The Great Depression

I have produced next to nothing this month. This is due to a combination of factors, among them is the aspect of pure laziness, the videogame Skyrim, and 'trouble at mill,' as Graham Chapman once said.

If you've been paying attention you'll know which company I work for, and if you frequent the right news sites you'll have seen that company in the news a bit with wild rumors and speculation flying around. It's all been very stressful. Don't ask me if the rumors are true, if I knew I still couldn't tell you and I'd be a lot less stressed...

Anyway, this just means I don't have much to show right now, but I did managed to pick up a paintbrush for the first time since I left school. I have to tell you the results were... well, see for yourself.

My wife has banned me from using words such as "dreadful," "Crap," and "sad" to describe this piece, so let's just focus on the positives and the process. If you feel any of those words are appropriate though I won't hold it against you in any way.

I've had the paints since August, but I've only now managed to get up the interest and courage to use them. Also my wife told me to paint and keep my son occupied by having him paint too while she had a nap. This didn't go quite as well as planned as he'd finished his painting in 6 minutes and spent the next hour until my wife woke up asking if I was done yet so we could play Lego. So that's a positive, it was painted under duress ;)

Here's how it started:

Please excuse the quality of the shot, it was a light sketch on canvas and taken with a phone camera - I had to run it through Photoshop before you could even see the sketch. This is actually the most depressing noteworthy thing about the whole process. I hadn't seen the sketch since I did it until today when I worked to make it actually visible. It's pretty good! She looks kinda cute rather than the mannish features in the final painting. I think it all went a bit wrong somewhere don't you? Anyway, this was based on Stock Art from lockstock on Deviant art. The sketch doesn't look that much like her but it's a lot better than the end result close enough.

I'm just going to post some pictures now - the only thing of note is that you finally get to see a photo of the fat welshman writing this as my wife took some snaps while I was distracted. They come near the end of the painting due to her having slept through the start of it.

So there you have it, my first actual painting in 20 odd years, and it's god awful better than I had any right to expect. In all seriousness I did manage to mix a fairly good flash tone right off the bat, it's just a shame there's very little variation in it. I learnt quite a bit from doing it though, and any lack of spirits from the lack of quality is not the reason I haven't picked up a brush again since. I'm quite looking forward to having another go, but it takes longer to set up and prep and actually do it, and finding the time and the inclination has been difficult the last few weeks (you'll not from the photos that I'm working on the kitchen table - I don't really have a space to do this with good light where I'm not disturbed).

Coming up - January's sketches, some stuff from before I started the blog and a piece I've been putting off finishing because I don't like it, then I see it and think "That's not so bad, I should get back to that." Stay Tuned... Or bookmarked, whatever takes your fancy really.