Wednesday 23 November 2011

St Mary's Church Langley - 21st November 2011


This is my sketch of St. Mary's in Langley, Berkshire. This church dates back to around 1150ce, the tower was rebuilt in 1609ce. You can see (compare with the photograph below) I have changed various features and surroundings. Below are a couple different photographs of my sketch in different conditions, the above photograph is with flash. The first photograph below was taken under cool white light without flash.


This photograph below has been taken under LED lamp without flash.


The photograph below was taken from the west side. It was taken during the time of my sketch.


You can see in my sketch I left out the clock on the tower, perhaps I didn't have the time.

Friday 18 November 2011

Coldscape No.2 - Freehand Digital - 18th November 2011 & a word on Linux



This is Coldscape No.2 I did this with KolourPaint a basic draw/paint application on Linux similar to MS-Paint for Windows.

For those wondering why I'm using Linux (an operating system that runs your hardware and runs software applications, like Microsoft Windows but different), I started using it after my 3rd major MS-Windows crash where I lost data. I started looking into Linux and since turning to it, have not gone back to Windows unless I had to for some software or hardware need, usually that does not occur. I have found Linux to be faster, more efficient, more stable, with more choice, zero cost and ZERO VIRUSES thank God.  Also no suspicious noises coming from the hard drive with Linux.

If you want more convincing about Linux, see here:-


Linux comes in many different 'distributions' and each distribution has many versions, a couple of the most popular at the moment are Linux Mint and Ubuntu, but there are many other distributions like Fedora, Debian etc. Here are links for Mint and Ubuntu:-

 

Coldscape No.1 - Freehand Digital - 3rd November 2011



I don't really want to get into doing digital art, I prefer to stick to the old school, olden day ways. I actually prefer handwriting on paper as opposed to typing on a computer screen too.

I did this with KolourPaint a basic draw/paint application on Linux similar to MS-Paint for Windows. I have tried to work in the same way I would with pencil or charcoal, a bit difficult using a mouse like a pencil though, especially if a cat's in the room

I do like the intense colour, marks and contrast that come out in digital art though. I guess that is like the difference between sketching in pen and ink as opposed to pencil.

You can do a good drawing in light pencil but the closeness of colour between the markings of graphite don't do the drawing justice until you use darker softer pencil or charcoal.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Dark Flower overlooking a Watery Plain 15th November 2011



This is my latest work 'Dark Flower overlooking a Watery Plain' it is predominantly in charcoal (willow) and pencil (6B, 4B, 3B). Drawn on A4 paper. The above image is shot with flash, the one below is under an LED (artificial daylight i.e. cool blue white) lamp:-

I guess if there was something that was a cross between a flower and a tree, this would be it. Someone trod on my charcoal sticks by accident, so most of them are broken and keep crumbling, so the sky here was improvised after another stick crumbled on me so i started using it as charcoal dust.

Monday 14 November 2011

Riverside Settlement - 14th November 2011 and a word on preference of loose artistic style



This is my latest sketched work in my loose impressionist style. This is on A5 paper using charcoal pencil and pencil. 

This is one my favourite ways to compose a sketch of imaginary subject matter, to make horizontal layers with each layer being a component of a townscape/landscape. So here there are five simple layers starting from above:-
  1. The Sky
  2. The Mountains
  3. The Settlement/Buildings
  4. The River
  5. The Foreground River Bank including tree and other plants.
You could actually see this scene as six to eight layers if you include the plain between the buildings and the mountains, the other river bank etc.
As soon as the first horizontal marks hit the paper, the landscape starts taking on a resemblance of a horizontal landscape as simple horizontal markings are easily interpreted with little detail. When I start a drawing like this I often have no idea what I will do and it takes on form and works towards the end result spontaneously. I hardly ever use an eraser as I kind of see it as cheating and a defeat of artistic ingenuity, creativity and adaptability. I prefer to work a mistaken mark into the composition even if it means taking the drawing or painting into a totally different direction.

I am much more pleased in an aesthetic sense by loose, undetailed paintings and drawings rather than realistic, detailed and accurate ones. I am not totally sure why this is. I think it is because impressionist and expressionist work possesses more creative effort, more individual meaning, and more variation whereas realism ends up making all artists works similar to identical. There is also a hand crafted nature and character about impressionist and expressionist styled work which is absent in realism and detail.

There may be another more spiritual reason for my preference of expressionist-impressionist works over realism and that is the longing of the soul for another world. Realism is a reminder of a world where we know we are leaving and has many problems that plague us whereas scenes removed from reality by absence of detail, colour or un-natural colour, proportions etc take us to another dimension a bit like dreams do or visions of an afterlife described in revelation to possess giant fruits, trees, mansions etc. This would make sense as the creative side of the human personality is very much connected to the spiritual side which manifests beyond mere sense perception and mechanical, physical movement.

From the point of view of time, a loose style means the ability to produce more works. Reality is of course complex, detailed and full of minute variations of colour. Thus the sky is not a few shades of colour but in reality hundreds or thousands of colours, the varied light and shadow intensity on any object also results in that object possessing hundreds of shades of colour. It is this detail which must be at least partially reproduced in realism, whereas the  impressionist style can be abandon the accuracy of colour variation and average out the colour and the expressionist can exaggerate or unify it. The imagination is therefore more at play in the latter case whereas the scientific observation and imitation is more at play in the case of realism. This judgement is of course concerning the application only, as indeed the intent and meaning attributed to a painting can apply to realism as well as other styles (and historically it was the impressionists who moved away from deeper meanings rather than the classical realists who often served religious objectives).

Narfon Tordat Industries - Overhead View - 13th November 2011



This is an overhead view of Narfon Tordat Industries. This sketch is on A5 paper using pencil and charcoal pencil.

Windsorian Heights


This is 'Windsorian Heights' predominantly sketched in charcoal pencil, it is one of my favourite loose sketches I have done so far. This photograph is taken under artificial daylight LED lamp and so it maintains the clean blue-white colour of the paper. Below is a photograph of the same sketch taken with camera flash which has given a more warm light, tungsten colouring:-

Thursday 10 November 2011

Flowers beyond a House - 10th November 2011


This is 'Flowers beyond a House' my latest work, completed today 10th November 2011, sketched in pencil on A5 paper, I may have started this with charcoal pencil like I did with 'Flowers beyond a Door.'

I had a few dreams about flowers over a year ago, I painted some major artworks, oil paintings of flowers and it inspired me in real life to do some oil paintings of flowers, before that I had no interest in painting flowers.

Clonallen Gorge - 10th November 2011


This is Clonallen Gorge, finished on 10th November 2011, I had originally intended to use charcoal only, but I eventually used pencil as well. This is on A4 paper.

McLachan Castle - 10th November 2011


This is McLachan Castle. This was drawn mainly with pencil with a little charcoal on A3. I finished this off today (10th November) but maybe sketched this roughly about a year ago or so.

Bare Room with Flowers - 10th November 2011


This is 'Bare Room with Flowers', this was the imaginary basis for my painting 'Raufum bil I'baadi' [Kind with (His) slaves], which was painted on 29th April 2010. This sketch was even more skeletal than this before, just as a guide for the painting. But today I just added some more marks to make it a work in itself. You can compare the painting that emanated from it  below here:-


The kindness alluded to here is that of shelter, simplicity, beauty, nature and the cause of contemplation in those. This Name of Allah occurs in the Qura'n in the following verses "And there is the type of man who gives his life to earn the pleasure of Allah. And Allah is full of kindness to (His) slaves[raoo'fum bil i'baadi]." (al Baqarah 2:207) and "On the Day when every soul will be confronted with all the good it has done, and all the evil it has done, it will wish there were a great distance between it and its evil. But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself. And Allah is full of kindness to his slaves." (aali I'mraan 3:30)

Flowers beyond a Door - 8th November 2011


This is 'Flowers beyond a Door', drawn on A5 in pencil and perhaps charcoal pencil. It was drawn on an angle. 8th November 2011