The Humble Rohlik (A Standard Czech Roll)

A Slightly out-of-focus Rohlik.

I painted a roll today, no ordinary roll - a Rohlik!
I just thought I'd share that with you...there will be some glazing to do to this wee roll before it's ready...and better photography!

Drawing inspiration...

Wine on Paper

Seeing as I so rarely post wine sketches now it just occurred to me that some people may wonder if I still 'draw inspiration from wine' as stated above. Answer: Yes, every other night!

I'll be posting on new artwork later this week. Meantime, the image above is a wine sketch...a warm-up of sorts...not sure where it came from...other than a glass of red wine, both in the medium and inspiration.

...oh and a link to the soon to be published story - 'Projections'...that my previous post showed a detail from. More pictures and ramblings on art, acting and drinking ...very soon, promise.

New Work

I was hoping to post on a new Scottish comic art exhibition taking place in Scotland House in Brussels right now. I was invited to take part and submitted a poster design, more on that later. I still have no info so I'll hold off saying anymore on that right now.

Early pastel sketch of two boys on cardboard.

This week I may finally complete a painting I've been working on for quite some time. Here's hoping. Most of the hold up now has nothing to do with painting and almost everything to do with staring. That is, me staring at it and wondering if it's done. There are some technical things to do, some actual painting. More on that as it is completed. You can see the painting that came of the sketch above at my previous post here.

I'm also returning to a 3 page comic strip I am illustrating that was written by Paul Penna. This work has to be done by January for publication. I also produced a cover design a few weeks ago, that too is due for publication in early 2012. I cannot post the work until it is on the shelves of comic book stores, so those images will also be for future posts. But the black and white 'Try Me' image above is one panel from Paul's story 'Projections'.

I'll post more very soon ...and thanks for reading!

If you have any questions, send me a message.

Something, Something, Liberty, Something (Pepper Spray Cop)

Something, Something, Liberty, Something

One of four versions I made of the 'Pepper Spray Cop'. Although I'm busy with a portrait (24/7) I took a little while off last night to make a few of these photoshop montages. It hadn't dawned on me that it was a meme, I'd seen one picture online that showed this twit in action in a different context, but by the time I'd finished the first picture (Counter Culture) several people had posted their versions online. It had dawned on me as I was working, but it was only after I saw the range of images in the 'meme' that I went and began the other three images. I could go on, I have another in mind, but I think I've contributed enough to this idea. You can see the other montages I have made at my 'once in a while, every so often' political cartoon blog here. 

When I saw the versions all collected online I was surprised to see that some ideas I'd considered had been done already, such as an image of 'Lassie' and one or two others I thought were too obscure to be considered by anyone else. Indeed more than one Michelangelo has been press-ganged for this cause, but I would think 'God and Adam' an obvious target for fun.

It was an abusive, stupid, heavy-handed, thing to do to the U.C. Davis students and deserves all the ridicule it gets. It's great to see so many people reacting with humour and technology to make a point. Many of the contributions remind me of the brilliant animation art of Terry Gilliam created for Monty Python.

In my version above Pepper Spray Cop has abseiled down the face of Libertas herself to spray straight into her eyes...she remains unmoved (of course) by what is, after all, just a silly, fat, little man.

Anyway...back to painting now.

Wine Sketches to Come...

 I often find it easier to get started on a big picture if I work on a little picture or doodling first. I'm also feeling a bit bad about not posting more sketches made with wine.

That's why I started this blog, so, I think I'll make a point of working with a bit of wine each morn and load them here in the next few days.

This skull is from a while back, one of the victims of the 'Bone Church' series and painted in red wine.

Then again...maybe I'm just thirsty.

It Was 100 Years Ago Today...or Epic Fail.

The River Vltava with National Theatre and Charles Bridge.

This massive impressionist picture of Prague was painted over 100 years ago ...or at least it feels that way. The truth is it is only two inches across and just a detail within the picture I painted below.

Prague: Ballarina. Oil paint on canvas.

I know...it's cracked, and I don't mean it has cracks - I mean its a mad painting really, I see that...but so what? I painted it and it's unfinished and it's quite mad in its own little way.

Czech Parliament with glazing.

I can't quite believe I worked on this on-and-off over 8 years but it must be about that now. I finished it (I thought) in about a month or so. The face was very life-like at the time and in terms of likeness I thought I'd done ok, better than usual. I'm never happy with my paintings, not really. I had painted her against a dark backdrop, a curtain and the more I looked at the darkness around her the more I felt like I should have painted her in a well lit room.

I had painted this picture as a gift to close friends, it is based on their granddaughter. Knowing how much our friends love Prague I suddenly had the epic compulsion to paint the whole of Prague in daylight as a background to this little girl. It wasn't easy to paint the city in the background now that the foreground was complete. But I felt up for the challenge. Normally you'd begin with background and work forward.

Oil painting detail.

It took a long time and in the process I damaged her face. It wasn't a fumble or anything like that, I tried to adjust something about the light on her face and I blew it. So I repainted her face again from scratch and it was terrible...so I repainted it again. I then re-painted it again. I think I then re-painted it again. Then...I re-painted it again and then again. In fact I lost count. But the days in which I could sit down and work on a painting for 12 hours straight and repeat that the next day have long gone. I think this painting was started about the time that approached stopped.

Pastel on paper on wine coloured ground.

Pastel on paper.

Colour print from pencil doodle.

I had made other sketches of the girl in pastel meantime. But they were sketches and I wanted this painting to work and it didn't.

As things worsened for me with the child I found certain things happening in the background that I liked. A depth of colour emerged and the sky had a curve-linear appearance that I liked. By this I mean I felt it folded out (or unfolded out) in the way that real distance in space does.

Cloudscape and the roof of the national theatre of Prague.

I built this picture up in successive glazes. I also scraped back much that I'd painted. In the spire of the Czech parliament I tried in some ways to replicate a look you might see when you look through imperfect glass. You see it in some glass in Prague, you don't see this warping and shifting in modern glass, only through old windows. I also wanted it to look like it had rained and the sun had broke out over wet rooftops.

The couple didn't see anything wrong with it. All they saw was a little girl they love very much. So it goes.

The incomplete areas of this picture are the hair, face and neck...and everything else besides.

Astor Odd - iPhone doodle.

2005 YU55 'Astor Odd' (Cut Me 2night)

Painting in the dark...with pixels. I couldn't sleep last night and so started sketching on my iPhone using the Brushes app. With an iPhone you can paint in the dark.

This is nuts but I  was thinking about the approaching asteroid and for some reason thought of a scene described in Hemingway's 'A Movable Feast'. Ford Maddox Ford describes 'cutting' Hilaire Belloc (Ignoring or passing without acknowledgement - 'I cut him') only to discover it was not Belloc but in fact Aleister Crowley the diabolist aka 'The Wickedest Man in the World'. I read this book years ago, no idea why that came to mind except perhaps that it's an oddly creepy scene. And there is something very creepy about coming so close to something or someone who represents so much potential for darkness. I've read it was not a 'planet killer', but I don't understand that, It's huge and travelling at an estimated 30,000mph. Lethal....or lithography on a grand scale.

 It was overcast so I didn't bother going to the window. I'm not sure I could have seen 2005 YU55 even if it had been a clear night. 2005 YU55 is the name given to the asteroid that narrowly missed us last night. We have a great sky view here on a clear night so it might be possible.

I've seen strange lights in the sky here now and again, in most cases Chinese lanterns. But one evening, after a storm, I saw what may have been ball lightning. Maybe.

The most inspiring observation was the separation of the shuttle from the ISS. I had seen the ISS pass one evening, it was brighter than usual because of the addition of the docked shuttle. A big, steady flowing star coursing overhead. The following evening I watched for it and saw two small closely aligned stars coming toward us from the west. An amazing thing to witness the 'undocking' with the naked eye.

BTW - I just read that 'The Mekons' will be playing in Prague tonight... 30,000 mph asteroids one night, Mekons the next...what is this the future?

The original 'Mekon' from British 1950's comic, Dan Dare.

I'll post more of my iPhone sketches soon...and some updates on new oil paintings and whatnot.

Digital Comics for iPad & iPod Touch

I'm slowly optimising some comics I created for The Prague Post in the mid-90's, they'll be available for the iPad and iPod Touch at some point soon.

The first strip follows the adventures of a taxidermist ex-pat in Prague and might be best described as a 'stream of consciousness' type adventure...that or unbridled lunacy.

Kidding aside, I did my best with this story to avoid the predictable. I'd rather these comics were labeled inexplicable than predictable any day of the week, although I tried to avoid that too. Traps I dodged (perhaps at the expense of narrative logic sometimes...) were (a) 'Oh, how strange Czech food / people / culture is' and (b) The flatline bore strip like you might find in the back pages of the Herald Tribune. Or at least you could find such strips in the HT in the mid-90's. Maybe they publish a broader range of strip now. I mean the kind of strip that might once have been great but now seems to be on life-support, one that makes the reader feel brain-dead. Perhaps I'm being unfair, perhaps my strip did that too. It certainly received its fare share of hate mail.

Perhaps I knew something in 1995 that many didn't. As an avid reader of intelligent stories in picture and word since 1982 I think I was aware of how good it could get. I think I failed to live up to the challenge in what I made, but I tried.

Today many films are adaptations of 'graphic novels', many of which I read in the 80's. I think the films are often pointless and although they gain the dimension of sound they lose a direction in time.

By that I mean in a comic you can be as complex as you like, your readers can always flick back and re-read those complex passages. In film the illusion of movement takes us in one direction, you are 'on rails' as they say in gaming, so the film-makers work hard not to lose us. The comic reader creates that movement by joining the panels within his or her imagination, another form of illusion perhaps but to me it seems far more rewarding. Mini-series are more like good comics, there is room for exploration, more time to delve into the life of the story. After all quality shouldn't be relative to media, a good story should transfer into any media, right?

GN to film is a trend borne out of the fact that many comics today are offering far deeper stories than many films and are ready-made storyboards for film. If it helps comics creators to flourish, then good. But often it looks to me more like a kind of 'comixploitation'. Did I just coin a phrase? Hell knows. Watchmen might be an example of that. Perfect recreation of the characters but compressed into 2hrs or so and with none of the art of Dave Gibbons...or the 'time' a novel affords you as a reader. Time is something a mini-series does have over a film.

Sometimes when I'm watching the excellent 'Breaking Bad' I feel it's the child of something like 'Love & Rockets'. Perhaps that's just me.

Here are three examples of writers of comics (whose work I've been reading forever) that have been adapted to film. Writing and drawing that has been an inspiration to me.

John Wagner: 'A History of Violence' +++ Buy the book here...

Daniel Clowes: 'Ghost World' +++ Buy the book here...

Ok, this last adaptation misses much that the book offers but the casting and costume of the character of 'V' is superb. Oddly 'V' is now the face of 'Occupy' and 'Anonymous' something I find completely astonishing as I was a reader way back in 1982/3. I'd love to know what the artist David Lloyd makes of it all.

Alan Moore: V for Vendetta +++ Buy the book here...

More information will be posted on my comics for e-reader ASAP.
Thanks for reading and drop me a line if you have any questions.

WACOM update.

A quick update. While I'm a little sad to have cancelled the Inkling I'm pleased to say WACOM repaid me today.

A three month wait is fine if that's part of the deal, my beef with WACOM is they continue to advertise the Inkling on their site with a 'buy now' button. Who knows how many other customers bought one, just as I did, three months ago, (or any time from then 'til now) and have not received the item or heard a word from them.

Not to knock WACOM, they make a great product. I have an Intuos 2 and it's magic.
Tablets, they know...supply and demand or handling customers, not sure that's their thing.

But I still say, with a bit of internet TLC they could have kept my money, I'm a patient, loyal, chap.

I guess I'll buy an iPad or a Kindle or something.

WACOM - YOU BLEW IT!

I paid WACOM.EU 170 Euro for An 'Inkling' three months ago and it hasn't been dispatched.
I really wanted this thing (see story below...read how obviously chuffed I was to order the bloody thing) and although I still like the idea of having one, it's now a matter of principle. I had to prompt them three times to get a half-apology. But they could not say when it would be sent or if I'd be among the first to receive one. There is some manufacturing issue it seems. Supply and demand...y'know. Rule 1...Have some in supply BEFORE you try and generate demand.

Anyway - I like to support new tech, especially where artwork is concerned. But with no feedback on when I could hope to get a hold of one...sorry WACOM, you don't take money and then fall silent on the customer. NO WAY. Today I asked for my money back.

And if something goes wrong with production - be frequent with the updates. You can do that really easily now with the internet and that.

The Inkling....of a Hold Up.

This is just a quick note to let my readers know I haven't slipped into an alternate universe or something. I'm here and as busy as ever.

I was hoping by now to have written a revue on Wine Ink of the new Inkling from Wacom that I purchased the second I heard about it...early adopter, me?...nah. But where work is concerned, I have to have what I have to have.

Hopefully it will come soon and I'll revue it by making some sketches in the countryside or something. But Wacom have just written to tell me not to hold my breath as there is some kind of manufacturing issue....or something.

Whatever.

In the meantime, you can read about a biking adventure in which I nearly cut off my thumb. Ok, I'm exaggerating, but it was nasty and I had to improvise a bandage fast...out of an apple. Must needs, right?

Oh and there's a sketch... made in wine, I almost forgot!

Summer Update...(or List of Distractions Beginning with the the Sun)

A (not so) quick update on the state of various projects and some new studio technology.

The Inkling

1. Ok, so I just spotted a new device from WACOM this morning that I had to have, bought it immediately. It's a small box that you attach to your drawing pad that records what your pen is doing. This is a bit of a God-send really because it allows me for the first time to make a sketch and give it away immediately without having to scan it, it means GETTING BACK TO PAPER, digital as a record only.

Beyond that it seems to record your pen strokes in a format that can be tweaked later on. It's called the Inkling and ...I've now got an Inkling of what it can do. Should be in studio in 20 days. (I've long been used to drawing with pen, so no worries on having to erase!)

Family Portrait
2. My family portrait was a week or so away from completion as the summer holiday arrived, sadly, it's still a week or so away. I need a cabin in the hills to finish this kind of work.

Drawing Collections
3. I've been adding new collections of artwork to my 'bookshelf' in ISSUU. The first was Atwomic, the second a comic book sample art folio (Based on an existing Dredd strip) and then last week I added a collection of illustration examples. The bookshelf will host a wine series soon...

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Interview
4. Oddly, in looking for Atwomic on ISSUU I turned up an interview I did for SKYLINK magazine.
The interview hosts the first ever showing of an image I made a year or so ago of Mao. All in Czech and Slovak ...I'm afraid and therefore I've no real idea if I've been misquoted or not.

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

5. And Atwomic sequences 1 to 6 should, hopefully be online in coming weeks. There is no support for this work, so if you are wondering why it is taking so long, patience...everybody is finding time away from real work to complete this project.

6. I'm also working on some fanzine art and breaking down in sequential form an excellent film script by some friends (This is the trailer for their previous film, check it out...)

7. And today I'm cleaning up spew...straight out of the blue, one of the wee fella's just came down with a summer flu...or something...hell knows, poor wee soul. (...and no, that's not spew, it's psychedilic wallpaper I made for the Ipad, iphone and desktop computers, but you get the picture. Anyone who wants to sport one of these - leave a comment)

More on all this soon...

Atwomic the Multiverse Comic...

In my last post I outlined my Atwomic concept and its inspiration. Now you can read the first sequence of the worlds first 'crowd sourced' comic illustrated by 26 artists from all over our little blue rock via Twitter. Enjoy! - S K Moore

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

ATWOMIC - A Twitter Comic or 'Multiverse' Comic Strip.

ATWOMIC: A Twitter Comic of Many Dimensions.

I had an idea recently to start an experimental Twitter feed in which I (or someone else) posts a description,  - essentially a scene from a script - in 140 characters or less and I (and anyone or everyone else) illustrate that description and post it to Twitter. So I set up a Twitter feed titled 'ATWOMIC' to host the script directions and hopefully some surprising illustrations. I hope you'll join in - If you want to take part see the rules at bottom of this post.

Huh? What?

Over the last year or so I've thought a lot about how different artists interpret scripts for comics, film and theatre. Each artist brings something uniquely personal to the realisation of the story. So it occurred to me that it might be an interesting experiment to see what several different people would make of the same script as it is written on a daily basis and what better way to find out than on Twitter?

What Else Inspired This?

Most people will have heard of the idea that we live in just one of many interconnected universes or a 'multiverse' and that in each moment new universes are springing up, somewhere outside of our dimension or beyond the limits of what we know as our universe. 

This idea has been around a very long time but scientists seem to be taking it far more seriously today than ever before. Either that or they know they'll have a better shot at a book deal if their name is in the news associated with mind-boggling physics theories.

Either way a day doesn't go by that I don't read somewhere of this idea and its bizarre implications. One of the strangest ideas that springs from the multiverse is that (somewhere) there is a 'you' very similar to the you reading this post, only slightly different. In addition there are many other similar worlds with 'you' out there and even more that have variations of everyone you know - with the exception of you, because you are not there!

I know, it may all be nonsense, but it's a staggering thought. But don't take it from me, I'm just an artist. Here's Dr. Michio Kaku on the multiverse subject.

The Exquisite Corpse

'The Exquisite Corpse' was a game similar to 'Consequences' devised by the surrealists in which one artist writes or draws a portion of something (it could be anything) on one fold of a piece of paper, then by folding it back hides it from his partner. At the end the paper is unfolded and (usually) a freakish image emerges that no one could have thought up. The example below is part of the Scottish national galleries collection.

'Cadavre Exquis': André Breton, Jacqueline Lamba, Yves Tanguy

How to Participate

Look at the ATWOMIC Twitter feed and select one of the panel descriptions, sketch your thoughts and post the image to your Twitter account with the ATWOMIC hash tag. The media, style, interpretation and time you put in to each panel is entirely up to you.

Example ; Here is the first panel description...

"Atwomic S K Moore 

PANL 1: Naked person walks, has noticed something vague in the sky, not clear, could be a star but it's broad daylight."

I've not described this person as either male or female, you are free to interpret the tweets as you like.

Rules

Rule 1 - There are no rules really, but if any occur to me I'll post them here. But there are some suggestions. For example try to interpret each panel without looking at the other images that have been posted of that panel. ATWOMIC wants your interpretation. It doesn't matter if you can draw or not, ATWOMIC welcomes all skill levels.

Rule 2 - Ok, so there is no 'rule number 1' but there is a rule number 2. ATWOMIC would like the right to publish your images on its web pages, to bring as many of the versions of the story together online. You own your work, it would just be really cool to show the many varied interpretations of each panel online. With your permission, at some point, it could make a very interesting book.

Rule 3 - Picture size should approximate my first image (see here) Please use the same window size every time. It will help if all the windows, or the proportions of all the panels, are the same, that way they can be laid out easily and equally later on. If you are working digitally your frames should be 25cm wide by 33cm high, drawn at 300dpi and reduced to 72dpi for the web.

Yet Another Short Film....

Yesterday we finished yet another short film, this one in a documentary style. Lots of surprises and new (well, seemingly new!) challenges. For now, however, it's a waiting game. Nothing can really be said of the work until we see it edited together.

One odd thing about film is that having shot everything you really still don't know if you have it, not until it's edited together. A good editor is invaluable to the whole film process and will make or break a film. A great editor can make a good film of bad footage.

But, having said that, we all had a good time and came away with a good feeling about this one, now it's up to the director. More on this in time - but now, it's back to the easel.

Acting, Painting, Sculpting, Sneezing.

This little blog seems to be getting a lot of attention right now, thanks for visiting, it's very encouraging to see that my work is of interest to so many people from so many locations around the world, so thanks for the encouragement. Questions and suggestions for future posts are always welcome.

It's been a while since I last posted, so here's a quick update. The last few weeks in summary look like this - Portraiture, Flu, Borgia, Cannes Film Festival, 3D sculpture, Good Guys. Strange eh? I know...

A wee, and badly taken, iPhone snap of the start of one face.

Portraiture
Continuing with my portrait in oils during the week, I began work on the faces and was quite pleased with the slow but good progress I was making. An example of the start of the grisaille painting can be seen above.

I'm holding out here, feeling really awful, looking worse, still painting...but an hour or so later
I took to my bed for 3 days.

Flu
Amazingly, just as I got in to the nitty-gritty of the faces my sons and I came down with the worst, most disgusting flu. Someone suggested it was swine flu, I don't know. But the timing could not have been worse. The illness was horrible, bloody awful and it would not leave us. But if I thought flu looked as cool as the video below I might have thought it sucked a bit less to suffer it.



* Hmm...seems you may need to click the 'HD' button on this little film to make it work, not sure why.

Borgia
I managed to pull it together before my shooting date for the new TV series 'Borgia', but only just. That was a very interesting experience in which I had a chance to work with Vincent Carmichael, Art Malik and John Doman. We shot in an old building in the vicinity of Prague castle. Seemingly the production took over the whole building and decorated many of the rooms in a renaissance style that resulted in quite incredible mural work. I have so much respect for Czech set designers, they are simply brilliant. I was knocked out by the quality work they did on Narnia and so it's good to see the industry here is finally getting back on its feet.

Get this - The story goes that the owner of the building was going to sell it but now that it is so richly decorated he's changed his mind. Unfortunately I didn't get to shoot in the 'Sistine chapel' that they recently built up at Barandov studios, but I've seen some pictures and it's, again, astonishing. Go Czechy!

Cannes Film Festival
I was delighted to learn  a few weeks back that two of the short films I did last year will show at Cannes Film Festival this year. I was completely blown away by this news. Here's the shorter of the two. 'Product Placement' is based on a short story by Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club.



3D Sculpture
I've had the opportunity to play around with digital sculpture this last week or so and I've found it simply fascinating. I was trying to think of a subject for my first test sculpt and decided on a character from the classic science fiction film Bladerunner. I was a big fan of this film as a teenager, indeed at the time I rated it my favourite film of all. I can no longer claim a favourite film, you get older and your exposure broadens, so now, lets just say it's one of many many favourites.

For my first effort I chose the character of J F Sebastian played by William Sanderson who many will now know from True Blood and Deadwood. My intent was to see how close to 'real' I could sculpt his face from the elevator scene in Bladerunner.

Sculpt in progress.

The result is toy-like, fitting I suppose as this character was a toy-maker. I'm trying to just work on this stuff on weekends, but damn it's tempting to fire it up late at night. At some point I hope to post a breakdown of the work in progress. BTW - The hair is still unfinished, I hope to improve on that next week.

SPOILER - This link shows the scene I looked at, but don't open it if you have not seen Bladerunner, the events shown here will spoil it. I should add it's not for children, so if you're a young-un - lay off. Instead look at the trailer below...

* When I first saw Bladerunner I realised I had been in the building in which J F Sebastian lives. It is the Bradbury building in downtown Los Angeles. When I was a little boy I sometimes accompanied my father on his deliveries and it was a treat to literally get behind the scenes of MGM studios and such like. But one day he took me to the Bradbury just to ride the elevator. He knew the people there and they were very nice to us. It makes me a bit sad to think of this time now. Then again, maybe it's not my memory after all but someone else's, just an implant. ;)

Good Guys
During the week I am working on my portrait painting and rehearsing lines for yet another short film we are shooting in 10 days time. 'Good Guys' is a science-fiction themed short and will involve some interesting prosthetics, something I'll perhaps reserve for a future post. I have many 'sides' to learn and so I have recorded a reading of the lines that I play over my ipod as I paint...I just hope they stick in my noggin'. Wish me luck!...and I will get around to painting with wine again soon, I promise.

My last doodle painted with a glass of wine.

Borgia Series

Rodrigo Borgia - Alexander VI - Trinity Engine Test 

It is very bad form to talk, blog or otherwise reveal anything you work on as an actor (not that I act all that often) so this is the last I'll say about this. On Monday I was given a small role in a new series based on the lives of the Borgia's currently in production in Prague. I met the director again today as well as a few of the crew this morning, was welcomed aboard, and had a costume fitting.

The series stars John Doman as Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI). Although you may not know John Doman by name, if you have seen The Wire, you are unlikely to have forgotten the intimidating Commander Rawls.

I just thought I should share that news, It's an era I've always been fascinated with and I'm delighted to have a part in this intriguing story.

"A glass of wine with Caesar Borgia" - John Collier

Advance Promotional & Other Links on Borgia

The series is listed here on IMDB.

Who were the Borgia's? - Wikipedia

The following clip is a slightly racy teaser about the production, so if you're not 18yrs of age etc etc...

This clip is about the new type of camera in use in 'Borgia'.

But for now, it's back to my new portrait. A painting which I began again Wednesday after a short trip home to Scotland.

*While home in Scotland I made a number of iPhone sketches of people and places, I'll be tweeting those drawings soon and at some point post them here on Wine Ink. If you would like to see them as I tweet them, follow me on Twitter.

Speaking the Unspeakable.

Uncanny Valley Baby Dalek

This post is a 'work in progress'...

I'm not much of a writer or blogger for that matter, so I hope you'll hang in there with the posts that follow about this painting. I've found myself in the strange position of trying to tell the story of a picture in the making without giving away anything about its design. The picture has to remain a surprise for the friends it is being painted for, but I think that could mean a pretty dull series of posts until it is complete. You've been warned. Until then I'll talk about the materials used and any technical problems I face. I'll take pictures along the way that I can post later. Once this picture is finished, I'll explain the processes as they led to its completion.

I'm aiming for the highest degree of realism I've ever painted. That's tricky, as I explained to an art teacher friend of mine today, that's extremely difficult and NOT just for the technical hurdle that you might imagine. Friends send me pictures all the time of realistic paintings. But I don't think anyone quite understands what I am looking for in a picture.

When a painting is too like a photo - it might as well be a photo. While a painting painted from a photo (that's not quite as good as a photo)...might be better off not being painted at all.

Photographs are flat.

A camera has 1 eye, we have 2. Moreover those two eyes give us a confused series of images that our imaginations arrange, organise and sort out. The discrepancies between those different images are the reality (in glorious 3D) we hold in our minds.

TEST: Fix your eyes on some objects near you, look with both eyes. Close one and observe. Now do the reverse and observe with the other eye. Keep switching. You will notice the differences between the shapes, differences in placement of those objects. They MOVE, seem to jump. As you paint a picture from life you rely on these two images, the final version in your painting is a combination of the two. The difference between these views, that of your left and right eye, is 3D in your imagination only.

Am I talking bxxxxxxs?

Maybe. If, that is, what you want is a 'realistic' likeness of someone - then take a photo or have an artist paint them or take a photo and have an artist paint from that photo.

BUT, the real problem behind true REAList painting today is the same problem designers working on androids are now experiencing. It is known as the Uncanny Valley. In painting the problem is due to an over reliance on photography. The images are too real, too 'fixed'. This is especially obvious in portraits that show the subject doing something that we all know is a fleeting momentary thing, such as laughing or a broad smile. This is a purely personal opinion and something I discovered after painting a very realistic smiling face.

The Uncanny Valley: 'The theory holds that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.'  - Wikipedia

The best paintings I have seen manage to look real, seem to emit light, while not being so tied in to the details as to appear false or 'uncanny', nothing too sharp or exact is in these pictures. They allow for movement, this is why impressionism is so special. Impressionism has built in 'wiggle room' for the human imagination...just squint your eyes. Shut them down a little, what's not there offers a greater 'reality'.

A perfect example in portraiture would be 'Lady Agnew', a close study of this lady shows a softness of touch that few artists manage. I would love to have seen Sargent paint. This photo does no justice to this painting. When I last saw her the gallery had placed a couch adjacent to the picture, I studied it for an hour. It's simply astonishing. If you find yourself in Edinburgh, there is no excuse to miss this treasure, it's slap bang in the city centre - go and see her.

Lady Agnew of Lochnaw by J S Sargent

This is very much a post in the making, I'd welcome any thoughts you may have on this page and will explain and clarify further these ideas at a later date...(Sadly I've just run out of time and have to hit the road... but next time I'll talk a little about what I think of as an incredible contribution to art from Marcel Duchamp)  Thanks for reading.

Stage 2 - On the Verge

Oil Painting: Detail of a hand.

I've finally completed the first stage of work on the new portrait. The reason for this post is to make the point that painting and drawing can be a time and labour intensive process. It may seem obvious but I don't think anyone understands how much of a commitment you need. The outcome I want for this picture demands a great deal of planning and patience at the start. In many ways it is the opposite of how I work now, I like the picture to surprise me and grow in its own way. But a figurative picture, at least the one I'm doing now, means knowing exactly what is next.

My last post was on February 2nd and at that stage I had done quite a lot of the drawing already. I've been working on this picture almost every day since. I had to take time off last week to prepare something else, but that was only two days. So it goes.

Oil Painting: Detail of a foot.

I'm working on a grisaille. The process I'm adopting for this painting means painting the same picture twice, first in monochrome and then again in full colour.

Unfinished Grisaille

I've had a bit of success with this in the past, it seemed to truly reinforce a sense of form and life about the portrait. It allows for a much deeper and more convincing sense of form or so it seems. But it's time consuming because you must paint the same painting twice.

The details in this post are from some of my old oil paintings, some with grisaille and some without. I don't paint this way now,  so I'm pretty curious to see what happens.

'John'

Stage 1 - An Oil Portrait of Two Children.

Portrait: Stage 1 in a new direction.

It doesn't matter how you start a painting, it only matters that you start. Starting was once a problem for me, this is common for many people, but it's not a problem for me anymore. I'm long past that stage. Now, it seems, my problem is stopping starting.

I started a picture two or so years ago that I have only just stopped starting. It began in one way, as a completely different thing, two individual studies, and made out of plastic. Then I settled on a different idea, that both boys (the subjects of the picture) should be at play and in the one image, a single picture, not two. I began this as a pastel on cardboard, then as a pencil study on canvas. Finally as a very detailed oil painting on canvas. 

I'm long past stage one, but the image you see above is different from any I've drawn before, I've never started a portrait like this. Why would I? Why is it so mechanical? That will become clear later.

You can draw from life and work an image up, you can imagine it and draw free-hand onto the page, or paint it straight on the canvas. In the design above I found a new reason for painting this picture. Most pictures that are portraits are of interest only to the family of the people they aim to depict. In this case I want this picture to be the kind of thing anyone might want to hang on their wall. The objective is not to paint two children but paint something we all understand and share in childhood.

A sketch in pencil.

It's very hard to step out of your work and see it as others do. But I think it shows when you are not in the work in the way you should be. You must never lose yourself to the picture, your personality has to be in there, your take on the subject or the world. Why should a children's portrait be any different?...it shouldn't. Why should it be boring or meaningless to anyone outside the family? It shouldn't.

Pastel Test over Two pieces of Card  - with visible 'pentimento' and enlargement grid.

Your imagination should be as active there too. I've worked for months on pictures that have resulted in nothing but a big bloody bore. That's because I tried to meet a need that someone else had.

Not this time. I'm not sure if what I have planned will work or even how this painting will be received. But I doubt it will look quite like any portrait I've seen before. FYI - At least one small part of it will be painted with wine....how else could I justify showing the process here?

Toybox Colour Plan.

With the Toybox sketch above I was not concerned about likeness, it's just a rough, to test an idea that perhaps a realistic image with child-like colouring could work. It would, but it's not the direction I've finally, finally ....finally chosen. 

There will be more on this as the picture is completed.

S K Moore

Painting with Paint...for a Change.

Floodlight -Based on (but not) Grant

I had rather a novel idea recently, instead of creating images with materials that I could be drinking or eating, like wine or bread: I'd paint with paint for a change! How's that for an idea?

There are many ways a person can choose to paint, many branches one can follow. It never used to be like that, long ago you either could or you couldn't, you either were a painter or you weren't. But not so today, these days everyone can be a painter and I think the art-form is much more interesting now than it ever was. I hear (or rather read) a lot about the art of painting being dead. I think it's in fact more alive than ever.

Certain branches have withered on the tree of painting, but I don't know that they have died. Figurative realism for example, there are many painters working this way, especially in the United States but very few are very good, this may be one reason for the withering. It is probably the hardest direction to take and be good at, hats off to anyone who takes it on - it is a serious technical challenge the likes of which most painters never face today.

'Verisimilitude' 

To create an image in paint that looks alive and does not appear derivative or drop any false notes, that's hard! The human eye is not as easily fooled as we might think. One ham-fisted error and the game is lost. It is far easier and much more enjoyable to 'paint loose and get tight'. Although I don't agree with the 'get tight' bit, but this is something I heard from the actor Dennis Hopper when he came to Prague. He had been a painter and was a committed artist all his life. To my astonishment he came to my show to unveil a painting I made in 1995, I didn't believe the rumour that he was coming to my show and must admit I was seriously 'tight' when he arrived.

Personally I've only ever improved one painting in my life by 'getting tight'. But I understand the sentiment, to be relaxed in your work can often bear richer fruit. You are not trying, the trying is not obvious...you are just doing. Still, I wouldn't recommend any substance as a boost, it's just another pretension.

I'm a painter because I like to create, I love colour. I mean really - I love 'it', love absorbing, mixing it. So, most of my paintings will likely be more colourful than anything. In fact they may not be anything but colour sometimes, my choice. I have a broad view of what I like, love it in all its forms.  For this reason I've never understood the rigid, even defensive, stance 'art lovers' take over the forms they choose to love or loathe.

In the previous post you see a drawing I made that was automatic, childlike (If only I could communicate as well as kids do with paint!) and many times previously I've posted images that just use wine. In the coming weeks I will try to post images that go back to the form of highly finished painting, methods I pursued as a lad. In coming weeks I'll explain a little more about the process of traditional oil painting and where I think there is real value in the pursuit of this method for any artist - no matter what you love or loathe in art.

But I'll share one secret to painting realism right now - It takes long hours and it's hard work.

Studio Morning Study

Studio Morning Study

I am changing the way the studio is organised (or not!) this week so I thought I'd post this picture, created in 2008. My studio, typically cluttered, with finished and half finished pictures.

Every medium takes a degree of control away from the artist and shapes the finished work, the same picture drawn using different media can take very odd turns. I met with school children last year to demonstrate and talk a bit about my work. We drew human ears, each section with a different medium. Ink, chalk, pencil. The method shifts, your hand works a different way. The results were interesting in ways I hadn't expected. It was a good lesson and all down to the teacher really for he set it up that way. I wouldn't have because I don't mix media in that way ordinarily.

I took to the challenge of drawing with kids colouring pens about ten years ago, I decided to play a game with the line. I would not lay out anything in pencil and just start on a white page and draw (usually what was directly in front of me) to see how much control I could keep. I thought it an interesting challenge. Colouring pens are unforgiving. They bleed in a grotesque spot if you hesitate for a second and anything drawn cannot be undone. In order to make a picture the line has to be confident and the action of drawing continuous. I imagined my line as a burning fuse, if I stopped - 'BANG!'.

Paradox: Drawing of a Chair on my Easel that is not on my Easel.

I like the way the line seems to decide the forms, I like the way things overlap as I make decisions about the placement of objects, incorrect observations in most cases. Spaces close up and I often find I'm running out of space to place things that have been overlooked. For some reason this only happens when I draw this way with markers. Being unable to hesitate means finding new ways to slip in all the realities of a scene with inevitable clashes of perspective. To do a detailed picture without 'spotting' means the line is always growing and the pen always moving. Stopping mid-way leads to an obvious join. So to reach a cross line you must go all the way and stop precisely on the line. Try this.

In addition 'Studio Morning Study' was drawn over 8 pieces of paper, one at a time. So, where lines met edges and how well they matched on the succeeding pages, was unknown to me until the picture was laid out on the floor once completed.

Paradox

In the detail above you see a camera bag, easel, my arm and a chair I am drawing. There is a bit of a paradox here, I am drawing a chair as it appears in a drawing on my easel. But as you can see that's not how the chair appears in the drawing on the easel, the drawing is of an easel. Also the tiny chair in the drawing is more realistic than the large 'real' chair.

There are one or two accidental paradoxes in the picture, not deliberate, look at the bottom of the ladder, the back leg does not touch the ground. This is, as I mentioned above, a result of spaces opening and closing, a loss of control, a bonus of not planning. This is how I stay entertained in the work, little challenges and surprises. I called the first series of colouring pen drawings 'Morning Studies' and here you can see one drawn on a trip to London in 2005.

A different method is shown below, again with colouring pens but this time using cross hatching to build tone. It is a sketch of the writer Irvine Welsh and one of many portraits I made from newspaper photographs.

Irvine Welsh, sketched from a newspaper image.