Back In Black

Well, hello :) It's been a while - lots going on behind the scenes here so we have some catching up to do. How are you doing ? Good I hope.

Probably the biggest single thing that's changed is my UK website, I started over with Wix and have been able to add lots more features so the site is now a proper studio tour.

 From the beginning I wanted to make more of a connection between you the viewer seeing the artwork and me making it so that's one of my front paws right there on the home page :)

Stephen now has his own corner of the website - as his file continues to grow with contributions from other talented creatives and fans, I wanted somewhere to share and showcase new elements as they are added. If you'd like to play along, go see.

I've built up a complete collection of my crow drawings and added a new line in printed loveliness. Pocket mirrors, notebooks and prints are now available to buy here. I have more designs and products coming over the next few months.

Black box

 I've discovered a new toy :) Or rather, a new technique. If you read my last post you'll remember that I photographed something in a black mirror before drawing it. The results were fantastic so I've pretty much spent all my free time since stuffing things into the felt lined box I created to go with it and snapping away.

 There is a bit of an art to it - to photograph a reflection, you have to adjust your focus to cover the distance from your lens to the mirror - and back again. Then of course there's the issue of lighting the object without shining light on the mirror or towards the camera.

 The results are worth it though - I started with a deer skull and took two photographs of its reflection using different lighting. That completely transformed it as you can see from the resulting drawings here - they don't look like the same object in both at all.

I then drew the images out on Fabriano Artistico paper using charcoal pencil for the details and pure carbon stick to get that gorgeous velvety black background. You can buy the drawings framed and ready to go over in my Etsy shop.

Monsters everywhere !

Total chaos here this week as I launched a new Kickstarter campaign for the monsters. I'm going to be showing them at Dark Arts again this year here in Whitby and after thinking how interested people were in their individual stories, decided to make something of it. In this case, more monsters and, if we do well enough, a book about them.

We wanted to the project to reflect what it's like to live with these things so made our own short video black and white movie style, complete with wibbly stop motion. You can see that here.

We also used the time to create an entire folder for our favourite monster, Stephen, including a map of the asylum where he lurks, newspaper cuttings and patient files.

We've also tried to explain what it's like dealing with these things day in, day out ( hence Rich in full monster wrangling outfit). We love what we do but it can be hard work, they come and go when they please and make working with children and animals look like a breeze. So, if you have a minute to do something fun, pop over to our page and if you can, support us - either by pledging or sharing on social media. It all helps :)

Black birds

 Those of you who keep patiently reading my posts will know just how many crow pictures I've been getting through lately. I'm still enjoying them, it's nice when time is tight to have something I can do start to finish in a relatively short time. 

 However, I also wanted to get some new pieces up in the shop to keep them company. Since we moved to Whitby, I've become fascinated with the cormorants that sit out in the harbour. I wanted to see if I could produce similar images with them, on a slightly larger scale.

These stand at just 6" x 4", done in the same charcoal pencil on Fabriano Artistico paper. There's enough detail to give them life while keeping that stark black outline. I've put the first pair up in my Etsy shop thanks to some rather pleasing photos taken on my new camera - more of that in the next post :)

Meet the monsters :)

It's all go here as I prepare Stephen for his first public appearance at the Dark Arts exhibition in Whitby. The show runs from October 24th-26th at the Spa Pavilion, free entry so do come along and say hello if you're in the area.

I've not taken my nightmares out in daylight before, so it will be interesting to see how folks react up close and personal. It's fantastic having a show like this on our doorstep, though a little nerve wracking allowing strangers access to such personal pieces.

I've got some prints and of course the original drawings but I'm also prepping some pages revealing Stephens history and showing some of the research/prep work that goes into creating something like him.

I may even take along sketchbook and pencils so I can do some drawing while I'm there, so long as the organisers don't mind black fingerprints everywhere :) 

Sing a song of Stephen

 Like many artists, I sometimes 'see' things that aren't there. Or maybe they are. I don't know. Anyhow, of all those lurkers in my peripheral vision, the one that I get asked about most often is the great and terrible Stephen. So, here's his full story for you to...um...enjoy ?

Stephen charcoal drawing

It all started with a song - the actual track by Alice Cooper is titled 'Steven' but I changed the spelling as otherwise there may have been a terrible temptation to address him as 'Steve' and I don't even want to think about what might happen then.

Should you decide to dip a toe in the water, you can find it on YouTube along with 'Years Ago' which was another of his personal anthems. It's best listened to at good volume with your eyes closed, it's actually a fantastic piece of music once it gets going but it is very, very creepy.

Prep work for Stephen

I'm still not sure where things like Stephen come from. When I'm working on them they are as real to me as the chair I'm sat in but whether that just means I'm barking, I have no idea. I find they tend to come around in the early hours when I'm alone. I like to have my headphones in to cut me off from the rest of the world so I'm not distracted. It's often as if there is a quality to the music I have on that attracts them in the same way that different aromas will draw in different animals.

The first impression I got of Stephen was of something squatting with his hand against a wall or a door, as if to keep something else out. I drew more hands and arms thinking I was looking for the right posture when I realised they all belonged to the same thing. I still couldn't see how it all came together though. I tried adding a spider body but that wasn't right so for the next year or so I spent a lot of time experimenting with different arrangements in the hopes it would become clear.

Stephen never really went away and I kept returning to my sketches, gradually pairing up arms and getting a sense of how he moved. A good couple of years after I'd first started work on him, I had what has to be the most disturbing nightmare I've ever had.

Stephen early sketch

He was in the house and started coming out of one of the cupboards, arms first. His limbs unfolded and extended which is when I first knew he had that extra joint in each one. I ran away but something made me go back, I think I wanted to make him leave but each time I found his hidey hole I would suddenly find myself standing outside the house in the dark. This happened again and again in different rooms and it became apparent that he was somehow in control, was making me lose time and keeping me away.

When I woke, I was in a complete panic and Rich had to get up and search every inch of the house with me. Needless to say, it was a sleepless night after that.

Stephen arm bones

That whole experience did however give me most of the information I needed to start putting together a plan of his anatomy. I always test my initial sketches by working them from the bones up, to be sure I have them right. Only if the blueprint for want of a better word matches the proportions of my original drawings do I consider them to be true and go on to do a finished piece.

His head was the last piece of the puzzle - for a long time I wasn't even sure he had one but as I got closer to a complete image, I could see him in my minds eye moving around and realised that his head was slung low, which is why his eyes are on the bottom half of his face.

Stephen portrait

The picture you see on Pyewackett and Pecke of him side on is, to me, the single most important piece I have ever done. There will be other images of him in abandoned buildings but that particular drawing is when I was closest to him and he came all the way out into the light. It's also when most of my fear went away.

Stephen is an odd one - we've learned to live with him but he's still unsettling. It would be strange without him though. I get the feeling he was maybe a person once but has been by himself for so long he's become confused, something else. Not a creature you could or would want to engage with but he's done us no harm so we just live around each other.

Spicing things up

 It's all going very well in my new drawing corner (see last weeks post). I've now finished the drawing of the half a dried lime I was working on and it's up on Original Art under 100

 This was a particularly fiddly piece to do as the drawn area is only a few centimetres across but I'm pleased with the end result. As usual, it's worked in charcoal pencil on Fabriano Artistico paper which is perfect for that level of detail.

 It's now joined the nutmeg and star anise which are part of the same series. I have another image lined up of a black cardomom pod which I'm hoping to start by the weekend.

Again, I'll be posting pictures of the work in progress or, if you can't wait that long treat yourself to some original art for sale in my Etsy shop :)

Home is where the art is

 In case you've been wondering what I'm up to (always suspicious when artists are quiet), I moved house just over a week ago to the lovely Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast.

 There were several reasons for this but the main benefit from a creative point of view is the amazing location - lots of places to go walking and a great atmosphere.

The setup in this flat is different - I'm now working in a corner of our lounge so I've taken over one of our computer desks to make best use of the space, with halogen lights to compensate for the lower lighting.

It must be doing me good too - I'm already working on a new piece, the next in my series of spice sketches. This one is a dried lime cut in half - fiddly but with some fantastic lines and intense contrast. Like the others, when completed it will be framed in a 6" oak frame and put up for sale in my Etsy shop.

Nutmeg

 This weeks post is another from the series of small spice drawings I've done for my Etsy shop.

 This drawing was done in charcoal pencil on Fabriano Artistico watercolour paper. I love its smooth, bright surface- perfect for such detailed work.

 Rich very kindly polished up a nutmeg for me to bring out the grain and took some photos for me to work from. This was an interesting object to draw- such strong lines yet the rounded shape required subtle blending too.

 I'm actually very happy with the final piece and looking forward to the next one- a cut dried lime :)

Wreckage

Saltwick bay photograph

I'm now around two thirds of the way through my first drawing of Saltwick Bay here in North Yorkshire. It started with a couple of snaps I'd taken while on holiday - I hadn't expected much from them because I didn't want to interrupt our time off by getting all artsy with the camera. When I got back, I looked at the one above and decided I could do something with it.

Hour 4 of my wreck and rock drawing

 As usual I'm working on Fabriano Artistico extra white - a lovely smooth paper great for getting sharp lines. I normally work in charcoal pencil but since the wreck cast a shadow you could almost reach out and touch, I needed something even blacker than that !

Hour  9 of my wreck and rock drawing

So, it's out with the Wolffs carbon pencil again - I love these because they produce such a rich, velvety black but unfortunately they also produce an amazing amount of fine dust that sticks to everything...

I'm also still using charcoal pencil for very fine detail, it's harder and can be sharpened to a needle point so I'm tracing the outlines with that, filling in with carbon and blending it up to the edge. That way I've got a lovely crisp silhouette with the added impact of the carbon. I'm hoping to have this one done in the next week or two as I'm keen to get stuck into its mate - a view of the imposing rock formation in the background. Will keep you posted :)

Pointed

 After much faffing about, I've finally picked out the next group of photos to work from. I'm scaling up slightly from the recent insect studies so I can do justice to this set taken by me at Spurn Point a few weeks ago.

 My personal favourite is the one above- looks to me like a small, rather astonished rabbit :) That amusement aside I love the contrasting texture between the weathered wood and smooth pebbles.

 I've ordered in more of my beloved Fabriano Aristico, because there really is no comparison with other papers when you want crisp, fine detail and high contrast. I'll be working in charcoal pencil again and posting updates as the drawing progress.

I'm reckoning on a series of three and the two colour pics here are potentials for the next piece but that might depend on just how crackers I go with all those pebbles.....feel free to remind me that I thought it was a  good idea at the time !

Waspish

 After all the excitement of putting some of my bigger pieces on sale, it was back to the drawing board for my latest wildlife picture. This time it was a wasp that had caught my eye- but no ordinary wasp :)

 She's a netelia producta, or an orange caterpillar parasite wasp to you and me, that we found in our garden in Cornwall. One of those creatures that is so beautiful you feel positively inadequate just looking at her....

 She was also very cooperative and posed for several photos before flying off. I'd sold a  set of three insect studies which left me with, er, none so she got bumped up the queue for my next effort. 

Once again she's done in charcoal pencil on Langton hot press watercolour paper which has a lovely smooth surface. I worked an hour a day and took photos as I went along to share with you. 

Because she has such a dark body and white legs,  had to fill in the background to a greater extent on this one to provide contrast. Normally, I add just enough to give the image context but madame had to be difficult at some point, didn't she :)

Here she is after the final tweaking - and she's now available to buy here :)

Portrait of Stephen

 As promised, a follow up to my last blog post on Stephen - this time, a bit more about his fantastic face. 

One of the reasons he took so long to complete was the difficulty I had getting his head right. In my dreams, he was always coming out of a dark space and it was hard to see clearly because of the angle of his body.

 I also kept trying to make him too human but as you'll know if you read the last post, he only started out that way. It turns out his eyes and mouth had grown over, healed up if you like because he just didn't need them anymore. He moves like a spider so he gained a set of arachnid eyes which are somewhat creepily dotted around his jaw- when he has all eight hands on the floor that means they are looking forward and slightly down so he can see where he's going...or what he's eating. Not that we want to dwell to much on what that might be.

 He now has a soft mouth in his throat so those feeding arms can post things in easily. I've never heard him speak so am guessing he's lost his vocal cords too. In fact, the only sound I associate with him is the soft patting noise of clammy palms on the wall....

Going, going....gone :)

 This has been a good week for my Etsy shop- six pictures went over the weekend including this trio of figure studies I had listed. These had been in my studio for a couple of years now and I'd debated what to do with them. I was really pleased with them at the time but like many artists, my style has changed a lot and they just didn't fit.

 I decided to put them on at a lower price to distinguish them from my newer, more detailed work hoping this would entice someone to give them a good home - and it worked. Though I haven't made a huge profit, I have now cleared quite a bit of storage space for new pieces I'm working on and I've been able to invest in more frames etc.

 These were among the first images I did in charcoal pencil, worked on Daler Rowney textured watercolour paper which doesn't allow for very fine detail but adds a lovely finish.

I won't be repeating these as I rarely do figure work these days, and I now use a smooth hot pressed paper but it's nice to know they'll still be around on someones' wall, making me and the customer happy :)