Sketchdump

These past two weeks have been quite busy with my graduation and flying over to England and back within 24 hours, so while I missed life drawing,  I still managed to get some printing and sketchbook work done. For some reason that meant a bunch of unrelated rocks and rocky landscape thumbnails, but it is what it is. 

As for the constellation characters, I've printed the libra design again but with varying amounts wiped back (below);

I've also thought about printing it as a combined etching/lithograph, so we shall see how that plays out. 

Speaking of lithography, for my next stone print I've come up with the design below (the actual stone drawing is different, this is just a rough idea for the design).

And to end off this post, a couple of sketchbook things I quite liked/found interesting. 

Life drawings & Etching update!

So despite the weather's desperate attempts to prevent me from getting to life drawing last Thursday , I still managed to get there if a bit late. The rest of these will go up on my facebook page but heres a couple that I quite liked. 

As for print work, I've started the first of two (perhaps more than two) plates for a new series of prints based on Zodiac characters and the constellations that their 30° divisions of space as seen from earth. Starting with Libra (the sign rather than the constellation), in his cloak are the constellations of Lupus, Ophiuchus, Scorpio, Virgo, Hydra, Serpens Caput and Centaurus. Somewhere else on his figure will be the astrological notation for libra ♎.   

First, I drew up some quick thumbnails and silhouettes in my sketchbook, did some research on the constellations in each sign's domain and tried out different poses and places for the star field to be placed- on the cloak, hair, skin, shawl, dress etc.

Then after drawing it up in Photoshop to my liking, I printed it out A6 size (same as the copper plate) and traced it onto the plate with the needle. Then, as shown in the image above, I laid down a light rosin aquatint and stopped out all the areas I wanted to remain clean with varnish- the background, the mantle and the constellation points.

5 minutes of etching later, the plate was ready for another round of stop out varnish. 

And after 2 printing proofs this is where it's at. I'm quite happy with the result though I should have let the aquatint be stronger on the cloak since it isn't quite as graphic as I expected. Next week I intend to re-aquatint it so that this time I get a light shade over the figure as well as the cloak, and also to deepen the tones in the star field. The 2nd print will be Virgo but more on that next week.

Dragon Age Inquisition comes out pretty soon, so I channeled my excitement for the game into trying out the official artwork's beautifully stylized Tarot cards. It was a fun exercise and in the future I might be tempted to include more abstract shapes within my work.


And finally, I've got some prints available to buy in the Belfast Print workshop Gallery , should you be in the city and want to see some of my older prints. There are several artist proofs and unique prints (non-edition ed) that I will be adding to my Etsy shop in the coming weeks so look forward to that! :)

-Sam

Akropolis final state

I've not had much time recently to update with all of the preparations for the exhibition and between that and working on the visual diary/extended essay...well Time has been short indeed. Ive decided to name the three towers Metrolpolis, Cosmopolis and Akropolis/Acropolis- Im not sure which spelling is the English and which the Greek. Chosen because they're all general terms for types of cities and my images for this each have  certain type of city about them.

I've got the moon from Majora's Mask stuck in my head reminding me that time is growing short. :I


still to do

• Essay
• visual D.
• Portfolio [got plenty of things d.w]
• name cards for each print
• business cards
• sort out mounts
• If the chance to work on the Aluminium plates presents itself, seize it. :I

 Alt

Checkpoint!

Tower Plate #1 

I've finished drawing/etching this plate.(the 2nd picture) All I need from it now are some good prints I can fill my portfolio with and get one excellent one for the exhibition. It was certainly a pain though, the first time I drew into the ground, my needle wasn't sharp enough and it was only after i had etched it and taken off the ground and printed it, did I realise the lines weren't deep enough. So I redrew it twice and then went through the process of; draw line art> etch 5mins>draw foreground in>etch 10 mns>draw and detail center tower>etch 15mins draw background walls+details > etch 10mins.  

Tower Plate #2

The other plate. It ended up not really being so much a tower as a towering castle. But all the same, I kept the same sort of line-only style so that it would look something similar. I found myself thinking in this one "mmm....heres the market" and then "no, that size of hourse is impractical to the peoples means!!" haha Perhaps thinking about it far too much. The last photo of this is a bleed print - a print taken by putting down pieces of paper which are smaller than the plate so that you dont usually get the embossed border around the print. I was mostly just trying out colours on tan paper.  The drawing process of this one was somewhat different. I researched a ton by looking at various concept arts; Guild wars 2, Prince of Persia, Lord Of the Rings (Minas Tirith/helms deep) and just generally trolling about the internet for related images-Can you say "tower of babel"? And I grounded/drew it all up as one. then gradually added details like the rocks and roofs of houses. The water and shadows to the right (on the prints) were left til last. 

I have a third plate in the works with me over Easter, hopefully I'll get into the studio in two weeks and get it etched and finished. And along that, I have a selection of small aluminium drypoints.

In non-exhibition and more about after university news, I've found an MA course I'd like to pursue- Concept art for Animation and Video games at Teeside University, Middlesbrough. I'm not sure if I've missed the application deadline for it though, as I only found it recently.
-Alt