Figure Drawing. Warning: Nudity Ahead.

A figure drawing (from photo) sketch in hard pastel on brown paper. 

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Miniature paintings

I've recently started working on miniature paintings. I've always worked relatively small, but being forced to move around a lot and having to live in a very small apartment with no space (long story involving earthquakes and insurance companies) has led me to explore working in miniature.  I have to say I love the challenge of seeing how much detail I can get into a small space! And I actually find it easier in a lot of ways too. I can include a lot more detail that I would get bored with if I was doing larger paintings. 

Two teeny tiny beach paintings on teeny tiny easels. Acrylic/mixed media. ACEO size - 63mmx89mm.

Figure Drawing. NSFW

Some figure drawing studies drawn from photos.  The first drawings of 2012. (Pretty slack of me considering it's February already).  These are drawn from photos volunteered by a kind life model on the Wet Canvas forums.

First one is pencil on paper, about 2.5 hours work in total.  The longer I look at it the less happy I am with it, but I had fun doing it. I had forgotten how much I enjoy doing figure drawing. It's certainly challenging!

The second one is artline pens on paper.  About an hours work in total for the 5 poses.
I think this was exactly what I needed to get motivated again.

Posted with permission from the model.

Edited to put the drawings behind a break because I realised they aren't really work safe :p

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Last drawing of 2011

I've been meaning to upload this for the last two months.  This was done as a christmas present for my mother for christmas in 2011.  Blue ballpoint pen and letraset tria marker on plain paper.
As it happens this turned out to be the last piece of art I finished in 2011.

New Etsy Store, Back in 2012, And Happy New Year!

Well it's been almost a year since I last posted anything significant to the blog due to a number of factors, not the least of them being the earthquakes and subsequent moving and house dramas, but 2011 is over, and I'm hoping for a better 2012 and I'm planing to be much more active this year.

What better way to start off the new Year than with a brand new Etsy Store!

 Click the link to visit, or http://www.etsy.com/shop/ZoeSotetArtStudio

The blog is on an indefinite hiatus due to the major earthquake we had in Christchurch on the 22nd of February 2011

Abstract II

Mixed Media and Oil on Canvas. 

I decided to do a video of the whole painting process.  I had to edit it down and speed it up a lot to shrink two hours of footage down to 3.45 seconds but it essentially shows all parts of the process. Editing the video, and finding royalty free music to set it to, took longer than the painting process, especially when my video editing program kept crashing.
I wanted to show the lengthy process of preparing the canvas. Next time I will just focus on the painting portion.

The music is Graveyard - The Liquid Kitchen. Downloaded from http://www.jamendo.com/en/

This is the beginning of a new series.  I've been wanting to move in a different more abstract and dynamic direction for a while now, but it took a while for inspiration to strike. I have a lot of ideas up my sleeve now though.

Ohmygosh! The blog is more than a year old!

It went by without me even noticing.

New art and an explanation of why I've been so quiet very soon.

I apologise in advance for this being such a long entry.

I'm terrible with names. Let me just begin by saying that.  

I often get asked about my favourite artist, or artists I've been influenced by, and I'm always reduced to mutterering incomprehensibly about being bad with names.

I tend to see things I like in books or in person or on the internet, but later I couldn't tell you who they were created by or what they really look like. 

So I thought I would take the time to compile a blog post on the matter, which has been much easier with the internet at my fingertips to jog my memory about names.

The first artist I can really remember being interested in is Salvador Dali. Surrrealism in general, but definitely Dali in particular. 

 Salvador Dali - The Persistence of Memory 1931

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Landscape XVII

Oil on Canvas. 254mm x 508mm (10"x20")

Updatery

This is what I'm working on at the moment.  More soon.

Lizard

For the longest time there have been three picture hooks above my bed with nothing on them because I couldn't think what to put there. Then I found three matching empty picture frames in my studio and though 'why don't I paint something to go in these for the bedroom'.

Unfortunately I didn't think it through very clearly because in my head the composition went something like this:

Click to embiggen

Whereas in reality the spacing of the picture hooks was more like this:

Still I'm quite happy with it.  Even if it loses some of it's continuity with the segments being so far apart.
It's not any particular sort of lizard, it's meant to convey a general sense of lizardyness.

Mixed media on card.  (Acrylic paint, graphite, coloured pencil, matt medium, gold paint)

I'm working on some new stuff I swear!

I am working on something, but just as I started to get back into the swing of things after the earthquake I sprained my ankle rather badly, and there are a daunting number of stairs up to my studio.

But soon my pretties! Soon!

Brief hiatus

I have been on a brief break due to the relatively major earthquake we had in Christchurch on the 4th of September, and having started a new job last week.

Thankfully there hasn't been any damage to my house or workplace, but the aftershocks have been continuing since the earthquake, and it's been rather unsettling, so I haven't felt much like being in my (second floor) studio.

I hope to get some things started on my next day off.

Seascape I

304x406mm (12x16" ) Oil on canvas.

WIP

Skyroad

This was just me messing around trying to figure out how to achieve a certain effect.  I didn't really get it, but actually I think this turned out pretty cool anyway. Yay for random successes! 

Oil on canvas 

Knight

Watercolour knight painted for my nephew's birthday.

Landscape XVI

Click to embigen

Mixed media and oil on canvas, 8x16"

This was a struggle.  It started out as one thing, turned into another, became a third thing, then morphed into a fourth thing. I'm reasonably happy with it now though.

Delirium

A sketch of Delirium of the Endless from Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. I'm going to do a watercolour version.