Graeme Skinner » painting

From photo to painting

Graeme — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:40:34 +0000

I decided to work from one of my photographs taken during this trip into a watercolour. Here is the reference image -

And here is the watercolour –

I need to practice a bit more getting a few more layers into the background, but it was an enjoyable painting to work on in the end.

Wandering Wizard

Graeme — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 20:06:51 +0000

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 my head, this time I really just wanted to feature the wandering wizard who annoys Wormtongue so much.

So, this is a quick A4 watercolour of Gandalf, his old grey cloak in rags covering his new white garb as he shuffles and stoops his way to the presence of Theoden. Now I really want to paint the full hall, with shafts of light picking out different details, and the other characters in place.

High Snockrigg (again)

Graeme — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:29:34 +0000

Following the sketch of High Snockrigg and Others (link) I decided to try a small watercolour of the scene.

It became a little frustrating not getting chance to properly do all the trees as I kept pausing to do other things, next time I may do the smaller trees differently, but generally I thought the result was acceptable.

Wandering Mind

Graeme — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:18:09 +0000

I’ve been trying to get some ideas together for a painting, I know the basic idea of what I want to achieve at the end, it’s the bits that go into it that are causing the problems. So rather than try and sketch out the full scene I’ve been playing with different elements of it. Naturally this led to my mind wandering and I ended up with a couple of Tolkien related sketches

First one of the Three-Farthings Stone in the Shire -

Then there was one of a couple of Hobbits returning home after a wander -

Not sure if it helped plan the painting, but they were fun to do

Painting Stones

Graeme — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:35:57 +0000

Today I decided to try a couple of Castlerigg Stone Circle paintings, I want to do an oil painting of the stones but time restraints mean I can only manage to rattle out quick watercolours

Some text missing…

Graeme — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 20:51:47 +0000

This morning I decided to rattle off a quick watercolour, it was another standing stone painting to go with a short story I had in mind. So, after splashing some paint about for a while I decided to write the text to go with it…. in hindsight I should have made a few notes as to what the story was about other than a bloke standing with a flaming torch in front of a large standing stone at night. Maybe the story will come back to me when I least expect it, or perhaps it’s really better lost for good anyway

A3 watercolour

Silliness and Stuff

Graeme — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 17:20:55 +0000

Okay, the ‘stuff’ first, I’ll be uploading the weekly challenge backlog shortly, well as soon as I’ve found the book with them all in :-/ Now for the silliness. I’ve been busy painting landscapes, and generally being far too serious for my own good. So, when I turned to the theme of the month over on John Howe’s website I had to do something a little more light hearted. The theme this month is ‘Under Sea & Under Wave’, and for this I scribbled a quick Photoshop picture.

When Looney Tunes illustrated the Silmarillion…

they may have misread the part about Ulmo – here, Elmer (lord of the seas) makes his way to Tuor.

With apologies to Tolkien, Looney Tunes, Tolkien fans, and generally everyone else.

Winter Is Coming

Graeme — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 17:03:59 +0000

Another month another theme of the month to think about over at John-Howe.com

I had plenty of ideas for the theme ‘Winter is Coming’ most of them were to do with George R. R. Martin of course then I started to think about the title in a more literal way and how we all prepare for winter in our own way. With the Hobbit being in the news lately that of course had me wondering how they would get ready for winter in the Shire, and so here we have a wee Hobbit chopping and stacking wood outside his little Hobbit Hole in the Shire.

Here’s a couple of close up photographs…

Painting details, A3 watercolour.

Miserable

Graeme — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:30:40 +0000

Painting rain and trying to capture the movement of wind on a piece of paper is not quite as easy as you’d think. After a few scribbles I came up with Miserable -

He’d only been on guard duty for half an hour and he was already miserable, the rain came in waves varying from a heavy downpour to a total massive deluge. If that weren’t bad enough the wind was blowing so hard he could hardly catch his breath.

A3 gouache with the reflection added in photoshop as an afterthought.

Painting Niggle

Graeme — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:02:31 +0000

Trying to think of painting leaves without thinking about Niggle (as in Niggle from Tree & Leaf by J. R. R. Tolkien) and his tree is almost impossible for me, and so when I saw the theme of the month was Into the Green over at John Howe’s website my mind turned to Niggle and what he would paint. For some reason I did not want to paint his tree, or a segment of it, but illustrate him painting part of the tree. I probably spent more time on the leaves than I should have done, but it was quite a fun painting to do so I’m not complaining

A3 Watercolour.