After Carol Marine, flower in vase

Embarassing that I still have to refer back to Carols work, but I love her style.

African Woman after Angela Drysdale

Brilliant artist who travelled through Africa and did some great paintings.

Big Sam

Recent signing at Leeds Carnegie. Former Sheffield Tigers prop last season who scored 17 tries.
Congartulations big man.
I am going to be making lots of changes to this as its not quite right, so have put it up now to compare later.

After Pragya Tiwari

Having a real hard time with a comission so have broke off and just done this to try and find the zone.
This is Pastels and is copied from an oil painting by Pragya Tiwari on the Daily Paintworks site.

Bodywatching

I am getting all the reference material for this from a book called , "Bodywatching" by Desmond Morris.
I am sure he has also had a TV programme along a similar vein.

Rabbi

You can make up your own minds about this but looks to me like its monday morning and she is dreading work

Alfred Hitchcock and Ali

These are white pastel pencils on black paper. You only draw the highlight, kind of like drawing the negative,  it's weird to start with. Did the Ali one first, then got the hang of it more with Hitchcock which is a better effort.

John Hurt after Owen Lennox (Artist and illustrator sketch)

This is a pencil sketch copy from a painting in this months edition of artist and illustrator.
The artist is Owen Lennox who has been shortlisted for the artist of the year award 2011 and is an amazing artist.
I think I have lengthened his nose too much, but am happy enough with it as a 30 minute effort.

I have deleted the images from the article due to copyright but dont think they'll mind me putting the article in. I guess you could easly find him online.

Here's the article in full.


Owen Lennox, is an artist and art teacher who graduated from Sheffield in 1978. Since then, he has been teaching and gaining commissions for notable sitters, such as Baroness Thatcher, Gerald Ford 38th president of the USA and Sir Steve Redgrave, to name a few.
His painting of Keith Allen has been shortlisted for our Artist of the Year 2011 competition and his brilliantly detailed portrait of John Hurt has been published in the December issue of Artists and Illustrators. For all these reasons and more, we felt it necessary to ask Owen if he could reveal to us his tricks of the trade.
“Discovering you have a talent is one thing but to achieve anything worthwhile you need the determination and the want to develop it”, he admits. “There always has to be something that grabs my attention. More often than not it’s a face; the colour, the light, the character. If I can’t find something to inspire me I paint anything.”
With a varied collection of artwork available to view and buy online on our site, we wanted to know how people have been receiving his work.
“The response to being shortlisted for Artist of the Year has been phenomenal. Lots of people have been looking and commenting on my work through Portfolio Plus,” he confirms.
“As a practising painter it’s good to engender interest in my work. I have had a couple of commissions and sold some work from my back catalogue as a result, which is always gratifying.”
Owen has worked extremely hard to get where he is today, having balanced his time as an artist with being a teacher. He believes that there’s nothing more inspiring than working with young people and would always want to continue teaching regardless of his success. With such a passion for imparting knowledge of art onto young people, we were curious to find out how much art was present during his growing up.
“When I was about 12 on a miserable summer’s day in Sunderland I was bored so my mother suggested I went to the art gallery. There were some paintings of the river wear by L. S. Lowry. Lowry used to spend six months a year in Sunderland staying at the Seaburn Hotel not far from where I lived. If my friends and I saw him walking along the promenade we used to follow him. He’d get rid of us by accidentally dropping a few coins.We’d wait until he was out of sight before picking them up.
I thought he had a pretty good life- famous, living in a posh hotel and having money to throw away- all because he could draw and paint. It was later I found out that he’d had a regular job till he was 65 and only painted in the evenings and weekends.”

Debra Louise Simpson



Debra

 This is a drawing from a family photo of my older sister Debra

Bridesmaid

Not finished but getting there, a few things to adjust.

A neighbours Grandaughter at a wedding.

Happy baby

Just wanted to re-post this as I have sent it to fineartamerica for them to advertise with some other stuff.

 

Staffordshire Bull Terrier , Pastel

Pastel, Stella

This is a comission of a neighbours pet pooch , Stella and for once I can post the photo too.

No Stella does not have blue eyes, that's down to the flash.

Tried a few photo's with and without the flash.

Just handed this to the owners and they loved it.

Pencil Sketch

Quick sketch of a colleague. He'll kill me for this.

Charcoal Portraits

This is a commission I'm working on at the moment.

Need to work on mouths and hair a bit more and then clothing and background, but think it's coming along nicely.

Just hope I know when to stop.

Gary Lineker and Ronan Keating

Two quick sketches

Three Cherries

Still being inspired by Carol Marine  who has taken a sudden and new direction ! check out her blog.

Cow and calf (I think)

 Mmmm !

Is this what is known as a balanced diet ?

It took me about 5 mins to get these balanced , little monkeys wouldn't stay still.

Luckily I took a photo as they fell over about 20mins into the painting.

Bad Apples in Da Corner

Not stolen from Carol Marine this time , but inspired by her. Really like this style, thick and slapped on (with care of course), I must have a go at oils soon.

On a good note I have a new follower, Toby K.
If you haven't seen his work check it out he is amazing.
Click his icon on my followers list it will take you to his blog.

Dead Tree

This gnarly old dead tree can be found in a field at the back of the Community centre in Upper Poppleton Nr York

Watching and Waiting

Photo, that I took on holiday recently in Tenerife of an older gentleman looking intently left whilst sat on a wall.
It seemed a good subject for a pastel painting.

Sure hope she turned up for him.

Cop caricature

Another cop caricature for a colleague.

Dont know what his reaction was as I haven't seen him since I did it.

Woof



Finished

This  is a colleagues daughters pet that I was asked to draw, appraently she loved it so am happy with that. 

Laurel and Hardy

I'd love to say these were my work but alas, no.
They are copies of caricatures done by the great Jan Op De Beeck, so although , yes I drew these they only show that I can copy.
However now I have Tom Richmonds book , I will practice practice practice.

Guess that is what Caricature is all about ,the ability to be able to see the face , distort it , turn the volume up, as it says in Tom's new book and then put that on the page in a way that anyone can say , "Yeah I know who that is"

The MAD Art of caricature

Just got this book delivered today from top caricature artist Tom Richmond.

It is excellent, anyone wanting to do this kind of work should have this on their shelf, convinced it will become the bible of caricaturing.

Orders are still being taken on his website.

Leeds Rhino's

You cant beat the feeling of winning and last week , Kevin Sinfield and Coach Brian McDermot seemed to exhibit that perfectly. Great sport, great game , great team.

Two Pears

Well, I said I had to stop copying and I have kind of.
These are my own pears, set up by myself in my kitchen and with my lighting.
There is definite change of style and erm quality. I hope I look back on these soon and think that they are awful, but for now they are .....ok..ish.

From my Sketchbook

Vincent

Just a few quick sketches from my err, sketchbook ! 

Two trees

 Click on any for a closer look.

Infinity Pool

Yellow Pear

Fired up by Carol's reply (see below) I tried another one (or two) and this is it.

A simple yellow pear but think its my best one yet.

Acrylic , Measures 7" x 5"

Caricature Cop

Still do one of these every so often, the victim, err I mean subject  loved it so I'm happy with that.

Flowers, crockery and an apple

Three more Acrylics from Carol Marines Blog. these are the last ones I will be doing its time to fly on my own.

Update Update, I e-mailed Carol Marine to tell her I was inspired (copying) her work and she replied , cool.

This is what she said...."Karl-

I think it’s absolutely fabulous what you are doing. I spent many years copying the art of artists I admired, and it was one of the best things I ever did for myself. Thanks for the heads up. : ) I am extremely flattered.

Best of luck to you as you go forward and “fly on your own,” as you say.

Yours in art,

Carol."

l

Excellent , Thanks Carol

Nice Pair

Two more Paitings inspired (copied , copied) from Carol Marine's blog.
Acrylics 7"x 5"

Wild Horses

Thanks to Photographer Irene Suchoki for the reference, great photographer, have a look at her blog "eye poetry"
Dont know about that first horse , looks like a Llama , oops !