Speeding into '17

Happy New Year!  Hopefully.  And with the New Year comes the inevitable New Year resolutions.  One of mine?  Blog more, as I've been terrible at it over the last 12 months (you may have noticed).  'Blog more' is a bit vague though, so perhaps 'Blog at least once a month' works better.  Other ones are 'draw more' and 'draw/paint worse' (I'll explain that one in a future post, but it boils down to me doing more quick experimentation to improve, without always worrying about the end result as much, so it's more enjoyable).

So, here I am blogging, with actual art, for the first time since July.  Ugh, that's terrible!  Some of the upcoming posts might be about things I did a year or more ago, because I didn't mention them at the time, and in some cases I'd almost entirely forgotten about them until I stumbled across them on Facebook (or whatever).  Since the blog is as much for my memory as for your (possible) pleasure, I should probably write a post covering them.  This is not that post - this is a speedpaint post.

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

It's all about the speed right now isn't it?  That should be sort of funny, since very few of them are terribly speedy of late.  Still, here I am with another update.  Next post I'll (probably) cover where I've been for the past two months, and for a change there will be photographs, rather than paintings.  Yes, I'll be doing a dull as hell travelogue... sort of.

For now though I'm going to try and catch up on all my speedpaints at once (there aren't that many compared to last years pace), with minimal blathering about them (more because I've forgotten in all the excitement than just laziness, but some laziness too).

A Hot Mess of Speed

The last month has been pretty bad for art.  My art that is, not art in general, which trundles on just the same with or without me.  So far this month I've done a mere two speedpaints; one of which was bad, and the other took 4 hours (so not technically a speedpaint I suppose).  Last month though, last month was pretty good.  Six speedpaints (though two were more sketches than paints), two of which were pretty good in my opinion.  Let's go have a look.

Speeding to Catch Up

I've decided to stop giving reasons as to why posts are few and far between lately, and just post when I can.  Eventually things should calm down enough that I can make them more frequently.  Until then, I have some catching up to do.

To simplify things a bit I'll just post the images of the last three months of speedpaints, and only comment when there's something of particular note.  For the most part the methods used are very similar to previous ones I've posted about. There's quite a few of them (10), so this might be a long one.

Painting at the Speed of Fail

Clearly I lied in the last post and did not get to writing another, until now.  I should stop trying to predict the future in my posts, because it's shocking how often things I predict don't come to pass.  Or maybe I should predict things I don't want to happen, so there's a lower possibility of them occurring.  Either way, here I am again with another update on some speedpaints, only two months after I actually did them.  Back to December for this round.  For the sake of my schedule though I'll try and keep this one fairly short.  On the other hand though, videos!

A Change of Speed

Time to start catching up on the Speedpainting for the last couple of months. So far this month I haven't painted any, which is a little miserable. Not that I've done no art at all, just nothing that I can show, and even if I could it wouldn't be very interesting. This also means I've not really started on going back to the fundamental studies I set as a new year resolution. I've done a little, but not at the concentrated level I'd conceived. Early days - January is often a little chaotic, and this year more than most.

Anyway, this post takes us all the way back to November, which seems like a year ago at this point. I'd better get on with writing it, or it will be a year before I finally cover December.

Back to the 2015 Recap Post

I still have two speedpaint posts coming up soon, one for November, and one for December, but today I'm just going for something fairly quick and easy, one of those Review of the Year things that all the cool sites are doing these days, plus some thoughts on my goals for this year.

I don't recall ever doing one of these before (I have done year end speedpaint reviews, but those paying attention will know those usually come around in May, for reasons), so here's the format - I'll give a quick overview of what I've done, and then pick my 4 favourite pieces to show again and cover why I like them, and one piece I hate.  These are ones I personally like (or dislike) - not the most popular, and my preferences for my own work might seem a bit strange.  All good?  OK, let's begin.

A Psychochronography in Chrome

Well, this is a little awkward.  Usually I write these posts and time them to coincide with the launch of the book they're about.  In this case though the good Doctor Sandifer released it on Boxing Day (That's December 26th for those of you who don't know), which is also the day after Christmas, so I forgot.  Sorry.

Anyway, we're here now, so lets get on with it.  As ever you can catch up on the previous Psychochronography posts by clicking here and working your way back to the beginning.  You don't need to do that though; the short story is that I do occasional book covers for Philip Sandifer, who writes critical analysis of (usually pretty geeky) things.  This is one of those.  The explanation for using the word Psychochronography I'll let you dig out for yourself.

Fumbling the Speed Ball

It's been a while!  Over a month since I last posted I think, which means I never posted the Speedpaints for October during November.  This is not caused so much by laziness on my part (though as ever, it's a contributing factor), so much as I usually post on weekends, and the weekends were full.  Obviously Thanksgiving was in there, but also two weekends of travel (to St. Petersburg) - the most arduous trip I've ever been on in terms of actual travel, but the most surprisingly pleasant time once I got there.  Not the best trip I've ever had, but perhaps the one I'd most want to repeat, if I could do it without the jetlag.

So that's three weekends accounted for, and I can't honestly remember why I didn't post on the other ones.  Some form of busy or other, I'm sure.

So, since the following were mostly quite some time ago I'll write what I can, but it might not be much.

Speed of the One Inch Punch

I had a lot of options for today's post, but finally decided to go with the good old Speedpaint roundup.  There are a fair number of them, but strangely almost all of them were done in the first half of the month, as the rest of the month was taken up with other projects (the last post being one of them).

Despite this, I've reached the goal of painting the equivalent of one speedpaint a week for this year.  48 of them.  Some of them were pointless of course (there's one of those this time too), but since I'm unlikely to not do another one before New Year I think the end result will still be a positive one.

OK, enough yapping, let's look at some painting.

The Bumper-Fun Summer Speedpaint Special

"You only posted once last month you lazy bugger."  I know, I know, I'm just not as committed to this blogging lark as I should be, but in my defence last month I messed up my back, had a vehicular breakdown, bought a new car, had two family visits, did (a lot of) things at work I can't divulge, saw a meteor shower, had a kid that couldn't sleep (this is not a new child, the old one is just now having issues), had my wedding anniversary, did five speedpaints, read three books, taught my son to play Chess, and made an omelette.  Given all that it's amazing I managed the (fairly wordy) post that I did.

Actually, it was six speedpaints I guess, but one of them was more like a speed sketch page (I did almost no actual sketching this last month - busy, see?), I'll show it anyway.

But in addition to that, since I didn't post about it last month it's actually eleven speedpaints I need to cover this month, plus a bonus guest one from my brother, for reasons we'll get to below.

The Speed of Warm Molasses

I'm a little late getting to this speedpaint post.  The most sensible way to do them would probably be the first weekend of the following month so that what I did, and why, is fresher in my mind.  This is of course the last weekend of the following month, which is less ideal.  Still, at least I'm not falling into the next month as I started to do with my sketch posts a while ago, and look how that ended up (hint: months and months behind).

Still, last month was actually pretty good when it comes to speedpaints, with 6 to show, except it's actually sort of 14, for reasons.  I'll get into that below.  This month on the other hand I've done 4 so far to show next month.  I might get to doing another, but maybe not.  With the exception of the sketches though I think this brings me back up to date again (finally).  I may be forgetting something though, but if I am I've forgotten (obviously), so I have no idea what it is.  Okay, enough preamble, lets look at splotches of colour that look like things!

Pink Petals

Another way of catching up on the blog a bit is to just post more, so two in one day (if you missed the previous one due to my posting twice in a day being an unusual occurrence, it's this one here). Like the last one I'll be saying as little as possible in order to get it done in one go. This post's subject has been seen in a lesser way before, in the last speedpaint post. I said I'd get to the results soon; this is the post about it, so let's see the result.

Speedy Like Sunday Morning

Speed wise, last month was a good month.  Eight paints in a month!  Now, to be fair, some of them are rather rough, but that's generally the case even when I just do the one a week, and it was also a 'long' month with an extra weekend, but still, I'm pleased - and you know how rare that is.

This month my intent, blogwise, is to post about two of the three pieces I haven't written about yet, and post another three months worth of old sketches (which should bring me up to this year).  Oh, and this post of course!  We'll see if I can manage a post every weekend then; next week is already looking iffy in that regard.

For now though, on with the speed.

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?)

All the speed, none of the finesse

Well, it's been a heck of a month, and somewhat exhausting.  I'll spare you all the little details, but they are much the same as ever, with the addition of three bereavements.  Again, I'll not go into details, this being more a reminder to my future self as to what I was doing when they left us than any seeking of sympathy.

In other areas things have been going better.  I did a portrait that I can't show you for some time (for reasons murky and unfathomable - I don't really understand them myself), and managed, with a bit of modification, to keep up with my New Years resolution.

This modification was simply to change the goal from one speedpaint a week to the equivalent of four speedpaints a month.  This has the advantage of requiring fewer speedpaints (3 less, since I'd already excluded the first week of the year), and also meaning that if any were missed I could catch up on them at another time, something I have had to do, somehow managing to miss one in January I made up for in March.

All of which is to say, there's a bumper fun packed* collection Speedpaints to follow.

Gimme More Speed!

So my New Years Resolution was pretty simple - do a speedpaint a week.  There were some more details in there, but the rest of it was just icing - the important bit was actually doing the painting. One a week should be easy!  I know one guy who does one a night!  I've said that before though, and you'll note that in all the time I've been working on the blog I have yet to crank out 52 speed paints in a year.  Time will tell if I can keep the resolve and get it done.

I did say I'd be away for a while didn't I?  I've not been idle though; mostly I've been sick, or on vacation, and at one point both at once.  I did get a speedpaint done each week this month though - except the first week, but it only had three days and I was away for most of them, so the resolution came into effect on the 4th.  I had one left over from December though, so you still get 4 in this post.

The Speed of another Year Gone By

Last month I made only one post, and I fear the same will be true this month.  Next week my Family arrives for Christmas, and that's more or less me out of the picture until the new year.  At least this time I'm letting you know in advance that there's no more coming for a while.  I have a lot to catch up on next year of course, as this last year I have let things slide to a revolting extent.

I've been trying to think of ways to get the sketching I missed up faster, but I don't want to resort to just posting the pages uncut.  Actually, I might, that's even more honest than the usual way I do them - you'll see all of the crap along with the relatively good stuff, although it's harder to clean up the scans because my scanner hates me.

Another thing I need to do is get back in the grove with Speedpaints.  The last Speedpaint post I made was three months ago, and that's just not good.  This latest one contains six new ones, so that's about two a month.  Disappointing.

Less Haste, More Speed

Well, hopefully this is the start of a turn around, as it's only been a week since I last posted. With three speedpaints done then; not enough to show, and seven to show today that's four paintings in a week!  OK, it's actually not since I found one of them down the side of the virtual couch, but still.

Basically last weeks post showed me that I'd been neglecting things far in excess of the amount of other things I had to do, especially for speedpainting.  Usually I wait until I see something I want to paint, and then think "I should paint that."  Time allowing I do so.

Recently though there's been a disconnect between when I see the thing, and when I have time to paint, and with other things crowding my brain I've forgotten about the likely image, or my mood has changed and it doesn't appeal any more.  So now I'm going to make a more concerted effort to stack up likely candidates separately from the rest of my references, so they're easier to go through when I want to paint something quick.

Anyway, you don't care about any of that, you just want to see pictures, right?