Budleigh Photograph Expedition

In late June 2011 I embarked on a mini break to Devon. I stayed in a delightful village named Budleigh Salterton, and when I went down I took an assortment of stationary with me in case I felt compelled to be creative. I also took my camera in case I felt like taking some snaps. In the end I opted for the latter.

On several occasions I went for a long sojourn along the estuary path that leads to Otterton and took many photographs in course. I have no grandios illusions about being a professional photographer, and the vast majority of my pictures were meagre 'happy snaps' However, I figured I'd post a few random pics just to show some signs of creative life. Enjoy.

Attack From Above 2009/2011

Those of you who frequent my blog on anything like a regular basis may find the above image somewhat familiar. The reason for this is that it's an image I completely re-draw every couple of years. I first drew it in 1998, then again in 1999, 2000, 2004 and the above image was drawn in 2009. However, the latest version was never quite 'perfect' because at the time I drew it I was begining to slow down creatively. Consequently; I ended up drawing the image okay enough, yet never produced the rest of it to any degree of satisfaction. Following this image, I didn't draw again for approximately 10 months.

I've gone through the creative cycle a few times since, and now that I'm entering into a new one, I figured I'd give this the once over. While the whole image has now been subject to subtle tweaking and fine-tuning, the central character of Biggins was completely re-scanned and re-coloured. I've also softened and darkened the whole image to make it more visually appealing.

Now - time to begin preparing for this week's Illustration Friday entry...

Illustration Friday: Stir

This week the word on Illustration Friday's website was "Stir". I was initially in two minds about whether to sit at my drawing desk tonight as the word didn't provide me with any immediate inspiration. However, in the end I quantified the definitions of the word and devised a basic scene where somebody is simply stirring something - very straight-forward, eh. The result is naturally the picture you see above.

I know - it's not going to win any awards, but considering it was conjoured up entirely in the space of a few hours, it's not half bad. I hope you like it anyway and I have to admit - in the end I had a lot of fun doing this one.

Illustration Friday: Warning

Hello folks. Man, it's been ages since I entered Illustration Friday! To tell the truth I've not been drawing much lately but I'm determined to begin a new creative phase.

For IF this week we were given the word "Warning". I actually managed to scrape a few half-decent ideas together for this, but all were too ambitious - you know what it's like when you've not drawn for a while; you get rusty - lazy!

Well, in the end I plumped for the above idea. It's a fairly weak concept - the idea being that the gate has a "Beware the Dog" warning sign, and yet ironically, one can see the dog and there really is nothing to be warey of. That said, it's not bad for a couple hours work, and I am pretty rusty. Maybe next week I'll be forthcoming with something more deserving of merit.

So how are you?

My First Colourisation Tests

Hey all. Has it really been over half a year since I blogged my guts out? Guess I've been having another "fallow period", but I'll be participating in Illustration Friday this week so keep your eyes peeled.

Until then, I'm afraid I don't have any new artistic creations to share, but I have recently been expanding my Photoshop knowledge: in particular with regards to colourising black & white photographs.

Last month my grandfather died and while this has naturally been a sad occasion for my family, for a number of us it has created a renewed interest in the old family photographs. During the last few weeks a small number of photographs have surfaced that I've never had the privalidge of seeing and while it has confirmed my fear that there aren't a great many photos of my grandfather in existance it did make me eager to try out a "colourisation" process that I've recently been reading up on.

The photograph below was taken in about 1957, and features my grandfather, my mother (on the left) and my aunty (on the right). The picture quality was fairly clear and so it was an ideal candidate for my first colourisation attempt.

Having completed the above test, I continued to "tweak" until I had a more vibrant spectrum.

Having completed this first example and being somewhat happy with the results, I decided to take a picture of my father taken in about 1968, and not only colour it but restore the damage to the hard copy.

This was how the original was scanned in. It was done at a rather low resolution and it was immediatly apparent that this would place some limitations on how clear I could get it to look. In the end I repaired most of the damage, but owing to the contrast level of the hard copy, I found it a lot more challenging to colourise. My father's the one on the right incidentally.

Having completed these two tests, I shall soon embark on restoring the oldest and most fragile family photo album. Who knows, I might even take a few colour photographs and desaturate them - sometimes black & white really does do more poetic justice to a photograph than "florid" colour.