"Rollin' home, home the place I long to be"

Project Third Year, take two! Our second brief is to make a set front, of what is completely up to us! So I started by researching, observing and sketching several different types of houses. Varying the amount of time spent on each sketch and the media used. Just starting to get my head into the mindset of construction and building. 

"Art is how we decorate space. Music is how we decorate time."

Anyone who knows me will know how much I love music. All of it. It's such a big part of my life and I would genuinely be lost without it! 

"Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand." - Stevie Wonder

So at the beginning of the year I was asked to do a commission for a Beatles fan, a three-piece canvas... But, lessons learnt, no deposit and they pulled out. It's a good job I like the Beatles, if it was the Bee Gees - it would have been a whole different ball game. So I decided I'm going to keep them and it will go up in my music room in my future house. I added my New Year's Resolution and ultimate saying from now on onto the 3 canvases, 3 words, 'Let It Be'. (Pictured below, with two of my guitars, covering all "basses" with a classical and electric.)

Before I go on, I think it's important that you give I giorni - Ludovico Einaudi a listen, because where my heads at right now, lyrics are a bit too much and the piano does enough for me. Just wait until 5 minutes 30 seconds in - no words can describe it. I listen to Einaudi all the time when painting. Definite game changer.

It's been a crazy year so as requested, I've tried to sum up the complete year into several memorable songs that will lead the way into next year. A New Year.

1. Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy 

2. Norah Jones - Chasing Pirates

3. The Beatles - Blackbird

4. Sam Smith - Lay Me Down

5. Tyler Ward (ft. Lindsey Stirling) - Some Kind Of Beautiful

6. A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera - Say Something

7. Rumer - You Just Don't Know People

8. Imagine Dragons - Demons

9. The Five Stairsteps - O-O-H Child

10. Demi Lovato - Confident

11. Jess Glynne - Don't Be So Hard On Yourself

(I apologise for any inconvenient ads that pop up with these YouTube links. But you know, I think it's important we know where to buy the Frozen dolls. Go YouTube!)

Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

"If you find that you are chasing some story round and round in your mind try and bring yourself back to your body. To the paintbrush in your hand. To the colour or image or shape on the paper in front of you. Let it be simple."

You know... Sometimes, when you listen to a song and you relate to the lyrics or the melody just seems to resonate with what you're feeling at that particular time or even when watching a film, and you get so excited to follow the protagonists journey etc, etc.. 

Those stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks-type-moments? Yeah, I had one just now reading this particular page which I will link below and seriously recommend everyone read. 

People ask me why I paint and I will always give them the same answer, and it's an answer that will never change. I feel weightless and in my own world completely, and that in turn gives me unlimited power and strength because it cannot be taken away from me - I will always have that. People say that you can only paint if you're extremely happy or extremely sad, I am neither so reading that page by Chris Zydel was like someone giving my head a wobble and realisation hit me like a tonne of bricks. 

How I describe the feeling to anyone who wants to know or understand... You know when it's absolutely bucketing down with rain and you're driving down roads and motorways, windscreen wipers going, people passing you left, right and centre and all of a sudden you drive underneath a bridge. For that split second there is that complete peace and silence before resuming the noise? That, right there is what I can think of the physical representation of what painting feels like to me. Life can get as hectic as it wants to, so can my emotions, so can my feelings, but when I am painting? Untouchable.

So here is another sunset study before bed, inspiration taken from a photo sent by a friend. Now, please give this a read: (it's brilliant.)

http://creativejuicesarts.com/blog/painting-your-way-through-difficult-emotions/

"I suppose its too late to make a run for it?" "Well, I'm game if you are."

"Age is no guarantee of efficiency and youth is no guarantee of innovation."

It was about time I did another Photoshop painting. Still working on my studies of the sky, and clouds are an absolute nightmare to get right but I'm pleased with how these turned out. Still staying in my comfort zone of working with silhouettes, this time the ultimate man - Bond, James Bond. 

I went to see Spectre on the day it was released last month and my first reaction was WOW that was amazing. So I went to see it again, the week after, and was left disheartened. Personally, I judge films on two different basis'. 1. Visually. 2. The Story.

Spectre, for me, was visually the best looking Bond film to-date, but after sitting through another couple of hours of the storyline, it was slow, not much punch, predictable. You can clearly see that they've thrown so much money at it, "let's pick this place on the map" "now here" "now this other place". Let's get all these random characters in too. So I watched Skyfall, and then watched Spectre again straight away (completely legally) and it doesn't even come close.  Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Judi Dench.. it's like dream casting. And Daniel Craig is just a dream.

 In Craig's time as Bond I think Skyfall will be the best film, because M.. I mean, no one is going to come close to Dench. So all of that is what inspired me to do a painting of Skyfall, as if it could be one of the final scenes in Scotland. 

I intend at looking at my other favourite films and produce some work from that. Because I will watch, then re-watch, then re-watch again all of my favourite films (same with music) because that's how I know, if you can repeat it constantly and not get bored, it's a favourite.

 Pride & Prejudice... Lake House... Tropic Thunder... Reservoir Dogs... Ghostbusters... Matrix... The Dark Knight... Pretty  Woman... Groundhog Day... and so many more! 

Here's to new beginnings...

"Starting today, I need to forget what's gone. Appreciate what still remains and look forward to what's coming next."

Confession time... I'm a bit of a sunrise/sunset nerd. I regularly set alarms on my phone to make sure I catch them.

 I think it's important to take a time out everyday or whenever you can just to reflect on where you are in your life, think of how far you've come and more importantly look forward to where you want to be. Just hit that refresh button, so any problems or worries that you might have are all overshadowed by your determination and plans for the future.

So before this turns into lyrics from a Westlife song I have decided to set myself a personal project which I will build on in my spare time (if I get any!) I want to improve my painting skills and colour studies. Taking some inspiration from one of my heros Bob Ross, investing in a new easel and some canvases, you haven't heard the end of this!

"You find the fun and snap, the jobs a game."

Now onto the making, a lot of bumps in the road when it came to actually making this. So the original plans had to be changed and adapted accordingly. Really pleased with the outcome when taking into consideration that things didn't go as I expected with time, materials and the turning mechanism.

FINAL PROMO IMAGE

A few important people helped me a good bit with this project and kept me on track, so thank you, to you!

"In every job that must be done, there's an element of fun..."

Merchandising - Project No.1 of Third Year

The first project of the year is a merchandising brief. We were given the option of choosing a film/TV series to make a piece of merchandise for. So I decided to pick a from older films, films that wouldn't have necessarily had much merchandise at the time of release. I wanted to steer away from films that in my opinion have too much merchandise, eg. Disney, DC, Marvel, Pixar, etc. So I picked one of my favourite childhood films Mary Poppins. I wanted to challenge myself, so I wanted to make something that will take a range of skills. I decided to make a toybox/musicbox. So I would have to make the wooden box, the mechanism inside and the puppet on the top. Here are my development sheets;

"Why do we fall? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."

Some Batman inspired drawings, I'm a big Batman fan, and Arkham Knight came out so I obviously played it for research y'know? Experimenting with a different style and having some fun with my favourite - watercolours.

Uh oh, here we go, The Painting Strikes Back - Revenge of the Photoshop.

So it's coming up to a year since I bought Photoshop and a Wacom tablet to do some digital paintings so I thought I would do a post dedicated to the ones that I've done. Starting with the very first attempts (shocking) and gradually improving as I get more used to this method of painting. Moving forward with the times. Who are you and what have you done with Sophie?

PRACTICE MAKES PROGRESS.