Every now and then I like to "breakaway" from Pyrography
or Leatherwork and do a bit of what I call "my other art".
I like to try my hand at a wide variety of different media, sometimes
it works, sometimes it is a hard lesson in home truths... or, to
put it another way, I'm lousy at it!
Drawing has always been the crux of my work, everything I do
in Art, starts with sketches and thumbnails. I have spent hours
on these and, as a result, I have boxes full of them. They are my
reference library. I do not have a hardline favorite in my subject
matter, so if the concept appeals to me, I give it a try.
The line up of material I have done ranges from religious themes
to adult erotica.
I have just been introduced to Polychromos color pencils and
I love them. The blending qualities of these pencils is amazing.
They are great for doing design layouts for my customers and, quite
offen, they want to buy these layouts as well!
Oil Paint is a great medium, the only downside is the drying
time. Acrylics are the reverse, they can dry too fast to do any
gradual mixing or blending, particularly in the hot summer months
here in Australia. I like the detail that can be achieved with acrylics
For real relaxtion, I just love sketching in Graphite Pencil.
You can push these pencils around without any great restrictions.
Some of my best ideas and layouts were created while I was sitting
on my varandah casually sketching with no final outcome in mind.
It's my "creative meditation" time.
Pidgeon Holes are for Turkeys!
I remember a high profile Artist commenting on my work
some years ago at an art exibition... He was eyeballing one of my
oil paintings and he turned to me and spat... "You are no an
artist..... you are merely an illustrator!"... It broke my
heart, I had aspirations of achieving some sort of notoriety through
my art and he shattered any illusions I had mustered for myself.
I gathered up my "illustrations" and went home dejected.
For over a year after that, I refused to do art of any kind. Until
one day I picked up one of my old Saturday Evening Post editions
and looked lovingly at the Norman Rockwell art on it's cover. It
was then the penny dropped. Norman Rockwell was, and still is, my
favourite artist, but he was not reknown for being an artist, he
was fondly reffered to as "America's most famous Illustrator"....
Illustrator! ... and famous as well!
That suited me just fine..... so now I refer to myself as an
Artisic Illustrator or an Illustration Artist........... It is a
fairly ridiculous situation, when your everyday passion has to be
pidgeon-holed, just to appease the so-called experts.
As an adjuct to this story..........
I ran into that so-called expert again some years later and I asked
him what he was up to these days. He said that he had given the
oil painting the flick and was now a professional Photographer.
I could not resist... I casually asked.... "which do you prefer....photographs
or snapshots?" He has never spoken to me since!
Enough of the banter.....
I hope you enjoy my...er um..ART..no....ILLUSTRATIONS
.....stuff!
