keep it rl.

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Some Fresh Inspiration for Visual Artists, Illustrators and Designers

Sunday, 12 April 2015

The Challenge of staying disciplined.

Discipline is far more important to have than that euphoric feeling of having great ideas and pondering on how amazing they would be if they were actually realised. The problem with the mind and brain, well at least mine, is it gets bored very easily. Something which was a great idea months ago is starting to be looked at as old news and pointless by my new improved elitist brain which is months older than the one that spawned that idea.

It is important, then, to focus on trying to tie up loose ends on things you promise yourself you would do, no matter how motivated you feel about it, as this is a challenge and may seem hard. Only from doing challenging and hard things can you break through the bubble of mediocrity and comfort and into the place where good shit comes into being.

Friday, 10 April 2015

Painters, I have some advice for you.

Okay I have advice.... but it's not from me, but instead from John Sargent. John Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.(Wikipedia)

It's always beneficial to take advice from masters so check it out here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9fDHo2DZt1JaFUydU96dHIteTA/view?pli=1

Tuesday, 7 April 2015

Happy Accidents, How to Paint with The Universe

DISCLAIMER:

Apologies. This is gonna sound like something from artybollocks.com....

....but when you think about it, it's actually quite practical, realistic advices and it's old news to many artists, but to some, it's something to think about..

Once upon a time, I was very methodical about the way I approach a drawing or painting (or anything creative for that matter). I stressed the details and tried to remain as neat as possible. If I was doing an ink drawing and made an error, the whole thing would be cast into the fires and I would start over.

I am not sure when but there came a point where I just didn't give a fuck about that stuff and now I can see this was a major time of improvement and a surge in confidence in the way I approached image making and problem solving.

Random and experimental actions make a painting and the process much more fun and interesting. Being loose and confident allows random shit to happen that you have no control over. Sometimes you come across a mark that you could never design. You could never meticulously outline and fill in, you could never capture the energy and gesture. Sometimes marks appear that you could never render out intentionally, that perfectly describe a material.

It is important to have a purpose when you create something and a plan to what you create, but SOMETIMES I think it's important to loosen up, to allow the universe to will certain marks into your painting to make it more interesting, energetic and organic.

Just a thought and a suggestion, if your work seems to be lacking a certain something, it may be that you are too tight, too tense and too conscientious.

Once you have a good grip in the fundamentals, have a play with using unorthodox tools to apply mediums with, try to apply colours on the brush and see how it comes out in one stroke. Try splattering paint and using the direction of it to determine motion of more controlled parts of your image.

A painting I'm working in, making a lot if happy accidents along the way (not finished)

The way I see paintings, is like a canvas is a portal into seeing through someone's mind and imagination. It is creating a universe on a 2D surface. To allow the universe to play a part in helping create organic energies in the painting or drawing is really cool stuff to delve into.

When the artist themselves don't even have control over the art, almost as if they are facilitating their creation, based on fundamental knowledge of art, I find this to be fascinating a and a method for creating interesting art pieces.

Ok that's enough bollocks for today, do you get it or think I'm a total art want beyond the point of no return? Let us know your thoughts.

Peace

Drawing ideas for when you don't know what to draw.

Sometimes you bust out your sketch book and you don't know exactly know what to draw or what you should be drawing. This is always funny to me as there are more possibilities in the imagination than there are in the real world, so there actually should be more ideas to draw than there are 'things' to draw in real life. I always find myself stumped by thinking of overwhelming ideas that might be technically hard to execute or thinking 'everything has been done'.

With that thought aside, here are 3 drawing ideas which might help you think of some shit to draw if you can't think of anything.

I dunno... just trying to give you ideas :)]

Here's a drawing idea... draw the room you are in and/or the things in it.

The stuff around you is stuff which is instantly accessible and there to help you skill up. It's probably going to feel tedious or pointless (booooooring right) no, but trying to draw objects in different ways gives you a shit tonne of exercises which help your overall drawing skill. You can try to capture the lighting, the gesture, the weight of an object or even the colour. No one has to see it either, if it looks janky, chuck it in the bin, but that drawing incrementally helped you on your path to mastery, m8. Trying to make a still life look stylish is also a fun exercise. Drawings don't need to have action, figures or characters or whatever, check out these awesome still life murals by Aryz as an example as what may be seen as 'boring' subject matter executed in mad style and skill, making for awesome art.

It seems Aryz always exactly knows what to draw.

Hmmm here's another drawing idea... draw yourself.

Take a selfie then try and draw that shit. Doing self portrait studies are always beneficial. There is a lot to learn by simply drawing yourself. Lighting, facial structure, value, colour. Try and pull some ridiculous expressions and capture them, or do a stylised portrait and have some fun with it..

Yeah righto one last drawing idea, then I'm gonna draw and practice what I preach..

Draw a story or scenario.. but in an uncomfortable way.

Moving into the realms of the uncomfortable should always be a challenging and rewarding experience. Try and illustrate sitting on your head or hanging off the back of a moving train. Just kidding. That's fucking stupid and not even funny, how about trying to draw some shit that is uncomfortable as in it is something you haven't explored before, such as drawing a dog if you are obsessed with cats. Try and incorporate a background into your work that has perspective, if you usually do character based drawings. Try something different, but something that you feel is going to be hard and challenging, because doing the same shit over again makes you stale and boring.. and by definition insane,

Yeah I probably should listen to my own words.. but maybe I am insane

Monday, 6 April 2015

First oil painting attempt.

So I'm having a crack at using oil paints and a palette knife for the first time.. I've always wanted to try using oil paints. These images are examples of the first layers, it's such a strange medium coming from using aerosol and acrylics. The shit doesn't mix the same way, it takes eons to dry and requires a lot of patience, which is something that I am working on acquiring....

I haven't really looked up how to use the paint "properly", I'm not sure about how to use oil paints the proper way. I just jumped into it trying some quick dirty portraits, it's pretty fun to use, it's pretty cool how it blends together, looking forward to using oil paints some more now...

Sunday, 5 April 2015

Red Bull Curates: Noodle Wars

In February, Noodle Wars was a live art installation at Noodle Palace, a venue at the 2015 Fringe World Festival in Northbridge. I documented fellow Perth artists over 3 weeks completing black and white illustrative murals, that riffed off each other, all of them based off a story which is explained in the videos. The artists include fellow Ten k members Ferly and Cheeks, also Shrink, Buello and Monday who drew an awesomely intricate scene which is awesome to watch unfold in the video.

FERLY

MONDAY

BUELLO

SHRINK

CHEEKS