sketch – Graeme Skinner

In’t Shire

Graeme Skinner — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 16:31:50 +0000

Mewn twll yn y ddaear trigai hobyd. Nid twll afiach, budr, gwlyb yn llawn pennau mwydod ac oglau llysnafedd……

Windows 21.1…

Graeme Skinner — Sat, 12 Jun 2021 15:36:35 +0000

Another room with a view, this time the room is one of my work locations…

The Grey Towers

Graeme Skinner — Thu, 31 May 2018 05:34:56 +0000

I was reading through the Riftwar Cycle by Raymond E. Feist when the Theme of the Month for May popped up on John Howe’s website. So my mind turned to The Grey Towers which is a mountain range in Feist’s world, I did start painting them, and will return to it when time allows. As I was out and about rather than at the easel I ended up sketching The Grey Towers instead.

Would you beleaf it?

Graeme Skinner — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 15:04:15 +0000

Wandering round the garden this morning (after the fun job of cleaning out the chickens) and I started to pick up a few leaves. I wasn’t cleaning the garden or anything as radical as that, I was picking up any leaf that caught my eye. Returning to the house my intention was to take a few macro photographs of the leaves for a bit of fun however when I lay them on the table I decided to photograph them as they were –

As I was photographing them I wondered how they’d look sketched and painted so…

Now I just need to try a pen & ink drawing then maybe a digital version to cover a few different mediums

If you go down to the woods today

Graeme Skinner — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 15:51:55 +0000

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 piece of life in miniature

Standing there sketching leaves I noticed how the shadow of leaves was playing across the sketchbook, it was an effect I quite liked…

It’s strange….

Graeme Skinner — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:20:33 +0000

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 the paper in different light, from different angles, with my eyes half closed, nothing helped. So, I drew a line, intent on making a mark on the page, the line became a very rough sketch of the gate which led to some background hills…. Now all I have to do is work out what I want to change before I think about painting it

Young Ent

Graeme Skinner — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:16:31 +0000

Decided to sketch a young Ent today Now to try one in colour.

The Forgotten Gate

Graeme Skinner — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:46:21 +0000

A sketch that really got out of hand, the Forgotten Gate

You wander down an old cobbled road, passing on the way a row of grand looking houses with well tended gardens stretching out in front of them. Slowly the grand houses give way to smaller houses that are in need of some T.L.C., their small gardens are overgrown with long grass and weed and the cobbled road is in need of repair. The smaller houses end as does the cobbled road and in front of you there is a dirt track with lined with gnarled oak trees draped with ivy, it’s a dry day and the wind keeps blowing tendrils of dust from the ground into your eyes. You’re about to give up, run back to civilization then you notice the trees stop abruptly as the dirt track winds its way up a small hill. As you approach the top of the hill you notice a wooden fence running across the hilltop and a broken gate dangling from a single hinge. Then the memories come flooding back, you’d been this way before, what feels like almost a lifetime ago. This is the road that leads to a World of adventure and exploration, a World of mystery where every step reveals new opportunities and possibilities. You try to think back to the last time you came this way, but the mists of time have blurred your memories, but you feel a pang of regret for all the times you could have opened that old gate and stepped into that other World. With a sigh you turn from the gate meaning to make your way back along the lane, then you pause and step up to the gateway, well, one more adventure can’t hurt

Silliness and Stuff

Graeme Skinner — 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.

WC #34

Graeme Skinner — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:09:35 +0000

And another late post…

Typo’s and Fireworks

The build up to bonfire night must get earlier every year and you get tired of the constant pop bang fizz, or at least I do, but then I like a bit of peace and quite

We visited Hay-on-Wye while we were away, and it always amuses me to see typo’s on signs in bookshops