Sofa covering

Didn't want black so covered leather sofa with old blanket and John's old blue cotton jumper.  Did as quickly as possible - yesterday and today.   Unlike John's when I took weeks and made proper covers with piping etc.  I had too many other things to do like painting etc.

Original black leather sofa which I had covered in white quilt.  It's my second sofa, other one is white.  I don't really have room for both, but until I can convince John he needs it, it's main use is for storing knitting basket and books.

Sofa recovered in cut up white cotton blanket and Johns old blue cotton jumper he had thrown out.  I had kept it because I loved the colour and the pattern on the edging.  I knew I would find a use for it.  The blue side cusions normally zip onto sofa but I forgot to leave gap and anyway I think it's better they are movable.

I had little fluffy cushions - see below - one black, one white which were really just dust gatherers so I used scraps to cover them.

I still think the white fluff looks cute but you just don't feel like resting your head on it cause you just don't know what might be in there.

Now you see the shoddiness - just sewn up corners and added ties.  I didn't have enough fabric and couldn't be bother sewing on other backing fabric and the above back cushion zips onto the sofa at the back so had to leave that open - Not zipping at the moment to see if really need to.

The base cushions underneath.

Now I need to find storage for all the blankets I use to store under the cushions and above them under the white quilt.

This poof might do - next project - if i can rip off bottom and find way of adding another closing bottom to hold in the blankets.

Starting a series of drawings in preparation for portrait

Took lots of very close up pics of John so I can make sketch studies in preparation for a painted portrait.  Not sure if end result will be one big picture or a series of small ones.  This first sketch is first of eye studies.  At the moment doing in PSD using the photo to start to 'see' the minute details and shapes before trying it freehand/eyeballing it.

Mucking about in Photoshop

Since using Photoshop for the Shadows projects as well as having intended to play with it's painting tools and my drawing tablet for first time in years,  I did a little flower painting - more graphics than painting style.  It was fun.  I finally got round to sorting out the shortcut keys for tools so I can quickly change between, brush, eraser, colour picker and bucket fill - all inspired by the phone app.  I was never this quick when I used it before.  It was the quick mode of use of the app that inspired me to check out how I could use PSD more quickly.

Mint and Parsley

New Artist I've discovered - Jane Corsellis

Going to see her exhibition at Messums in a couple of weeks.   I will miss the talk there tomorrow by David Tress because of the stupid jubilee street closures.

 See a lot more of her work on Messum's artist archive:

http://www.messums.com/inventory.php?artist=312

Postscript - I saw exhbition on 23rd June and the above interiors were my favourites.  I really studied them and want to try one.

Colour Bar for transfer to phone

Regardless of what I said in last post (Colour - photos unreliable ), I am trying this as a quicker way to get close enough colour than having to open Sketchbook's colour palette all the time.

Colour - photographs unreliable

Just yesterday I had been reading an article in Artist magazine about why it is unreliable to paint from photos only.   The article is right and Hockney is too - the camera lies - about depth and colour etc - it's lenses can't do what our eyes do and it's colours are interpretive.  Though digital cameras a getting better and scanners too - in their millions of colours - that's still less than we see and it's heavily interpreted by lighting etc.  My experiment has really made this clear for me.

I had been using the colour picker in Sketchbook app on my phone to pick colours from photos to paint them.   I had also taken picture of a page in my Colour Mixing for Portraits book to pick colours from that.  So, today I tried it on my desktop.  I scanned in page from book this time to get better colour match than phone camera version.  Then opened in Photoshop.  My intention was to rearrange tiny patches of each colour down one side so I could use it on my phone - to overcome patches being painted over with my picture, therefore making it impossible to pick up the original colours.  But once I started roaming over just one colour square with Photoshop's colour picker it changed between about 10 colours at least - you could see why as the squares show different colours in the picture below - eg. you can see brown and ochre in the master skin tone recipe square.  I even scanned in at lower dpi but no good.  So even adding picture of say John to colour pick from means I am not getting of John but of a camera's limited interpretation of it.   Also, the squares of colour in the book itself have been interpreted by a camera, and in the picture below then interpreted by my scanner.  

I wonder though if the digital process is really picking up the constituent colours of the square that our eyes put together in a Gestalt way to see the whole colour - just like the impressionist put yellow next to blue dots or dashes next to each other so we would see green from a distance - not sure this is the case here but I will investigate further.

Photos are useful but it's still best to see the real thing at least a few times.

Shadows

My creative friend Kim thought I could help her with shadows on her quilt she is making.  Though it was great for me to learn more about shadows and use photoshop in more depth, it just served to show how little I know.  It does prove what my life drawing teacher told me - there's so much you can do with imagination but you also need to see figure in situ, even photos aren't as good as they flatten and never show the light and atmosphere accurately.

The trials of working out shadows without seeing the real thing.  Sun is suppose to be at 11am.
Tree is set back from children, not sure how far.

1. partically done by hand but shadows too long for 11am

2. shadows done with psd select to give more hard edge to shadows.  Angle of right side child not in right direction.  Shadows still too long.

3. Shadows shortened and right child shadow now in same direction as others but not sure it's right yet.

4. As always, drop shadows look better when combine with body shadows.  Still the right child isn't right and I don't know what to do with it after 6 goes at position, rubbing out parts, resizing etc.  Can someone go out and photo someone in 11am daylight sitting in same position?

5. there's nothing like a little distance to see what to change.  after going away and doing some sewing it just seemed right to make right child's shade bigger.  not sure if too big though?

 New right child shadow - process

1. select and copy child and save selection then fill in with paint bucket
2. flip vertically
3. rotate

4. position over child 

5. shorten, rotate then cut out what is not what is wanted - this is where i have the problems. - - this is where the problems begin - size, position and how much to cut.  i am having problems with photoshop resizing - have to work out how to use better - or get it near right then adjust by hand - maybe need to work out how to use it's perspective tool.

shadow shortened and turned more

shadow cut away but leaving shadow on feet

shadow then cut away from body fully

Using perspective tool:

 Shadow flipped horizontally definitely not right:

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Now I want to know more about shadows.  I have begun my research.

I also had forgotten about 'about.com' and since I want to write up some colour basics for John this link is useful for both.  about.com colour and shadow theory etc

 



Google images has some good tree shadow pics  tree shadow pics on google search





THE SAGA OF THE SHADOWS CONTINUES

In the end it was Kim who worked it out.  She enlisted the help of two models - her husband and a little manikin, spot the difference,  and two light sources to create the shadows - the sun and a lamp - ingenious.  Here is Kim's explaination of how the shadows at 11am really work with reference to her photos below.

'This was taken at the same time. Notice the shadow looks nothing like the figure. Also, how different the two shadows look, due to the compacting and extending of the figure.

It took until yesterday for the penny to drop as to what we were doing wrong. We were trying to make (and did make) reflections! It is so simple once you think about it. I knew something was not sitting right in the ideas that I and then you, were doing, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

We were looking at the figures sideways on, rather than from above. That is why the curved shape of the figures just didn’t sit well with me. You wouldn’t see the arching of the back from an above shadow. The shadow is blocked light, so all that is relevant, is that the light is blocked. The shadow then becomes the shape of the back area (or whatever extends from it) and would be flat.'

Thanks Kim for the lesson in persistence, investigation and really 'seeing' as an artist's basic tools.   I look forward to seeing the final shadows on the quilt.

More digital experimenting

I really liked the way my sky came out at tate modern, (post on this blog:  http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5666531142704615592#editor/target=post;postID=46638880365825247)   so I thought I would try another one - sky landscape - from imagination -ie no photo reference.  Much harder.  Trying to capture layers of sky and atmosphere.  Won't finish this one, but will keep trying.  If I get it right, I will try with watercolour or other media.

Messum's Gallery talk by David Tress

Just when I am trying to decide if  I could leave London, I get an invite to a talk at Messum's by an artist I don't know takling about 40 years of painting - looks exciting - love the green pic at bottom and will be interested to just how the paint goes over the edge of the paper - almost looks like something you would do in Photoshop using background pattern as a brush but it's not.

You can see more of his work on Messum's site (great gallery in Cork St behind Royal Academy)  http://www.messums.com/project-inventory/332.

His website with biography: http://www.davidtress.co.uk/

Digital Flower painting

Done from pic taken at Edyta's last week.

Two exhibtions - Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern & Mondrian/Nicholson at Cautauld inspired more digital drawing

Productive day - 2 inspiring exhibitions and some resultant drawings.  I nearly didn't go as I wasn't sure I would be interested - you never know where you'll find inspiration.

1. Kusama at Tate Modern - 83 yrs old 'best known living Japanese artist' - lives in mental institution with studio opposite - very interesting story, worth looking up - parents wouldn't let her do art when she was a child, she went to new york, became well known, burnt out and has lived in institution for years.    Lot of 'dots' work - you may know it, not exactly my thing but I did like some of her clothing sculpture.   But, one room wowed me - a small room, simple, completely dark with a walkway, walls and ceiling totally covered with mirror and with water on floor either side of shiny walkway - ie everything is reflected forever in everything, so that when hundred of dotty/little round  coloured lights hanging from ceiling at different heights come on, you feel like you are in space amongst the stars.  I am going back again and taking John to see just this room.

While in Tate, I did my usual of going to members rooms and drawing the view but this time I wanted to try out scibbly trace on a landsape so i took pic on phone and did quick trace drawing.  I also experimented more with brush and eraser on different opacities to start doing some clouds.

Photo of view of St Pauls from Tate Members Room

Clouds done with brush picking up colour from photo and eraser - both brush and eraser set on almost transparent.

2. Mondrian and Ben Nicholson at Cautauld - shows how inspired each other, both leading the development of geometric abstract.  Just about 10 works each and some letters etc but very interesting and clarifying for me.  They explored colour and shapes to get a simple balance, depth/flatness, simpleness - I am going to write a simple colour theory for John because this is the kind of work he would like to do and I think he would be a natural for it - I have  asked him for one he did, to hang in my lounge - it may have been beginners luck, we'll see.  He drew did 3 simple shapes on large grey painting.  I had done the background in the colours/paint we used to decorate his flat a few years ago and he did the rest.  It just works.   I will blog a pic of it at some point.

Leaflet from todays show at the Cautauld - Mondrian top and Ben Nicholson bottom

I wanted to do something on the phone inspired by these works and to try using the apps bucket colour fill to do it.

Mondrian inspired phone doodle

Nicholson inspired phone doodle

While I was in the cafe, I wanted to try drawing a crowd scene using the phone.  I don't know if my hand will learn to draw from the scibbly tracings.  I hope so, they are such an instant fix.  One day I hope to draw as quickly without the picture.  It's amazing how it helps get perspective - different size people - and how it helps get expressions quickly - the woman on the right eating.   Given more time and better photo, I could do even more.

Phone photo of Cautauld Cafe

A 5 minute scribbly trace on phone

John has just reset the phone so I have been able to buy and download a full version of Sketchbook so I am now off  to play.