Arts and Design
November 22nd, 2008 at 02:58am
Under Arts and Design
Any seaside resort in the United Kingdom is some how lacking if it hasn’t got any postcards of Beryl cooks work. Beryl Cook had been producing beautiful funny pictures of rotund people since the 1950’s. And her paintings, prints and postcards have quite rightly worked into the British psyche, striding through the modern focus of personal weight and showing the fun side to a normal England packed with enjoyable scenes and normal people.
Beryl Cook Prints are very sought after, its a long way from when she began. Her son John cook was born in 1950 and a few years after Beryl Cook used a few of his paints and began painting a picture for herself. Beryl Cook loved painting to such a degree that she just didn’t stop, and from that point on we have had the joy of her work. Beryl Cook found it very hard to get her prints into galleries, as galleries thought there was not much of a market for her funny pictures, but once her work became available for sale they sold very quickly.
Beryl Cook had her first show at London’s Portal Gallery and her work was a massive sensation with her work totally selling out. I believe what was so great about Sheryl Cook’s work was the fact that she simply painted scenes that had made her laugh or got her thinking about a particular subject. This ensured that every one of her pieces were created with love and concern that only appears when you are creating a piece that you are loving doing. The late Beryl Cook painted some amazing work that moves on in her postcards and prints and is loved by the world over.
By joanne
November 21st, 2008 at 09:07pm
Under Arts and Design
How to draw with pencil fundamentals - the line in pencil drawing.
Speaking of the lines, we should have several important issues mentioned in this publication. As the line is part of the basic skills which you should master seriously - let’s get into the details of this issue.
The following characteristics are most often mentioned about the line.
Length - Naturally, the length of a straight line is the distance between its beginning point and its end point.
Direction - A straight line also has a direction. Its direction is determined by the angle it makes with a horizontal or vertical line.
So, when you want to draw a straight line you need to think about two things: length and direction.
Then, you also have to develop a technique to actually draw that line. A pencil artist seldom uses a ruler to draw a straight line. Lines are drawn free-hand.
The idea here is to swing your arm from the elbow as opposed to from the wrist. You can use your wrist for tiny lines or other small details. But generally you keep your wrist and lower arm fixed as one unit and you rotate your elbow as you draw the line. This movement happens quite fast.
To measure the length of a line you can use the following procedure.
First, you choose a Basic Length Unit. It is the length of a line segment that is not too long and not too short relative to a scene.
We will choose two such basic units:
1. Life Unit - First, we choose a basic length unit for the real scene you want to draw. For a large life scene you can do this by holding a pencil at arm’s length with locked elbow. Then, with one eye closed, you can measure a basic unit (not too long and not too short) with your pencil using your thumb as a marker. Draw this line segment on a separate piece of paper.
2. Paper Unit - Now, you also need a basic length for your actual drawing. This is because the size of the real scene will usually be different from the one you will render on your paper. Again, use your pencil to choose a basic length unit suitable for the size of your paper and call it the “Paper Unit”. Draw it next to the Life Unit.
Now we are ready to use these two basic units. We use the Life Unit to measure any length on the real composition. We express these lengths in terms of the number of Life Units. For example, you will speak of this table leg being about half a Life Unit or this hat sits 1.5 Life Units to the left of that umbrella.
Next, you take your Paper Unit and multiply it by the ratio you just obtained with your Life Unit. For example, on your paper the table leg will measure 0.5 times the Paper Unit or the hat will sit 1.5 Paper Units to the left of the umbrella. That’s all there is to it.
Then there remains the technique to measure angles:
Angles are measured relative to the horizontal and the vertical. If you work on rectangular paper you can use its vertical and horizontal edges as a reference. The angle you observe in your life composition will be the same on your paper. No ratio involved here.
Again, you can use your pencil but this time align it horizontally (or vertically) and estimate the angle a particular line makes with your horizontal or vertical. This technique requires some practice but after awhile you’ll get a feel for angles. After you’ve drawn the line you can check of the length as well as the angle seem right to you. It is remarkable how quickly the eye gets trained to detect incorrect proportions and angles.
Note that curved lines can be considered as a linkage of small straight lines so that the same techniques can also be applied in an approximate manner to these curved lines.
The above tips should start you off in the right direction with regards to dealing with lines.
Read also about beginners oil painting tips. Visit tattoo tips blog.
By joanne
November 20th, 2008 at 08:45am
Under Arts and Design
Pencil Drawing Fundamentals - The Compositional Role of Object Placement and Viewpoint Selection
In this article we will learn about some of the considerations to be made when it comes to creating a composition or selecting a particular viewpoint.
First, let us introduce a few definitions:
Eye Level - The eye level is the height of the line (eye level line) that connects your two pupils. This assumes that you stand vertically on a level surface.
Eye Level Plane - A horizontal plane drawn through the eye level line is called the eye level plane. This plane divides a scene into an upper and a lower half space. It is worth mentioning and to remember that to see objects in the upper half space you will need to look up and to see those in the lower one you will need to look down.
Horizon - The intersection of the eye level plane and a face-on vertical plane is called a horizon. An example of a close approximation of a horizon is the actual ocean horizon you see when standing on a beach. You will find that to view anything below the horizon your eyeballs need to rotate downward and to view anything above the horizon you will have to rotate your eyeballs upward.
Now, when you create a composition, you must first consider the height at which you will place the objects. This is critical because many compositions are weakened when the placement of the objects is either too high or too low relative to the horizon.
It is good practice to ask questions such as: Would my objects look better if I saw them from above? Would the composition benefit from lowering my eye level? What if the horizon were to split the objects? This last option means that a particular object is located such that part of it is above the horizon and part of it is below the horizon. That is, you see neither the top nor the bottom of the object.
The choice of placement of the objects relative to the horizon depends to a large extent on the form and the number of objects that participate in your composition.
Next to the placement of your objects relative to the horizon, your composition will also be fundamentally influence by your choice of viewpoint.
The viewpoint is determined by the location of the eye level plane and the location of your eyes on the eye level line. To help you understand the effect of the viewpoint on a composition, place a group of objects on a table and start varying your viewpoint, i.e., change the eye level plane by moving your eye level line up or down and then also by moving your eyes along the eye level line.
The idea is to study these different viewpoints, i.e., see how the composition changes when the viewpoint changes. Some of the objects will begin to intersect with others. Others will now show their top or bottom. At the same time you can also change the placement of the objects relative to each other to improve certain compositions that you found.
It is clear that both the placement of objects and the selection of a viewpoint drastically influence the composition of a scene. Your task as an artist is to change both placement and viewpoint in such a way that you end up with the composition that suits your artistic requirements the best.
It makes good sense to learn the difference. This can be done by developing your artistic sensibility for composition. One way to do this is to pay attention to composition when you study the work of great artists. In fact, the greatness of the work of some artists rests specifically on their talent for seeing good composition.
With this I hope that you now have developed awareness as to the importance of object placement and viewpoint selection and how they influence composition and therefore the attractiveness of your work.
Read how to draw with pencil, beginners oil painting tips and some glimpse of art with the home decorating interiors.
By joanne
November 19th, 2008 at 02:09am
Under Arts and Design
Museum replicas are about education as well as serving to bring back memories to old men. Often, classes of young children visit the old school classroom at the Allerford Rural Life Museum to enable them to taste first hand a little bit of what it was like to go to school in the olden days. Museums are normally non-profit organizations and are there to share the love of their particular interests but they do need to cover expenses. Insurance and liability are a big expense, as well as staff. Museums are all extremely different in almost every way. Where museums are not run by a central body, governments have generally encouraged competition rather than cooperation.
Museums are full of wonder. Now, in order to thrive, they are diversifying management to meet the increasing demands of today’s economy. Museums are coming up with new strategies to lure schools back. The Chicago Children’s Museum sends teachers a checklist that highlights how the museum can help them meet Illinois state standards, while representatives from the New England Aquarium visit schools in Massachusetts to explain how its programs can give kids a boost. Museums are public areas and movement within them cannot be restricted. Another great resource on this can be found at this blog on History Gifts.
Museums can still do much to protect their interests through carefully drafted licensing contracts. In addition, museums will need to be more vigilant in controlling the use of their transparencies. Museums can use mobile phones not only to broadcast museum knowledge to people on the move, but also to turn up the volume and listen to on the move everyday meanings of museum objects. Museums can take many forms and provide thematic inspiration for countless event options. Often what comes to mind first are those traditional buildings housing old masters, folk art, collections focused on natural history or the history of the area, photography, etc.
For a stunning Museum-based website filled with handcrafted and painted art replicas varying from Ancient Egyptian Art and Ancient Greek Art, to Mayan Culture and European Artists, that will make family and friends jealous of your history gifts and home decoration explore this adventurous treasure site on History Gifts.
By joanne
November 15th, 2008 at 07:26am
Under Arts and Design
Your Free Beginners Oil Painting Tips - Solvents Mediums and Varnishes
If you paint with oils you will need a solvent to clean your brushes and thin your paints. Of course, if you paint with water soluble oils then your solvent will be water.
Turpentine is a standard solvent used to thin ordinary oil paints. You can purchase turpentine in any art supply store or hardware store.
Some artists work with mineral spirits. These are also available in hardware stores. To save money, buy the largest available quantity and use a smaller container when you do your actual painting.
Tube oil paint can be difficult to manipulate. Some colors are stiffer than others and may be hard to evenly distribute over your canvas. To solve this problem, artists often need to mix their tube paints with a so-called painting medium.
A painting medium is a liquid solution that makes the oil paint smoother and easier to manipulate. Adding any one of a number of different painting mediums changes the consistency of the paint. Some mediums are meant to make the paint thinner for glazing and others are meant to make the paint thicker for impasto painting. There are also mediums to shorten or lengthen the drying.
The most basic medium is regular turpentine. Adding a little turpentine thins oils paint. Another frequently used medium is linseed oil, which makes the paint more fluid but, over time, it also tends to yellow the paint. The most commonly used medium is a combination of turpentine and linseed oil, sometimes with the addition of a little damar varnish.
Begin by experimenting with a half-and-half mixture of turpentine and linseed oil. Because linseed oil slows down the drying process, you may want to increase the proportion of turpentine. A good mixture is three parts of turpentine to one part of linseed oil.
Once you find the medium you like, mix a batch and store it in a tightly sealed jar. As you paint, dip your brush into the medium, then add a little paint, then mix them together on your palette (mixing surface).
Preliminary compositions can be drawn on your canvas with a so-called thin turp wash, i.e., a little bit of paint with a lot of turpentine. A turp wash evaporates very quickly, so you can quickly paint over them.
In general, the more turpentine you use the matter the finish will be and the more linseed oil you use the glossier it will be. If you like robust, permanently visible brushstrokes, you may want to use less medium. Dry brush is one technique where you do not add any medium at all.
Special painting mediums are also available that change the oil paint in different ways. The most common are those that shorten or lengthen the drying time of the oil paint. Check your art supply store or the Internet to see the available types of mediums. All medium bottles will show instructions on how best to use the particular medium.
Oil paintings must be varnished to protect them from undesirable elements such as dirt and toxins. Varnish is a clear solution made from a resin and turpentine or some other solvent.
In art-supply stores you will see two major types, retouching varnish and picture varnish. Depending on the paint layer thickness, it can take six months or more for an oil painting to dry. In the meantime, the surface of the painting needs to be protected with a coat of retouching varnish. After the varnish is applied, the turpentine evaporates, and leaving a thin protective coat. You can apply retouching varnish as soon as the paint feels dry to the touch.
Picture varnish contains more resin than retouching varnish. It should be applied about six months after you complete a painting. If you paint with impasto-like brushstrokes, you may have to wait as long as a year before applying the final coat.
Both types of varnish are applied in the same manner. Using a broad, flat nylon brush, apply the varnish evenly using horizontal strokes. You can also use retouching varnish to brighten dry dull patches in your painting.
Learn also how to draw with pencil and read these tattoo tips publications.
By joanne
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