Mathew Screen Cast (Callums World)

The first of four screen (art) casts recorded during the painting of Callum's World.

This features Callum's son Mathew. Initial sketch was done with paper and pencil, scanned into Photoshop CS4 at 600dpi with the rendering done at 300dpi in CMYK.

Callum's World

A recent commission I completed for a 50th birthday gift. Callum and his family being the subjects of this caricature. A new first for me with this piece was to record my progress using Screen Cast. It was more a test run to get to know the software and definitely not intended to be a 'How to'. However by recording my painting and then re watching the compiled video I have learnt an awful lot about my technique and have identified lots of areas where I should improve particularly in productivity. Feel free to watch the vids and comment. will be upload soon.

Democracy Interrupted

This painting was commissioned by someone working in Afghanistan and he wanted to immortalise his time over there. His request coincided perfectly with the shambles that was the elections and the announcement of Karzai's eventual and somewhat unconstitutional (perhaps?) victory and re-election to President. Hurrah for democracy! Though thats all in the past now, quickly forgotten about and life goes on.

Apparently I do animals now too!mm

A recent commission I was asked to do of someones Father. I've always tried to steer away from animals and pets when doing caricatures as you often find that they are subject to more meticulous scrutiny than their human counterparts and you rarely ever win. However, I apparently did quite well with this one. I particularly enjoyed the cow,... 'Bluey'!

The Greatest of English Institutions

Living on a cricket ground and being such a big fan I was delighted to get this request to paint a member of the Hetton Lyons Cricket Team. The vintage gentleman sport in warm sepia glory.

Dave the Mong

I done this cartoon/caricature of one of my friends. The idea was to ridicule him and open his eyes up to the fact his arms are stupidly out of proportion to the rest of his body. Typically though, he loved it and his ego absorbed it relatively easily. But it still makes me laugh so though I'd share it.

Anderson Cooper -Caricature

Anderson Cooper has always refused to comment on his personal life, leading to speculation that he is gay. This uncertainty didn't prevent OUT magazine ranking him second in their Top 50 most powerful gay men. But what is greater? Anderson's desire to put the record straight or a man's ego.... after all who want to be a runner up in whatever category?

Madking Caricature - Please Draw Me!

A very cool site called 'Please draw me!' is about the close down after I only just discovered it. As the name suggests it is a place for people to go and submit photos of themselves and wait to be drawn whilst they attempt caricatures of the other contributers.

Prior to the announcement that the site is to terminate I had already done a bunch of sketches and will be publishing them through my blog, as, when and if I get round to finishing them. Here's one I done of a guy known as Madking.

Check out the site before it closes at: http://www.udgang99.dk/pdm/index.php

Anderson Cooper Caricature

Here is the rough value painting of the journalist Anderson Cooper that I'm doing for a personal request. I'll hopefully be posting the final finished piece in the next couple of days.

Hopkins - Detail

Such a fun face to paint!

Hopkins - Bedtime Stories - Final

Well, here is the finished illustration for my final submission on the caricature course. Little has changed in terms of structure between this and the value painting but I got to have fun working on the details such as the texture of the leather chair and the wrinkles and crease's of Lecter's face.

Hannibal- Phase 2

Phase 2 of my Hannibal picture. Without getting too detailed I done a full black and white value painting. I would have liked to have rendered it to a higher degree but time is against me and today will see him getting some colour applied.

I made some structural changes through the painting process most notably to his head. My photo reference was relatively low quality so I put my hand my pocket and paid to download the movie Silence of the Lambs from iTunes and was able to get some good screen grabs, which has really helped. Still toying with the idea of throwing some 'props' into the picture, so dont be surprised if you see a bottle of Chianti in the final.

Everything has to start somewhere

Well, its the final week of the Seiler course on Schoolism. After doing a few studies of various celebs I've decided to go with Anthony Hopkins for my finished piece. Here are my modest beginnings and the initial sketch I penned out for the painting I'm currently working on. I should have a black and white 'value' painting up in a few days and god willing the final colour painting by the end of the week.

I'm using photo reference of Hopkins from the film Silence of the Lambs and putting him in more comfortable surroundings and narrating from a child's nursery rhyme book, quite a disturbing thought I'm sure you'll agree

Initial draft Ideas - Final Assignment

Here are two ideas I was working on towards my final assignment for the Schoolism course that didn't quite make it past the draft stage. Barack Obama and Anthony Hopkins, I wonder how many times we'll hear their two names together in the future, not too many I suspect.

I'm still keen on doing a Hopkins/Hannibal painting but looking at it from other angles. As for Obama its all a bit too cliche at the moment, though I have a feeling we'll all be drawing him a lot more over the coming years. Are caricaturists the only people who will be sad when Bush steps down?

Bruce Willis Caricature - Week 5, painting techniques

For my Bruce Willis caricature I wanted to work from photo reference which portrayed him as the action man we've come to know him as. So what better than a screen shot straight from Die Hard 4. I loved the lighting in this scene and enjoyed painting it. My process for this, the first full colour caricature in the course, was to do a detailed black and white value painting. I spent the majority of the overall time working on this stage. Next I painted a layer in colorize mode blocking in with my split compilation palette before returning to normal mode and detailing the piece in a direct painting style. After a bit of horizontal flipping and a few structural changes I was now happy he no longer looked like a distorted potato and pleased with the finished result.

Dave B - Week 4, Continuing with values

This painting of 'citizen' Dave B was done with a monochromatic palette taking the lessons learnt with value painting further.

Gary Value Painting - week 3

In week 3 of the caricature course Jason articulates the importance he places on getting good and correct values in his work. For the assignment we used a quick pencil sketch he'd done of a friend called gary and built up a value painting in greyscale using photoshop.

Pope Benedict XVI - Week 2, Understanding Shapes

This is my finished rendering of Pope Benedict XVI, done as part of the assignment for week 2, understanding shapes.

Tom Hanks Caricature - Week 1, Introduction to Caricature

Week 1 of Jason's course on schoolism.com titled 'introduction to Caricature'.  Each week there is a new video to download where Jason talks you through his techniques and thought process.  You then put what you've learned into practice by completing an assignment based around what you saw in the instructional video.  Week 1, Jason discusses the weight of a persons face and exaggeration and asks you to sketch the faces of 3 citizen's and a final rendering of celebrity Tom Hanks.  So this was my submission. 

A Beginning

Well, I've finally taken my first baby steps in this blogging world.  I hope to use this as an outlet for my sketching and painting and to put it out there in the public domain. Feel free to give me feedback and interact. It'd be cool to hear from other artists.

I'm currently a student of the fantastic Jason Seiler. I'll be posting the outcome of the assignments he sets us here in my blog, so look out for updates on that. For more information on Jason's caricature course check out www.schoolism.com