I was thinking of this painting while I was down in the wood earlier and scanned through my posts here to find it and couldn’t. So, here’s an old painting (well 2007) along with the poem that went with it. And here is the poem… LEAF BY GRAEME If I could choose a leaf to paint I’d paint a Leaf by Niggle It wouldn’t be a sketchy scrawl It wouldn’t be a squiggle But with veins and pores and chlorophyl A stem and ribs and branch It would have a…
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If you go down to the woods today
This afternoon was the first really dry day with reasonable light we’d had for ages, so I put the camera and a sketchbook in my bag then went for a wander in the woods. I spent quite some time photographing leaves to use as reference for paintings/drawings then started sketching. From the (far too many) photographs which I took down in the woods it wasn’t a leaf which I liked on the screen back at home, it was one of a patch of light on a mossy branch, almost a…
Read MoreApologia
I must start this post with a heartfelt and sincere apology. To all those who find the lighter side of fantasy art offensive you maybe should stop reading now, and to those who think you should never be over influenced by another illustration then you’re really not going to like this 😉 Okay, the explanation…. I was trying to come up with an idea for animals in armour as this is the theme over on John Howe’s website. So I sketched a few chickens in armour, and tried to think…
Read MoreThat 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 MoreIt’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…
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