The G Spot

Sat down to sketch a quick pub sign and for some reason ended up with this. Gandalf found Valinor a bit on the quiet side for his liking, and so he decided to open an inn. Planning permission was a little difficult to come by and in the end he had to put the inn down the end of a lane in a remote corner. The only pubs Gandalf could remember were the Prancing Pony of Bree and of course the Green Dragon which he was banned from for reasons…

Read More

That inner wizard

I was trying to come up with an idea for a picture on the theme of mirrors, and I started to think, we don’t always let ourselves see what is really being reflected. So, I opted to paint the stereotypical fantasy geek/nerd in his bedroom with grim looking walls and shelves filled with books. Looking in the mirror he doesn’t see the his drab room or his bald chubby face looking back at him 😉

Read More

It’s strange….

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 More

Wandering 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 More