All New Year Old Sketching: July to September '14

Despite having quite a lot to post about, I do seem to have fallen behind on the actual posting bit.  This means that for the first time in a while I have quite a few pieces that need posting about, rather than just a handful of speedpaints.  I'm not going to be doing much catching up today though, instead I'll be doing some catch up a little on the other posts I've fallen behind on - the monthly sketch update.

From here on things will be done a little differently.  Usually I scan the sketchbook pages, and then cut out things of note for the month and compose them into a new image.  This has two disadvantages though.  Firstly, it takes bloody ages, and I don't think there's really enough feedback to warrant all the work I put into it (this time sink aspect is the main reason I've fallen behind so badly).  Secondly, it means that consciously or not I end up cutting out a lot of the stuff that's crap.  This gives a false impression of my current progress (actually, my progress about 11 months ago because I'm so far behind).

5 years at speed! 2010 - 2015

As promised this post will be a brief recap of the Speedpaints I've been doing over the past 5 years.   Some confusion has occasionally come up because of my use of the term speedpaint though, so before we review let's first define.

A speedpaint is a painting, usually digital, whereby the piece is created in a limited amount of time. It's a painting, done at speed. Simple.  Sometimes the time is decided upon before starting, sometimes there's a general maximum time beyond which it's not considered a speed painting, sometimes it's just the frame of mind the piece is created in.  Sometimes these are termed as Studies (and I do so myself in some places to reduce confusion), except a study can actually take a really long time, yet remain a study.

What they aren't, in my useage at least, are timelapses.  This is where someone records themselves painting and then they play that back at an accelerated rate. So you can see someone painting something that took 20 hours in a mere 5 minutes (or whatever).  Sometimes those are timelapses of speedpaints, and I've done a handful of those myself.  I think it's because of this that the timelapses have also become popularly known as Speedpaints (seeing someone paint, at speed),  but that's not what I mean by it.

OK, so now that's sorted out, lets go look at some, small ones, briefly.

A Missing Month of Speed

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts last month.  I have no real reason why that occurred; last month was one of those strange ones that seemed to last a long time but also go by extremely quickly due to my being really busy.  Odd thing though, I don't actually remember particularly what it was I was busy doing.  Never mind, such things are bound to occur occasionally (the last time was 4 years ago), and as a result of some of that busyness (this part I remember) I have plenty to keep me busy with posts for this month, and possibly next month too.  Which is good, because it's anniversary time!

Technically the blog's anniversary was the end of last month, but that post was just saying I was going to do a blog. It wasn't until May that I actually posted any art, so I consider May 2nd the blog's birthday.  Also, even though I didn't start speedpainting for a few months after that, I count the same day as the tickover day between one year's speedpainting and the next, because I suck at remembering dates, so may as well collate them.

So today I'll go over the speedpaints I did this last month, and in the next post do an overall review of the last 5 years (actually 4.5) of speedpainting, unless I don't because I decide to do something else instead (5 Years!  Where'd the time go?)