I'm currently taking a little break learning to paint properly, so there's not much doing at Pin-Up Towers at the moment. Keep 'em peeled for a new, improved batch of daft pictures in the new year.
- Toodles..
25/08/2008
Some vets just know how to take good care of animals - like the lovely Lena Mae, a dab hand with that emergency nail polish. This was a fun little collaboration with another burlesque starlet following on my 'odd jobs' theme.
On the technical side, I was using a half oil medium (damar resin and linseed oil) which makes the paint flow better and gives a nice glassy surface. Had some trouble with the squirrel monkey though - pretty difficult finding the right colours there.
06/08/2008
The London Rockin' Rollers - These lovely ladies were kind enough to sit for me in exchange for possibly using this image for their promotional material. It's my first multi figure arrangement and was about as tricky as I was expecting - although was finished in a little less time than three separate pictures... The girls all sat individually (in their skating gear), and I put the finished piece together according to an initial thumbnail sketch they had agreed on earlier. Good fun.
- p.s If you've never seen Roller Derby, get yourself along to a bout - it rocks!
25/05/2008
Finally! An end to my months of struggling - I have prints of my work! Six months ago I would never have believed taking a photo of some artwork and getting it printed so that it matched the original was going to be anywhere near as difficult as it's turned out to be. Lots of experimenting, lots of reading and some sound advice has resulted in my first set of beautiful, exceptionally high quality fine art prints. It's the last piece in the puzzle of being able to offer work for sale at a reasonable price. Now it's back to the easel to actually have something worth selling...
22/03/2008
Hardly Davidson Unicycles unused promo image - ok, maybe not. Things have been a bit quiet on the easel lately while I struggle with digital colour issues, so I used an old life drawing to pay homage to the classic 'girl on a bike' image. Considering I had no colour reference at all I don't think it's that bad - a bit uniform across the skin tones maybe and the face isn't as strong as I would have liked but I think my beefed up unicycle is fab!
10/01/2008
The profession of 'Giant Monster' fell neatly in the lap of the lovely Agent Lynch - 60's aficionado and natural B-movie starlet. Borrowing heavily on influences from 'Attack of the 50ft Woman' with a dash of 'King Kong', this one was a lot of fun to do. Another successful sitting, this unfortunately descended into a nightmare of re-working and fixing. A second sitting and a new set of reference photos were necessary to get a better likeness and there's been a fair amount of re-painting to sort out various problems. The building on the right (supposedly the Empire State Building) was always meant to look like a prop, but painting something that looks fake just looks - well, fake! So it's been tricky, but I don't think I can do much more to it, one thing that will definitely sell this is some lurid B-Movie typography splashed across the image. Final verdict - hmm.. fun, but didn't turn out as well as hoped.
Next up was the first of my 'When I grow up a want to be a....' series, featuring pinups acting out the whims of their inner child (actually some of the 'professions' on my list of things to paint have genuinely come from small children, and are really quite wonderful). This is the thoroughly professional and jolly nice Moonie King, in full D.I.Y mermaid mode.
The sitting went really well, the sketch was accurate and the colour study was good so I didn't take photos this time. In retrospect I think I should have taken some though, despite there being some nice painting going on here it's not a brilliant likeness which is a shame because the image feels quite personal. Perhaps if I'd made the pose a bit more dynamic and cheeky it wouldn't have mattered. Still, these are the lessons I'm out to learn so it's all helpful in the long run. The verdict on this one - another smiley face :)
Here's the first of my little flurry of pinups that I pushed through at the end of the year - Stella Goes Sailing. Featuring my muse and dear chum, the infamous Stella Plumes. The outfit was her choice and lent itself beautifully to a bit of classic Vargas-esque white on white. The simplicity of the design is lovely and definitely something I'll be pursuing I think. We had a nightmare at the sitting trying to get her face looking right in the sketches but it just wasn't happening so photos were taken for later study. Just as well really, the final painting is actually a pretty good likeness. Verdict: Happy :)
10/12/2007
Sadly, it was a bit of a quiet day at the vintage & retro market yesterday and business wasn't exactly booming. Still, the stand looked fab and I got to meet some more lovely people so it wasn't exactly wasted. Also on the plus side, I have lots of left over Christmas cards so I won't need to buy any this year! Merry Christmas!
15/11/2007
I'm bidding a fond farewell to Gil Elvgren for the time being, these three will be my last little studies for a while so I can concentrate on my own work. I'll be taking them down to the next Vintage & Retro market at South London Pacific on the 9th of December, so if you're looking for some christmas presents - come on down!
09/11/2007
Applied theory #2:
As promised, (if a little late) here's the next step along my journey - a pin-up painting taken from life. This is my dear friend, and loyal supporter, Ruby Rose in all her boudoir finery.
The initial sitting was around 3 hours and consisted of a pencil sketch and some colour notes in oils. The painting itself developed from there, which unfortunately drifted a little from my reference, so it needed a second short sitting to get a better likeness.
It took far too long, but I'm reasonably happy with it now.
I'm currently in the middle of five new sittings so I'm applying everything I've learned from this one to the next batch. Must dash, lots to do.
28/08/2007
Applied theory #1:
One avenue I'm exploring is working from photos. Luckily for me I have some friends who have great pictures to work from - like this one of Miss Venuss Envy. The enlarged drawing was done freehand, and only very basic colour information was taken from the photo, I wanted to push it more towards the colour palette of the Elvgren stuff I've been working from and also make a few changes to suit my needs. In retrospect, I'm wondering now if I should have just tried to reproduce the photo as accurately as possible to see how close I could get. Side by side I don't think the painting holds up very well at all, but as an image on it's own I have to say I'm reasonably happy with it for a first attempt. It definately shows the value of having good source material though, I wouldn't want to attempt something from a bad holiday snap, but then if you already have a good photo why bother painting it?
Up next: working from life.
05/08/2007
I experimented with going even larger just to see what it would be like - this one is on a 12"x12" panel. Considering the image I was working from is just over a centimetre square, I think I did quite well! Seriously though, the lack of detail really shows up, this size is close to a traditional portrait and so could use an extra level of finessing - which it doesn't have. It's times like these that remind me how far I still have to go.
09/07/2007
The market was really interesting, (and not quite as blurry as the picture makes out..) whilst not an obvious success in terms of sales, I had lots of lovely comments from everybody and a lot of interest in possible work further down the line. I'll definately be back there again when it doesn't conflict with any major sporting events or the first sunny day of the summer!
If you're reading this and you picked up my card at the market, feel free to get in touch if there's anything you'd like, and please bear with me while I get a proper gallery and on-line shopping system sorted out.
04/07/2007
Well, that's the last couple done before the market. They're all dry now and have been varnished ready to decorate someone's wall. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the reaction will be like - I'm hoping it will be positive! Anyway, I'll no doubt post a little report of how things went as soon as I can.
18/06/2007
EXCITING NEWS!!! I've had a place confirmed at the next Vintage & Retro market being held at South London Pacific in Kennington on Sunday 8th July from Midday-6pm. It's being run by the lovely people at Hula Boogie and I shall be attempting to sell some of my little pin-up paintings (hence I've been pretty busy) - wish me luck!
I figured it was probably time to give my paintings a shiny new website of their own, and here it is! Hope you like it.
Picked up a load of the little square canvases on sale, so I've decided to do a batch of studies to keep up my practice whilst I decide how to continue with the my own work. I'm aiming for two studies a week, but I'm only averaging one. Not that I'm being slack or anything but there are other jobs in the studio that seem to take longer than anticipated - it's pretty frustrating.
Had my first go with real live model! Very hard to get enough information from one sitting to be able to go away and produce a painting. I didn't have a very clear idea of what I was after so it just sort of evolved. I'm not particularly happy with the finished result, the drawing is pretty weak all over but some of the painting technique transferred across from my studies quite nicely. Lots of lessons learned though. Onwards and upwards I guess..
I guess this is why there were no male pin-ups (either that or I'm no oil painting)! Technically speaking though, I'm quite pleased with my little self portrait. It's not a bad likeness, and the colour is pretty good for a change, I wasn't brave enough to keep the paint thick though. Still, it was fun to do - I might do a few more wearing my other hats :)
Sometimes you have to fight... Really struggled with this one, not too sure if I'm happy with it yet. The drawing was out in a few places. The underpainting went way too dark and I ended up with patches of different coloured flesh tones - thankfully this is a rubbish phone picture so you can't see that :) Still, it's nice doing these full figure paintings.
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