in the background but I haven’t quite decided what yet.

Everything Stops For Tea

A very Happy New Year to everyone! (I’m only running 3 days late)

As you can see from the picture above I’ve been taking a break from my airship WIP to work on something completely different. “Everything Stops for Tea” is the first of several burlesque/vintage inspired painting that I hope to complete by February in time for a vintage fair (More about that at a latter date). As usual this was painted digitally.

Flying Circus WIP 6

Another slow progress day on this WIP. I’m still trying to get a feel for the ship and how she should look so I’ve mostly been playing around with the colour and decoration and I think I’m getting close to something I’m happy with.

Part of the reason this WIP is taking so long is that my attention has been diverted by my sparkly Christmas tree and lots of gift wrapping

 

Flying Circus WIP 5

Pitifully little to share today I’m afraid. A bout of headaches and Christmas shopping (not necessarily in that order) has slowed me down but I have got a little further on the ship tonight. I seem to suddenly have lots of fiddly bits that I don’t know how to paint left, like the sail wings and the propeller which I’ve re-designed about a dozen times before coming back to something almost identical to my original design.

I’ve also started thinking about “tarting” up the ship as I’m sure a circus ship would be multicoloured… or at least it would be if I owned it!

Not far left to go on this now… I hope!

No updates tomorrow as I have a Christmas tree to tackle. Yes, I know it’s early but I just can’t resist those sparkly lights and glittery baubles!!!

RIP Anne McCaffrey

I rarely blog about real world news but I was truly sadden to learn that the Anne McCaffrey passed away today at the age of 85.

Ann McCaffrey has been writing since the 60’s and I’ve been a fan of hers for over half my life thanks to her Dragon Rider books. Since reading Dragonflight I’ve tracked down nearly everything she’s ever written and read it at least twice. Many of those books have become staple favourites of mine and inspiration for my artwork…. It was a model dragon based on her character Ramoth that earned me the A* in my Art GCSE that convinced me to go to art school.

It’s very sad to think of all the stories that will now never be written but Ann has left a huge legacy for sci-fi fans that won’t soon be forgotten.

RIP Anne McCaffrey and thank you for the dragons.

Flying Circus WIP 4

I said I wanted to complete this painting this weekend but typically instead I ended up spending most of the weekend on the sofa feeling rubbish and when I did start working again I discovered that I had no idea what the rigging of a airship should look like and spend most of my time drawing and re-drawing different option.

In my original design I was going to have straps across the top of the balloon but when I painted them in they looked wrong so I decided that instead there would be a sail over the top of what I now lovingly call the gherkin. I also decided that it needed metal buckles to connect some of the straps as they looked a little messy. I also added clasps for the lines attached to the ship, which if you look carefully are in the shape of lion paws.

The boat itself is now nicely blocked in and just waiting to be decorated in nice gaudy circus banners before the crew is added.

Digital Painting Techniques: Volume 1 – Review

I bought Digital Painting Techniques: Volume 1 a couple of weeks ago after reading the 5 star reviews on Amazon. With a RRP of around £30 books in this series are not cheap but even a cursory glance at the overall quality of the book will give you a clue why.

What this book isn’t; A step by step how to draw or how to use Photoshop. You will need at least some skill in both these areas as neither is covered in more than a passing comment. What this book is; A step by step guide to how different artists achieve different effects with hundreds of rich progression photos.

The book is broken into several different sections starting with a section containing several different methods to create your own set of Photoshop brushes which it promises will be “fun”. I didn’t believe it, I tried it, I was wrong! If you follow the instructions in this book soon you’ll be making brushes left right and centre for all your drawing needs.

It then moves on to Speed painting, Matte Painting (Which is perhaps a little complicated for a novice but very thorough all the same), Creatures (Including a large section on how to design your own plausible fantasy creatures), Humans (Including the dreaded hair!), Environments (Including a large section devoted to showing how you can make the same scene look very different by changing the location or weather), Sci-Fi & Fantasy and finishing with 3 projects for you to follow and a gallery of art by the contributing artists.

In addition to the book, many of the tutorials have online resources such as source photos or brushes that you can download in order to help you practice the different processes.

This is definitely a 5 star book that does exactly what it sets out to do and is worth every penny. (The second book and the new guide to Photoshop being released soon has already made it onto my Christmas wish list!)

Flying Circus WIP 3

Just a small WIP today. I’ve now got the background all but finished. I want to do a bit more with the city, add some haze in the background and maybe define some of the trees a little more but apart from that I’m more or less done and ready to start refining my airship!

Flying Circus WIP 2

Today I’ve spent most of my time working on the foreground mountains which have worked out far better than I expected.

Before I started I decided that it was time that I had my own brush set so I spent about an hour creating several different texture brushes for different uses. My favourite of these was created using one of my own photos of a weeping willow. All my work today was done using this brush.

Anyway, I worked the mountains in only 3 colours (White, Mid Grey, Dark Grey) with various blending settings. I’m a big fan of using only 2 or 3 colours and the picking and blending what I have and it’s worked a treat here.

Once the mountains were finished I wanted to get a better sense of the finished colours I would be going for so I removed the old background and scribbled in a far richer one. The middle distance will now be a forest of pine trees. I haven’t decided what to do with the city yet so I’ve left it black and white. At the moment I’m edging towards making it at least partly gold so maybe I’ll test that out next time. Finally I’ve put more mountains in the distance.

I’m really happy with where this is going so far and I’m looking forward to finishing the background and starting to work on the circus ship.