Beauty and the Beast # 5

Ten hours in, and it's coming together slowly. The new albums by Show of Hands(Witness) and The Oysterband(Meet You There) are helping me along on a wave of folky nostalgia. Yep, I'm a closet folky and not ashamed to admit it! Is it my imagination, or is Roy's nose getting longer?!

Beauty and the Beast # 4

..but then, as I start to work on specific areas and refine them, correct little mistakes (such as Roy Dotrice's left eye), the finished painting, or a promise of how it might eventually look begins to emerge and I feel hopeful again! Painting, for me is sometimes a frustratingly slow process! However, it's a medium which throws up challenges I do enjoy working through!

Beauty and the Beast # 3

A couple more hours work and I've covered all the white up! Another thing I need to do as quickly as possible! All the base painting is done now. The painting looks very rough and it's often about here that I hit a wall, where I start to think it's never going to look good and I find myself making excuses not to paint, which in a busy house, with a 3 year old toddler bombing about is pretty easy to do! This is the stage of any painting I like the least...

Beauty and the Beast # 2

A few hours in and I've started blocking in the background and base colour, and establishing the features. I'm never happy until I've got fairly good likenesses. I use acrylic paint(usually Galeria by Winsor & Newton, or System 3). My base pallet is more often than not a mixture of yellow ochre, titanium white, burnt umber, mars black and crimson red. I've tried lots of combinations of colours over the years, especially for skin tones, and this is the one that works best for me.

Beauty and the Beast # 1

Here is the initial drawing for my Beauty and The Beast painting. I thought you might like to see the progression from start, to finish, as it were. The size of the painting is A3, on thick watercolour paper.

Red Hens

Artwork copyright Lou Partridge http://www.redhenartists.co.uk/

I just want to mention an impressive new website, designed and created from scratch, by a good friend of mine, Louise Partridge. Lou is a co-founder of The Red Hen Artists group, based in Worthing and Brighton, Sussex.

Lou is a busy little bee. She not only works for a theatre company by day, but is also a talented artist, photographer and co-organiser of art exhibitions and workshops. She also helps out at local archelogical digs...I don't know where she finds the time, or energy!

Here's a bit of blurb, shamelessly lifted from the Red Hen website:

"...the idea of the group is that it brings together and motivates the artists to keep on aiming for their goal of making a good income from what they love to do. Previously the artists had found it difficult to find opportunities to show their work in Brighton & Hove as individuals, and the name ‘Red Hen’ comes from the children’s story of the little red hen who decided, as no-one would help her with her project, to ‘do it herself’! "

Go have a peek, using the link above, or under the 'Linky Thingies' section. I am shameless in my promotion of this site because I'm very proud of all that Lou has achieved. It's not easy earning a living as an artist, unless you're very lucky, or well connected!

Running to a standstill

Phew! It's been a busy old four weeks! I've been working solidly and I'm feeling rather jaded now, but have to keep on. So much still to do...

Hark at me. I'm not complaining, honest!!

I've been working on my Beauty and The Beast painting, which is coming along well(I might post some progress pics soon), and also some 75 sketch cards for Strictly Ink Limited.

On the 31st of March, I attended a Doctor Who launch party in London(not the press one) , which was great fun. The setting was The Printworks pub in Farringdon. There were about 350 Whovians packed into the place to watch the first episode of the new series on big screens. It was a great atmosphere. It's great to be able to share views with friends and meet more like minded people. Nicholas Courtney was in attendance too!

I loved the first episode for the new series. I think it was the best opener of all three.

I managed to bag a dealer's table at one point, and sold a few prints. Then I met Daryl Joyce and can finally put a face to the name! I do like meeting other artists, especially artists who work on Doctor Who.

More updates soon!