Workspaces

Hell’s bells! I think that summer is my least favourite time of the year. My studio is a bit of a hot box on a sunny day, and since I use water soluble paint … well, it’s better to just stay well away from art during heatwaves.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a studio for the past three years. If you think that it’s like one of those studios that you see in lifestyle magazines, then you would be off the mark. What I call a studio is actually a spare bedroom with a KEEP OUT sticker on the door at cat level. The furniture doesn't really match (and I don't mean in the artful, stylised kind of way) and I have a floor-drobe approach to storage. When I was setting the studio up I made the mistake of getting a white desk. Who would have guessed that white furniture would be prone to getting all painty?

As it turns out, lack of style hasn’t affected function. It’s great to have a room where all of my art stuff is. A whole room might be tricky for a lot of people, but I highly recommend setting up some kind of dedicated workspace for your art (even if it’s just a table in your living room).

Anyway, hopefully the worst is summer will be behind us soon and I can get back to it! I’ve done a few rough sketches this week and should have something finished in time for my next post.

New Artwork

Originally this was only going to be a trial for a much larger artwork, but I quite like how it turned out on its own. After a couple of years of large format pieces (mostly A1,) I’ve rediscovered the (relatively) low stress of small format again. It’s no big deal to get halfway through an ink drawing on A3 or A4 and have to start again, which is great if you’re a chronic smudger like me!

Anyway, I’ve been reading a lot of magazines over the summer and found an art competition to have a go at, as well as finding a few illustration and design-orientated mags that I really like. I can’t say that I enter competitions with a great deal of expectation (you know, in the sense that I don’t spend much time thinking about my triumphant acceptance speech and how I will cope with my sudden rise to fame), but it’s good to have things to work towards.

http://www.yenmag.net/artaward/

The Beginning

For the past few months I've been able to take some time off work and focus on my art, which has been amazing. This year I'm returning to full time work and I thought that starting this blog might motivate me to keep my output up.
Alter Egos is a personal blog about work, life and art, as well as a sort of illustration folio (sadly, web design is beyond me). My plan is to post a finished artwork at least once a month and to post something (be it text, artwork or sketches) every fortnight. So, let's get started.
I'd like to post a few of my favourite pieces from the past couple of years to kick things off. Since posting old artwork each fortnight wouldn't really be in the spirit of this blog, this will be the first and last time.