John William Waterhouse

This image is famous but for some reason I never knew the name of the artist.

Gustave Doré

Another artist worth knowing

Lawrence Alma-Tadema

I just learned about an artist called Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Alma-Tadema

Howard McWilliam

http://www.mcbill.plus.com/

Luke mentioned an excellent illustrator who transitioned into art while doing a full time job.

Francis Oneil's Feb 15th 2012

3 speed paintings

I'm trying to learn how to paint environments. These aren't great, but they are fairly quick (the longest is maybe 1.5 hours). The desert scene took the longest despite being a weaker composition than the other two. I guess you can't improve a bad idea with time.

Hungover Reflections

I did this comic with Emily Watson last year (start of 2011). It was published in 9th art magazine and brings back a lot of good memories.

A few sketchbook images

Francis Oneil's Feb 2nd

Same model as last week. 1.5 hours plus 45 minutes cleanup

Thoughts from Lavender Hill

A lot more good advice was given at class on Tuesday:

- A good drawing should work at every stage.

- Stand back to evaluate your work. If you get close to a Sargent or Rembrandt they can almost look abstract close up. This makes perfect sense - you have to stand back, so you expect it be in focus where it will be observed, not where the paint happens to be applied.

- Observe, think about what you need to change and then walk up to the canvas to make the change

- Work very big occasionally. Working at one scale constantly will lock you to that scale.

- Spend the most time on defining the shadow shapes. Refining these shapes will naturally lead to softness where it is required.

- Don't forget your mid-tones. In my case while focusing on shadow shapes I blocked out the light of a leg and the torso to be the same. The torso was actually a lot brighter than the leg.