More...

So I was talking about hit and miss, these are more the miss side of the spectrum but hey. I made the mistake of seeing a couple of people on motability scooters and thought they would be excellent candidates. Boy, did I underestimate their speed, they could shift!

More Moleskin Sketches

The weather has been against me recently. No one wants to come out and play :(

Pagoda Sketches

I wanted to take a break from drawing people, especially as I'd been feeling a touch stalker-like and decided to draw the peace pagoda (and oriental lion statue) located at the lake. It was going okay until it decided to rain.

I think it's worth pointing out that I use a black biro to draw so Im forced to draw one line rather than over construct the drawing, which I can be guilty of. Plus I cant erase it should I not like, hence sketches will be hit and miss. You learn more from the mistakes than you do the successful ones. Well, that's what I tell myself anyway

I think there will be alot of sketches like these forthcoming so feel free to go through my archive for more digital and colourful work. That should tide you over until I have time to do some fresh ones

More sketches on the move

Just so as you know, each sketch is only 10 seconds or so in the making.

Sketch-ercise

So, some of my friends may know I'm 'training' for a London to Brighton Bike ride. So I've been cycling around a nearby lake at lunchtimes.

I've begun to encorporate some sketching it too. Essentially, I do a lap, then stop do some quick sketches of people and swans or geese and bugger off and do another lap. I must say I've been loving it. Its very cool trying to sketch people without them noticing. I used to cringe at this sort of thing but in my old age Im relishing it :) Plus a good friend of mine wanted me to carry on with traditional media as well as the digital stuff.

Life Drawing week 10/10

So, the final week of life drawing. I thought I'd play it reasonably safe and do a charcoal number. Apparently my sketching technique altered (for the better) after dabbling with paints. I wont have this weekly commitment of life drawing now so my posts may not be quite as numerous but they still will be regular, you'll just have to try and be a little patient with me :) it's not easy finding the time when you have a toddler running around!!

Night Watch Character Designs: Anton Gorodetsky (v1)

In my effort to beef out my more realistic character work in my repetoire I've decided to illustrate the main characters in the Night Watch trilogy of books. There are set in the real world but have a supernatural twist. I've taken descriptions from the book and along with some artistic licence come up with my own interpretation.

For my first attempt I'm generally happy with the way it turned out. The pose is a little flat and it is devoid of much expression but I've planned a cast shot so it should make more sense once all characters are in situ. The character isnt completely finished, I'll be tweaking once I have all of the cast in place no doubt. What I can actually see happening is that as I develop my style with the other paintings I'll end up revisiting this again. Annoying but getting better is the point right?

Life Drawing week 9/10

Some warm up sketches done using oil bars and a half finished (if that) painting that I need to get around to finishing. It was going well but takes so long just to lay down the first colours before you can do any clever or interesting things. My fault for using a palette knife I guess.

So, we are nearly done with the life drawing. I am working on a character illustration in my own time which I'll post when its done ( lucky you ) . The life drawing has really helped as you'd imagine.

Life Drawing week 8/10

These are some colour sketches with oils. I was a bit cheesed off I could get them to a more 'complete' state but 2 hours isnt really enough to do one painting let alone, studies, test piece and final piece. Still though, got me thinking of doing a more final piece for myself at some point

Blog alert!

A close friend of mine has taken the plunge and created her very own corner of the internet. She's a very talented writer so it's well worth a read. The first post is cracking so she has quite the standard to live up to.

http://culturalcesspit.co.uk/wordpress/

Life Drawing 7/10

Sorry for the delay in posting these up. The honest reason is that Im not happy with them. It occurs to me that a) you just cant paint anything that good in an hour and b) I get very frustrated with painting traditionally. Too much time in Photoshop I suppose. Im sure it will do me good somehow. These are a couple of warm ups and a 'painting'.

The result is something I'd sneer at walking past the 'art' studios at college. The shame...

A Boy's Dream

Here is a hour (or so) speedpaint inspired by the trailer for the computer game last guardian. I really liked how the giant wasnt fully in shot, kind of made it more ominous somehow.

My Blog interview :)

http://bloginterviewer.com/photography/jason-pickthall

Read a little more about me here :)

More Speedpaint-ery

okay, I know you must be getting bored of these things now so I'm sure this'll be the last one.

IN YOUR FACE 2009!!

Wow so that goes to show what a dry year 2009 was. Its only March and I've beat the total of posts in the whole of last year. Hopefully it will continue.

This was the first time I ever used acryilics and a palette knife. It wont be the last as I enjoyed both.

More speedpaint-ery

'Bout an hour

now available on Twiitter

so Ive come a little late this particular party but thought Id give it a bash nontheless. Look for me 'jasonpickthall' hope to see you there

Life Drawing week 5/10

Only two this time. I must admit I wasnt a big fan of this model. She took herself way too seriously and her poses were rather pedestrian.

speedpaint-ery

A scenic colour doodle

Life Drawing week 4/10

First off a big thank you to those who are now following and those who take the time to comment it is very flattering. I've been a little quiet of late due to laptop failure but hopefully now normal service will resume.

Here are my most recent life drawing pics. As you can see two of them are white on black and I've also included a warm up sketch that I liked. The proviso for that one was that we were not allowed to take the pencil off the paper. This gave some interesting results.

..but the flower sucks

So here's another speedpaint. I did this on an intuos rather than my cintiq I think it shows, it doesnt have the energy of the one I did previously. Plus the flower and butterfly are terrible but I thought Id stop fussing over it and post it as is.

Oh well, back down to earth, I guess I'll have to make a better go of the next one.

Life Drawing - Week 3/10

More on negative space, and this time with a female model yay! On a side note I was apalled to observe I only posted 11 times last year, and most of those was at the end of the year. Its the beginning of Feb and I've done nearly half of what I did last year. Here's to a more productive year.

Life Drawing - Week 2/10

The choice cuts from week 2 - this week we were drawing with charcoal at the end of a stick in order to loosen us up, it made me more tight. There is one pic which is a longer pose and I was trying to use negative shape to structure my image rather than constructing the anatomy.

Afterwork Speedpaint

Hey, so this took my about an hour. It's the first piece Ive done in a good while that's excited me, I think it shows. There is nothing untoward going on here just a father and daughter going camping or something.

Life Drawing - Week 1/10

So here are a few choice cuts from the life drawing course I've just started. Plus my own creation, showing me her creation, yeah it's self indulgant but hey, it's my blog deal with it :)

Character..er..paint..er thing

This is inspired by a model that a friend had created. I liked the look of it and decided to paint it, he hadnt textured it up at that point.

It probably echos a little of Avatar but Cameron stole the better part of 3 hours of my life so he sure as hell owes me :). Besides, he doesnt own the colour turquoise.

This started out as a quick doodle but snowballed, its far from perfect. There are parts I'm very happy with and parts I'm not but I didnt dwell on it and just got it finished.

Watch this space, there is some life drawing on the horizon (as soon as I find the battery charger for my camera that is)

Im like a Freekin' Ikea Catalogue

Well in the absence of any new finished work or any more decent images from the life drawing session this will have to suffice. I AM working on personal stuff.... honest. You'll see, yeah I'll show you.

sketching a dude in the nude....

Last Saturday I went old school and used proper pencils and paper and remarkably used an easel for the first time.

I spent a day at Westbury Farm Studios. If you are having trouble visualising it, if you've ever had the misfortune to see the film 'the Cottage' its pretty much the same building. Add to that segments of mannaquins hanging from the trees it was quite a freaky setting! pft... Artists..

Ive captured the best of the day on my camera. There are a few sketches I want to show but I'll have to take a picture in natural light as they are not coming out too clever at the minute.

That time of the week again

So Ive tried to make a point of adding something every week now. Sunday seems to be the best day for this. Ive been dining out on old work for the last few weeks and this post is no different. That said I now have some ideas kicking around my head that I want to get started on so hopefully there maybe a couple of WIP's in the coming weeks, plus I have a life drawing day next week so there should be plenty to keep this going for a good few weeks.

Another main motivation is that I know some friends whose opinion I respect who have been following my progress for sometime (Damien & Dan) still look (and comment) and that means alot, plus I know I have a few new lurkers and thats great too. So thanks all, it keeps me motivated.

Some more

funny how posting something up can change your perception of it, I've uploaded this one several times trying to get the tones and saturation better. Why cant I see it in Photoshop?

Been a while....

EDIT this is a little more saturated, I viewed the other on a different screen and it was dull dull dull