Breaking through creative block

It has been quite a while since I've done any drawing or painting. 2015 started with me moving into a new home, then a whole lot of things kept me away from my pens, pencils and paint. My day job is doing magazine layout and design, it is a fantastic creative outlet and I currently work on three magazines.Two are published monthly and one is published every two months.

But the yearning to draw or paint is strong, and I finally sat down last night and picked up my sketchbook and coloured ballpoint pens and started drawing.

Drawing with ballpoint pens offers quite a challenge, there is no blending, no erasing, no way of correcting. Once that line is on the paper, it is there to stay. As far back as I can remember, I have been drawing faces. Drawing faces from imagination is fun, I don't always get the proportions right, and I often battle with the nose, but the point is just to draw. I find drawing from the imagination to be very therapeutic and relaxing. It is also a good way to break through my creative block.

A change in direction

For quite a while now I have been wanting to move my painting into a different direction, one that I loved as an art student; figure studies. I've had this one planned for quite a while now, and I finally got to start it recently.

I started by laying down the tonal values first and you can see the progress below.  It is quite challenging but it is slowly getting there. I will post more photos as I do some more work on it.

Putting pen to paper

Sometimes it is nice to take a break from painting and just draw without any plan in mind.  The drawing above is done in my sketchbook with ball point pens, gel pens and highlighters. And it started off as a weird doodle. I usually draw like this when I am sick or unable to sleep, and while watching TV.  They are a wonderful distraction from everything around me.

I had so much fun doing the hair in the above drawing and that led to the doodle below. I think I got a bit carried away, but it was so much fun. This one was done with my sharpies.

Drawing doodles is almost like a form of meditation, I find that I get ideas for other drawings and paintings while doing these doodles.  

Lady with the Blue Wrap

Lady with the Blue Wrap

Acrylic on Masonite

400 x 600mm

NOT FOR SALE

It has been a while since I posted.  After painting the portraits for the 30 Paintings in 30 Days project, I decided to tackle something a little different to my usual work and I really enjoyed it.  The trick about painting something like this is that you need a model to work from.  As an everyday person who is also an artist, it is not that easy to find someone to model for you.  As an art student I was lucky enough to do life drawing and we had models who would pose for us.

This painting has reminded me how I loved figure drawing and painting.  So keep watching this space, I am going to venture into this field a bit more.

I almost forgot to share the collage below.  It shows the painting through the different stages from beginning to end.