Happy Halloween!!

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Natalie Imbruglia Portrait

Had a little bit of time this week to finish my Natalie Imbruglia painting. Continuing my experimentation with using more colours.

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Saltire Exhibition - Dundee Comics Day

This past weekend was the Dundee Literary festival and as part of that, Saltire Comics held an exhibition showing all the artwork from their comic. I was honoured to be asked to contribute my painting of Saltire (the main character and superhero in the comic) to the exhibition.

The exhibition will continue through this week, so if you are in the area, pop in! Here is the painting..

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Legends of Football - Thierry Henry Portrait

Besides art, my biggest love is football (or soccer for my friends from across the pond!). I've had an idea for a while to do a series of portraits of legendary football players covered in paint in the colours of their team.

Thierry Henry played for Arsenal from 1999 - 2007 and then again in 2011 scoring 228 goals in the process. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players ever to play in the English Premier League, he is a true Arsenal legend.

If you have any ideas for club legends for your team, let me know! I'd like to make this into a bit of a series! :)

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Why Should I Use Illustration?

Ever since I started taking an interest in art and illustration, I've been hearing, "illustration is dying" or "It is too difficult to make a career by drawing or painting" While I agree that there are easier ways to make a living, I disagree wholeheartedly that illustration is dying.

In fact, i think illustration is in the process of making somewhat of a resurgence! The most common "competition" to illustration is through photography. Why pay for a custom piece of artwork when she can use some stock photo or even a paid photographer?

My feeling is, that as technology improves (as it is doing exponentially at this moment in time) its is becoming easier and easier to produce high quality photographs. Everyone now has an iPhone or a smartphone with multi-megapixel cameras and an endless supply of apps that give you any filter you can imagine. Very soon, high quality, "artsy" images will become something of the norm. And before any photographers feel that I am doing their profession a disservice, "just anyone" can't take a great photo. The experience and training involved in photography gives the professional the "eye" to see things that the average guy on the street wouldn't see., and is ultimately what a photographer is paid for.

But to the untrained eye, a photo is a photo. So if magazines, movie posters, book covers, billboards, marketing companies, ad agencies, etc. are looking to stand out, I feel illustration let's them do just that. To commission a one-off piece of art means that image has never been seen before. And the style that comes with any artist or illustrator, gives the viewer the feeling that thought, effort and skill has gone in to making the image, instead of (naively thinking) someone just pointed a camera and pushed the button.

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Drippy Drips.

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Seve Ballesteros

I started this painting a couple of weeks ago when the Ryder Cup was on. I always get hit with golf fever when any of the big tournaments are on, but the Ryder Cup is a bit special. On the eve of the tournament, I was listening to a podcast (BBC 5 live I think) and they were listing their top Ryder Cup players.

This got me thinking about mine and for me, there was only one candidate, Seve Ballasteros. Both as a player and a captain, he was inspirational for the European team. And for me, the year he captained the team to victory at Valderrama will always stay in my mind as one of the best sporting moments I can remember.

So I had to include the Valderrama clubhouse in the painting, with Seve wearing his trademark navy blue jumper with white shirt, which he always wore on the final round of a tournament.

Technically, I am starting to find an aesthetic I am becoming more content with. I've had a few comments saying my work looks like oil paint, and I instantly break out in a big cheesy smile, because that's exactly what I am after. I love realism but I am trying to get away from hyper-realistic photo realism. I figured, if people wanted hyper realistic photo realism, they would just use a photo! I want to leave some brush stokes showing in there and throw in some random colours that you wouldn't expect to see. I'm still working on being more loose in this way, but I'm getting there.

On a seperate note, I am only 10 away from 1000 followers on Twitter......wink, wink, nudge, nudge! ;)

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