It’s strange how things develop and change when you’re playing with ideas for a painting. I’ve been wondering for a while how I’d paint Bilbo meeting Gandalf for the first time at Bag End, so I sat down with a couple of pencils and a large sketch book and pondered. Nothing came to me, I stared at a blank piece of paper and wondered if it was like they say about carving, the piece is already there you just have to chip away the waste. Well, I tried looking at…
Read MoreTag: art
A long expected sculpture
Back in 2009 we excitedly placed an order for a sculpture from Weta. Now, we don’t normally go in for large sculptures, but this one was to be of Smaug™ the Golden and was the first piece in John Howe’s and Weta’s range of sculptures from Middle-earth™ The illustration of Smaug™ the Golden by John Howe is probably known by everyone who has read The Hobbit. Now, when I look at an illustration like this, I must admit I didn’t think it would be possible to recreate it in 3 dimensions…
Read MoreWe Failed
We failed at building a scarecrow, for some odd reason we attracted more crows than we scared…. A4 Watercolour
Read MoreWandering Wizard
This painting is something of a departure from what I had intended to paint, but then when you are painting something for a wandering theme a slight departure is to be expected. Anyway, the other day I was sitting reading a few pages of Lord of the Rings – the section where Gandalf leads Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli into Meduseld, and I had a clear idea what I had to paint. It’s strange really, whenever I paint something from Tolkien I want to include all the details I see in…
Read MoreStation 3
This is going to look a little odd, but stay with me a moment 😉 I had a random idea for an illustration to submit to the Wanderers theme over at john-howe.com – Now the idea was fairly simple in my little head, but needed a little bit of an explanation. I tried a couple of times to write a simple piece to go with it and ended up more frustrated than satisfied with the outcome, and so I decided to write a short story to accompany the illustration. I…
Read More