Doesn't Do Her Justice

Ever since my summer re-engagement with watercolours (which lasted all of one painting) I've been determined to reclaim art as a subject. It's something I always loved and would practice just for fun frequently (the only other thing that has that distinction is writing), yet after GCSE it fell by the wayside and never really recovered. I did some good GCSE stuff, none of it survives, or at least very little (my sketch books went missing and were never returned to me - I loved those books too :-( ). I've already posted doodles and sketches on here, along with the summer watercolour so here to add to it is the first portrait I've done in a ve-ery long time, not including the rough sketch of me from a few weeks ago.

It's based on a photo - the real model being unavailable to me at this time - and maybe you can tell who its supposed to be (you need not be a genius to guess), needless to say it doesnt do her justice at all but I thought it was quite good for a first attempt. It was drawn with a 0.5mm mechanical pencil and took me about an hour.

I hate drawing faces, I think part of the problem here is that I spent so much time focusing on the face that I neglected the rest of the picture. In the end the face doesnt look anything like her but I think its quite a good generic face nonetheless. It's also disproportionate with the head being far too large for the body.

Anyhoo there you go.

NB: The stripey lines and discolouration are a product of my "on its last legs" camera, I don't own a scanner and so have taken photos of my pctures to get them on here.

Spring is here

Spring is definitely here, for those who would doubt it - simply open your eyes! All over the University campus the colours of the season are springing up, the grass is greener and the yellow, blue, purple, white, red flowers are in full bloom.

The first clusters caught my eye on Thursday and I was gutted that I didn't have my camera with me, but when I returned today I was happy to find the flowers still there (not having fallen under student feet) and that they had multiplied in their tens, even hundreds.

I cut a peculiar picture lying down on the grass to take some (I think) pretty photographs of the plants, and certainly got some funny looks from passing students. Part of me attributes this to the fact the majority of these pictures were taken around the Physics and Chemistry buildings and the funny looks are because scientists have no true appreciation of art. In truth though I probably received the majority of those looks because a man, looking more than slightly like a tramp, was lying on the grass in the University campus...

Anyway, here's a sample photo from the ones I took, the others can be found in the Facebook Album here. Enjoy.

Happy Saint David's Day

Happy Saint David's Day to everyone, even you non-Welshies: I spread the love.

Just nipping in before midnight, in the last minutes of my National Day (original Blog post time not Facebook import time) to post a picture I just drew of the two fictional creatures that represent the places that have defined me and shaped me most thus far in my life: Liverpool and Wales, the Dragon and the Liverbird.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!