Tu-Bardh

Tu-Bardh
Pencil on paper

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Finding inspiration



It is not always easy to find inspiration, so , when I see an image like the one above taken by the very talented Aaron Offord, I first of all always ask the photographer or owner of the image if it would be alright to rework their photograph. I feel as an artist it is respectful to ask if you could rework their image because I would like the same respect in the other direction. The law is vast and copyright law says that reproduction of photographs and artworks is unlawful (http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law ) and law's are different in other countries! I did copyright law at Uni and I feel very strongly about respecting other artist and photographers, enough about law and back to art, never did like that class at Uni, I'm an artist not a lawyer.

I thought that this black and white photograph lent itself to a graphite drawing, the man is quite slender and therefore quite angular, I find this kinda pose works very well with learning how to get the likeness right, Likeness is my bug bear, I prefer a not so well drawn image where the likeness is spot on than a fantastic drawn image that has high detail but they have not got the likeness right.

I used a 6B and 8B graphite stick, I prefer graphite sticks because they are so versatile; you can use them on their side, or as  a regular pencil, snap them and get interesting marks and also scrape dust from them and uses that and many others!

I have another drawing starting and again have asked the owner for permission and will let you see it when it is finished.
Thank you 
Artyjax