SNOW!

Oh my God! SNOW!!! Quick, panic buy! Bread, copious amounts of bread, buy it. And milk. More milk than is humanly possible to drink before it goes off. Petrol! Mustn't forget the petrol, to fuel the car to carry out the bread and milk salvage. Snow chains too... Should definitely get some of those this year. I heard it's going to be 10 cm deep. 10 cm! Ten centimeters! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Oh, wait... it's melting already.

I love snow. Call me childish, but I always get excited at the prospect of snow each winter time. Especially when it coincides with Christmas like it did last year (here in Britain). It almost makes the season bearable. I just love the look of it. Even the most aesthetically miserable places are cheered up by its glistening white icey coating.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the snow is going to be making a prolonged visit this year, which is why I'm glad I ventured out in it earlier with my camera. The sun was hidden behind clouds all day, so sadly there were no nice shadows or reflections to be taken in. Instead I messed around with long exposures and small apertures. As long and small as my camera will allow anyway, which isn't all that long or small as it happens. The ND filter however  helped to extend both as much as was possible in the available light.

As in my last post, the images were taken at Hay Wood, near Baddesley Clinton.

Keep to the Path!

A noble message, an amusing one too, displayed along the track leading up to the church near Baddesley Clinton encountered on my weekend walk.

But in terms of getting the best photographs, not the best advice God has ever decreed...
The best photos are often taken when you stray from the path and start to see things from a new perspective. As evidenced by a wander through nearby Hay Wood. It was a lovely frosty morning and the sky was clear, full of that excellent winter light which makes everything look so very fresh and picturesque.


I must have walked about three or four miles in and around the small one or two square mile section of woodland and taken over 200 pictures, and with almost every push of the shutter release I thought to myself "it's impossible to take a bad photo here". To the point where I felt I might be going a bit mad, like when you get a tiny section of a song you hate stuck in your head on a seemingly infinite loop.

Getting off the main pathways and into the heart of the forest provided the best photo opportunities. Unfortunately, a lot of them looked better through my viewfinder than they do on my 27 inch monitor... I'm certain this is God's way of punishing me for straying from the path. That or my 9 year old camera is starting to show its age. One of the two.

Here are some of the better ones-

Speed Painting Time Lapse Fast Forward Mega Art

As promised, here is a video I created of me painting Ella the dog, a commission from November. It's turned out pretty well. It's 1080p and everything.

Using my camera's intervalometer to record the process, an image was taken every minute, resulting in over 2000 photos which were then put together to create a 30fps video where each image is held for 3 frames. (So, effectively 10fps but with a better refresh rate, if that makes sense.)

Yes, that is the exact same description I used on Youtube... What of it?!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year readers. Now it's 2012 you get to say twenty twelve all the time because it's four whole syllables quicker than saying two thousand and eleven, and space year twenty twelve is going to be pretty jam packed. Ain't got time to waste on unnecessary syllable pronunciation. No Sir. No way... A little tip: You can save even more valuable time by leaving out the second T in 'twenty' and adding an N. Twenny twelve! It takes just as long to type, but saying it saves the annoying additional tongue articulation required by the T.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

I haven't done any more painting since my last update, Christmas break and all that, but I've been contemplating my next work. I'm thinking bigger, better and involving more of a scene, rather than just portrait based. Perhaps a horse in the country side. I took some cool photos towards the end of the summer back in September last year, which will make for great reference material. They can currently be seen on my Flickr account (link to the right).

Speaking of Flickr; yesterday I took some spur of the moment photos of a nice refraction of light on my carpet. It wasn't intentional, but on placing a glass of water onto my desk it happened to be in the right position for the sunlight to hit it at such an angle that the beam diffused out into all the colours of the rainbow. After experimenting with an Xbox controller I placed my glasses in its path instead.

I think they look quite nice.

Keep an eye out for my next update, where I'll be sharing even more useful time saving tips. I also intend to upload a video time-lapse of me painting Ella the dog (See last entry). It should be interesting!

Until then, all the best for TWENNY TWELVE!

It's a Dog's Life

As promised in my last update, here is a photo of the last painting I completed, a commission no less, of Ella. A dog. (Just in case you were wondering which particular animal it was.)

The person who commissioned the painting (as a birthday gift) and the recipient were both delighted with the final product. -Always a relief. They said I'd captured her spirit and essence and said how closely it resembled her.

I was fairly sure I'd captured her look accurately enough, but if anyone should know, it's going to be the dog's owners, so having that confirmed was great.

Phew!

*Exhales*

It's been a very busy couple of months of late, what with setting up multiple online gallery/shop spaces and entering several exhibitions locally. On top of that I've been writing applications for various jobs, plus one university course that I would very much like to get on. I came to the process relatively late, so doing my research and getting everything organised has been a little bit hectic.

I've also been working away on a commission which is due for completion very soon. It is of a pet dog called Ella and is intended as a surprise birthday present for the husband of the commission maker.

As soon as it's completed I'll upload a scan here. In the meantime, here's a photo of a lion mug. ROAR!

Available to order at all good LukoStores!

The Hard Sell

BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS! BUY MY THINGS!

BUY THEM! NOW!

I've been busy lately researching and setting up the infrastructure to hopefully start selling more of my work- original paintings, prints, etc. and also to publish my artwork and to take commissions.

As such I have stores on various sites such as Zazzle, BigCartel and Etsy, amongst other online galleries. Why not check them out! :) I'll be updating them regularly with new work and products.

http://www.zazzle.co.uk/LukoStore
http://www.etsy.com/shop/LukoStore
http://www.LukoStore.bigcartel.com/

Eventually I hope to have a dedicated website, showcasing my work and providing an ordering system too. It'll be useful for promotional purposes, to put on business cards and the like.

What's the time Mr. Wolf?

I took the opportunity this week to re-work the wolf painting that I originally posted a good many months ago. I was not happy with it at the time or afterwards as I felt it could do with some more detail and better colour balancing.

I'm reasonably happy with it now. The edges look more like how I wanted them to the first time round, with more definition against the background. I also took some time to improve the eyes, as they looked a little bit too intense before, like the wolf was tripping rather heavily or something. Now he just looks mildly drunk.

Something Something Tiger

Another painting, another deliberation over the title.

The tiger was done in record time, compared to the other paintings, which I'm quite happy about. I intend to keep on lessening the time it takes whilst maintaining the same or higher quality in future output.

The tiger, gorilla and wolf are now framed and ready for exhibiting at the Reading Rooms in Berkswell over this coming weekend (Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st July), so it will be interesting to see what happens...

Miscellaneous.

Steven Avery's Mum looks a lot like Yoda...

The Ecosse brothers.

Fruit Salad

Tom from the Apprentice 2011