The brown long-eared bat is also known as the “Whispering Bat” since it’s echolocation can hardly be heard at all. These amazing creatures are common in the UK. They hibernate over winter beginning from about now. Sleep well little creatures!
I drew this using pencils, ink and black and white pastels.
Here are some process photos:
Pencils…
Ink outline…
Black and white pastel tones…
I added these by scraping off some of the pastel onto with my finger or a blending stump and then applying it to the paper. After getting significantly messy I ended up using one finger for the black and another for the white which was much more effective…
Similarly on the blending stump I used one end for black and another for white. Eventually the whole drawing was toned…
Once this was done I played around with the various patterns to use on the wings…
Then finally I sealed the pastels with a fixative and added black and white ink on top of the toned image. This was really fun to do. I enjoyed it enormously. Here’s the final picture…
I’ve had some serious issues with my health again this week so rather than doing a proper painting I had a go at digital speed painting. Basically I painted a very quick sketch of some open countryside.
My aim was to complete it in 15 minutes.
I began by splashing in some background colours, making the picture lighter and less saturated for the parts of the landscape which are further away and making it darker and more saturated for parts of the landscape which were near the viewer. Like this…
Then I blended these basic areas and added a range of colours to the foreground. Then I very loosely sketched in the trees and hedgerows in the distance and the fencing and gate in the foreground…
Then I began to tidy the whole thing up – straightening the fencing, and adding highlights and shadows to everything…
Then I added some textures in Autodesk Sketchbook using some brushes I adjusted expecially for the job, copied my painting across to my PC and loaded it into Photoshop. Once in PS I adjusted the levels of the image and ran a filter over the top of the image to give it more edge definition (I used “poster edges” for this). Then used another filter to highlight the textural details of the painting (fresco). Here’s the final image…
I didn’t quite finished the painting in 15 minutes – I took 18 minutes! What can I say – “a swing and a miss”!
I have been working on my portrait of Jim, my father in law, who passed away recently. It one of those pieces of art which is really personally important because it’s a gift for his widow Jane and also a tribute to such a good man. At first I struggled to get started so I made a few sketches digitally to get myself warmed up a bit. This is the best of those…
At first it didn’t really look like himbut once I added some shadows and highlights it began to feel better.
Then, since I had a digital sketch I played around with the colour scheme to find something that felt right. Here are some of the attempts I made at that…
Of the colours above I preferred the royal blue and the red. Overall though I thought that the red brought out the warmth of him as a person, so I decided to go with that.
Once I’d got all of these ideas roaming around in my head I found myself finally ready to get down to drawing.
I began with a very rough sketch where I measured quite carefully his general facial anatomy. It doesn’t look a thing like Jim, but I find it an important step for making a decent portrait…
Once I had that sketched in I used it as a framework for drawing a more careful map of his portrait, ready for the paint. This is as far as I have got at the moment due to being unwell last week. Here is the drawing / map I made to guide me when I paint. It doesn’t yet capture his likeness because there are no strong shadows or highlights, but I am hoping it will turn out well. I will do my best!
I’m not going to rush this painting, so I expect I will post other artwork in between updates of this project.
Here are my main steps so far along with the main photo reference I am using…
In western literature dragons are mostly symbols of evil and destruction who have to be killed or vanquished for life to go on.
However in many eastern cultures they are seen as strong, beautiful, natural and lucky and often associated with water. In Vietnam dragons are seen as bringing life sustaining rain and are therefore symbols of life and prosperity. In Japanese stories dragons are the Spirits or Kami of rivers and lakes and seas as well as being associated with rain. In China the dragon is a very powerful symbol of energy, wisdom and good fortune.
Because of these positive connections I chose to draw an eastern dragon, rather than a western one. I think the only western dragons I really like are those from Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quintet. It’s been a while since I read this series but my overarching feeling about the dragons in her world is that they represent wildness. I really like that!
I began by playing around with curves and loops trying to find a pleasing way to draw this animal…
Then when I found a design I liked I began playing with it to see how I wanted to form it into a dragon…
Once I had the idea in my head I began to draw it…
At this point I realised that the basic structure I had chosen had two interesting relationships to symbols.
The first was that the main shape was that of the infinity sign used in mathematics, but also used frequently to represent autistic people.
The second was that the head appeared to be moving towards eating the tail, which is another symbol for infinity or eternity.
So I carried on working on the form, laying out ideas with pencil and then inking them as soon as I was sure they would be permanent, like this…
This is how my final ink drawing came out…
Next I used my watercolour paints to add tone to the drawing. Then I added a shadow to lift it out of the page a little and it was finished.
Here’s the finished art…
“The Eternity Dragon”
I do enjoy the symbolism in the picture. The association with autism brings it home for me as does the association with the Le Guin’s wild dragons. (That is, if I’ve remembered and interpreted this correctly and not mixed it up with another story!) The eastern links to water are also lovely too given how much I love being on the water in boats.
In terms of the art itself in a more technical sense. I’m fairly happy with the overall drawing but not quite sure about putting a shadow on it. I do like the way the shadow lifts the dragon out of the page, but sometimes I think keeping it simpler is better. Here is the drawing before I added the shadow…
I like the simplicity of this, but the shadow gives it more of a 3D effect and draws my eye more.
jo fox - adventures in art 