Launching a new series

Scent of a Rose
12x16 inches
Coloured pencil on Canson Ash Grey Mat Board

A big thank you to my son's beautiful girlfriend Tash who allowed me to do a photo shoot with her and I am going to use these photos for my new series which will explore the use of the human face as a canvas for creativity. I want to combine the elements of realism, trompe l'oeil and whimsy to try to develop a bit more creativity with my portraits - an area I have always struggled with.

Tash is an extremely talented musician, singer and song writer and has a big following on YouTube, has won many awards for her singing and song writing skills and is constantly in demand for gigs so I was extremely grateful when she gave up an afternoon of her time to help me out.

My Selfie

My Selfie
8x10 inches
Coloured Pencil on Colourfix Suede board

I can't decide at the moment whether to do another project for my Beautiful Human Landscapes Project, whether to do another tutorial, or whether to do something completely different. So whilst in that indecisive phase, I decided to do a little fun piece entitled 'My Selfie', which combines some of the things I love the most - colour, realism and a touch of Trompe L'Oeil. This was a struggle though because of the surface I chose - Colourfix Suede. No matter how many layers I did, I couldn't cover up the texture and since I always go for that nice smooth look, this was a bit of a distraction for me.

Anyone have any ideas for my next project? I'm always open to suggestions :) 

Beautiful Human Landscapes Project underway

Ruth
8x10 inches
Coloured Pencils on Mat Board

Val
11x14 inches
Coloured Pencils on Mat Board

These two beautiful ladies are the first to be featured in my Beautiful Human Landscapes Project. Val was the Mum of one of my good friends from school and was like a second mother to me when I was young. She sadly passed away a couple of months ago and this was my gift to her daughter, Lynne. Ruth was the mother of an artist friend Jonathan, who kindly shared the beautiful reference photo for this precious moment and to both Lynne and Jonathan I say a huge thank you. This project is all about celebrating the older folk in our society. If you have a high resolution, zoomed in reference photo of one of your loved ones that you think might be suitable for this project, then please don't hesitate to contact me.

Hoodie - New Art Tutorial

This latest 8x10 inch artwork is my darling little nephew Chris and was drawn with coloured pencils on drafting film. This time I used Faber Castell Polychromos on Grafix Dura-lar which gives a lovely smooth, translucent look to your portraits. You can purchase the 21 page comprehensive step by step tutorial from my website at http://www.miniatureartbykhull.com/tutorials_34.html. Watch this space for more tutorials soon.

Special Moments

The First Encounter

8x10 inches

Coloured Pencil on Colourfix Suede

Grandpa Elliott in Miniature

2.5x3.5 inches

Scratch art and Coloured Pencils on Scratchbord

I was priveleged to have the opportunity to draw the commission for The First Encounter. It is always a joy for any artist who works on commission to be able to draw moments that convey human moments and this lovely image was no exception.

I was also thrilled to discover that this little version of Grandpa Elliott was award the Most Innovative piece at the recent Australian Society of Miniature Art National Awards Exhibition, and was also purchased by the judge. Grandpa Elliott has been a bit of a lucky charm for me and I send lots of hugs his way!!! :)

'Amore d'estate, Firenze'

'Amore d'estate, Firenze'

A3 (12x16 inches)

Coloured Pencils and Watercolour wash sky on illustration board

This was the commission that I mentioned on my blog about a month ago that kept me quite busy for almost an entire week. I really haven't done a lot of artwork containing architecture before and so this was a pleasant, but challenging change.

Wishing everyone a very happy and peaceful Easter holiday!!! :)

A Couple of Commissions - Archie & Maisie

Maisie

8x10 inches

Graphite and Coloured Pencil on Bristol Board

Archie

8x10 inches

Graphite and Coloured Pencil on Bristol Board

For a while I thought I would readvertise the graphite portraits I used to offer as they are definitely the portraits I get asked to do most often. I see so many other artists doing amazing portraits using the graphite, but for me it is a struggle. I miss the strong contrasts that I find so easy to achieve with CP's. No matter how dark I go with the graphite, or even when I try charcoal, or some of some of the other mediums that complement graphite, I'm never a hundred percent happy with the result. These two lovely little dogs were wonderful to draw, and their 'Mum' seems very happy with her portraits, but for me it helped to clarify that I need to work with the mediums I like the best, and that is coloured pencils.

Grandpa Elliott

Grandpa Elliott

A3

Coloured pencils on mat board

The reference photo for this portrait was taken 17 years ago by my brother, when he and his wife were on their honeymoon in New Orleans, when Grandpa Elliott was a little known busker on the streets. Now, because of utube, he has become a legendary and much sought after street entertainer. Please take the time to browse some of the many videos on utube featuring this charming and endearing character and I'm sure you'll come away with a smile on your face and feel better about the world!!! :)

Joy

Joy

8x11 inches

Coloured Pencils and solvent on Pastelmat

I entitled this artwork Joy for two reasons - the look of sheer glee on the face of my little neice Bailey and the absolute joy I had working on this portrait, I am definitely a fan of working with the Zest-it on the Pastelmat. It enabled me to get a lovely smooth canvas of skin in a relatively short time frame, and also smoothed out the texture of the Pastelmat, allowing me to add nice crisp details where they were needed. The only aspect I struggled with, was waiting for the paper to dry between applications of solvent before doing more pencil work - patience is not one of my virtues, but I think it did pay off in the end! :)

What a difference some solvent makes!

I must admit, I haven't had a lot of success in the past using solvents with coloured pencils, and yet I know a lot of pencil artists do use it with amazing results. I often seem to get a rather blotchy result, but on the Pastelmat, I found it really easy and am quite pleased with the results so far. Obviously, I still have a fair bit of work to do on this portrait, but whereas Heartbreak took somewhere between 20 and 30 hours to complete, this one has only had about 4-5 hours work on it and is already well under way. I also found that I could layer the pencil and solvent (zest-it) without previous layers lifting away.

Heartbreak completed

Heartbreak

8x11 inches

Coloured pencils on Pastelmat

Finally finished Heartbreak. I will try the next piece on white Pastelmat and use some solvent with the pencils to see how they go. For those of you who might be concerned for Jack and who was comforting him, his Mum is the best of mothers, and as soon as she grabbed a quick snapshot, there would have been plenty of hugs and smiles and a very happy ending. I am so grateful too, that his wonderful parents shared their photo for me to use :) xx

WIP 2 - Heartbreak

Remind me not to work on such a dark surface again! I do love working with the coloured pencils on Pastelmat, but the dark back ground is proving very labour intensive as I try to fill in all the dark crevices and leave a realistic skin tone. I think I'll stick more to the mid range coloured backgrounds in future. Next time, I might do as my blogger friend Sue , (the Pastelmat Master!), suggested and try a solvent with the pencils to see if this speeds up the process. I haven't played a lot with the solvents, since it is ineffective on the drafting film, but it could be beneficial for speeding up the process on this surface.

WIP - Heartbreak

This unhappy little fellow is my nephew Jack. The source of his hearbroken little expression? His ride on car had got stuck under the fence. Two year olds have such big burdens to bear!!! His mother, struggling to hide her mirth, managed to capture his anguish and I couldn't resist putting pencil to paper to draw his darling expression. This portrait is being done in pencil on Pastelmat as well, only this time I am using predominantly watercolour pencils. I read of a professional artist who only works with watercolour pencils, as a way of keeping wax bloom at bay. They also have a creamy texture that works really well on the Pastelmat, with minimal shine.

Face of Symmetry completed

Face of Symmetry

A4

Coloured pencils on Pastelmat

Here she is all finished. Fortunately I scanned it before applying fixative. Much of the colour did sink and darken with the fixative once I applied it, and even though I have touched it up quite a bit, the earlier scan was better - so lesson learnt - no fixative in future!!!

WIP 3 - Face of Symmetry

WIP 3 and I'm not even sure that you can tell who this beauty is yet. Once I draw in her mouth it should be more apparent (hopefully). Sadly, holidays have come to an end today and two of our sons are back to school tomorrow, with uni still not starting up for another month. The holidays have gone all too fast, but I guess we need the hustle and bustle of everyday life to really appreciate the holidays!

WIP 2 - Face of Symmetry

2nd stage of the WIP. Working with the coloured pencils on the Pastelmat, is much slower than working with pastels, but when not pressed for time, I find it really relaxing filling in all the fine grainy texture of the paper and trying to achieve a nice smooth skin tone. The pastelmat takes multiple layers and I find the Derwent artist pencils, in particular, work really well on this surface for getting a creamy looking skin. The Faber Castell Polychromos are then great for the darker details. Working with the pencils on the Pastelmat really allows you to make very subtle changes to the skin tone in a way that I usually only find possible with oils.

WIP - Face of Symmetry

I rarely post WIP images, but we have been away on holidays and so it seems to have been a while between posts and I'm also still in holiday mode so will take my time with this portrait. Can you guess who this is - she is supposed to have the most symmetrical face in the world and she certainly is stunning. I have been a little naughty and just took an image from Google images, but this is more for the exercise of doing a portrait in pencils on Pastelmat. I am really loving this combination of mediums and will probably start doing my commissions this way, rather than on the drafting film from now on. Happy Australia Day to all my Aussie friends too!! :)

Mel

Mel

8x11 inch

Coloured pencils, pastels and pan pastels on Marine Plywood.

This portrait is of my son Ben's beautiful girlfriend Mel. The inspiration for this style of portrait is the stunning work of Bijan Djamalzadeh, better known as Sara Moon who's beautiful soft artwork I have admired for years. Unfortunately I find it really hard to get good scans of pink and so the pinks in the portrait are a bit brighter than they appear in the original portrait, but it is the closest I can get. I would like to start advertising commissioned portraits again, but would prefer to offer something a little more creative, rather than a straight reproduction of a photo and hence the motivation for a bit of experimentation with portraits.

Hope

Hope

11x14 inches

Coloured pencils on matte board

This is the commission I mentioned in my last post and I was fortunate that this was presented sooner than expected and happily Hope's Mum and Dad gave their blessings for this to be posted. There weren't actually any bubbles in the reference photo, but it seemed like the perfect addition to her little outstretched hand. What a lovely commission to do too, from the beautiful colour of her hair, to the interesting details in her dress, and of course it helps when you are given a good quality reference photo to work with.

Self Portrait II

Self Portrait II

8x10 inches

Coloured pencil, pastel, graphite pencil on paper

In the last week, I have redone this self portrait about 6 or 7 times on all different supports, (I am so fed up with it and hope I never have to draw it again!!!), as I am looking to change my style a bit with the commissioned portrait work, opting for a softer look. The drafting film is wonderful for achieving smooth skin for portraits when working with graphite, but I often ran into problems at the point of applying fixative, and had to redo several portraits as a result. When it comes to working with coloured pencils, it was much harder to get a nice smooth skin tone on the drafting film, and so I spent a rather frustrating week shuffling between the art shop and the easel in the search for that elusive support that would solve all problems. I must give a huge thanks to Bec Winnel - an extremely talented artist I came across on RedBubble, who does the most beautiful, etherial illustrations of women, and was kind enough to share some of her tips. She works on Epson Archival Matte paper and I was amazed to find how well this surface grabs the pastel powder. It also accepts coloured pencil and graphite very well, and happily there are no issues when applying fixative. The biggest problem I had with this artwork was getting an effective scan - the original is very soft, but for some reason the scanner didn't like that and gave it a dirty, grey appearance, so this image has been altered digitally in an attempt to match the original.