Wedding Portrait Art

I recently was asked to produce a painting as a wedding gift. The painting was commissioned by the brother of the groom who, in his own words, could not get excited by the standard items on the wedding gift list. So, although his gift was a little late for the wedding itself, it was hopefully one of the more original presents that the bride and groom received.

The painting was based on one of the wedding photographer's photos. The original photo had more going on in the background, with guests excitedly watching the couple's first dance. However, I thought it would make for a nicer painting if the only focus was the newly married couple - as if they were the only people in the world for that one special moment. 

Consequently, I kept things simple and went for a black background with the spotlight on the couple's warm embrace.

To commission your own portrait painting as a wedding gift, please get in touch here or through artbylukebennett.com

Slow Work Days

We all have them from time to time. Slow work days that is. And towards the end of my employment in my last job I had many of them. There simply wasn't enough work coming in to keep everyone busy, even after the company tried to run on a skeleton staff. So before the day of redundancy came, I spent my notice period occupying myself by carrying out what seemed like futile and menial tasks for the company's owners and secretly doodling in my sketch pad.

The latter part was great. I felt like I was finally getting paid to do something I enjoyed. It would have been even better if I wasn't doing it alone in a dark, windowless room measuring no more than 2 or 3 meters in either direction. (For some reason, the powers that be decided that seeing as we were to be made redundant, they might as well make the last few weeks of our employment there as unbearable as possible; separating everybody up, restricting our internet access and being thoroughly unpleasant at any given opportunity. I think they were hoping we'd walk and so save having to pay us...) But still, you can't have everything.

Below are a few of the sketches I did during that period, as well as some Whale-phant/Ele-Whale* doodles and a dinosaur flying a kite.

*a character I'm working on. More to come in future updates. Maybe.

The cat is my pet, Minnie, who I've sketched and painted before, viewable in earlier posts in this blog. The man is my Grandad. The horses were in anticipation of a painting I might attempt at some point. All were done very quickly (by my standards) with no real dedication to extreme accuracy, rather to being speedy.

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-

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...

Mother and Child!

'Mother and Child'. Or something. I really struggle to come up with good titles for finished paintings. I seem to want to just say what the painting is of, like 'Lion'. 'Tiger'. 'Wolf'. 'Paint on canvas, applied by a brush over a number of hours, whilst listening to the inane babble of ITV's Loose Women'.

I really tried with this painting, but all I could come up with (before Mother and Child, which is pretty rubbish really) was 'The Universal'. Which is incredibly pretentious. Ha. Oh well, something to work at...

The painting itself, I'm quite happy with. Again, I feel like I could have done more, as usual, but it was becoming a case of ever diminishing returns the more I worked on it. I'm still learning what works and what doesn't. I still haven't mastered what brush to use and when, instead sticking to the same one or two brushes, which probably aren't always best suited.

Ideally I'd like a really, really fine and stiff brush to get the really fine details on, but I can't seem to find any for sale.

To Post or Not to Post

I've been in two minds for a while now as to whether or not to make this post. The reason being; I'm not all that happy with they way the above painting has turned out. But then I decided there's no point in only showing things when you're happy with them. If I did that, I'd probably never ever post on here. I almost always feel that there's more I could have done with a painting or sketch. Most artists probably think that way. It's what drives us on as human beings- the eternal search for perfection.

Actually, that probably gives the wrong idea about what I'm aiming for in my work. It's definitely not perfection. Not in a photo-real sense anyway.

Unfortunately with the wolf painting I ended up leaving it too late, and being as I had a deadline for its completion- the hand in date at the gallery in which it is now hanging- to me it appears unsatisfactory. I know that if I had managed my time slightly more effectively I could have achieved a higher degree of detail and finish. As it is, to me at least, it looks incomplete and lacks detail, which is a shame as I can see its potential.

At this moment I should point out to any future potential employers or clients, that on a professional basis my time management and ability to reach deadlines satisfactorily is impeccable :) The wolf however was done purely for personal reasons, so I'm allowed to slack off.

Officially a Professional?

Great news, I've sold my first painting. In fact it actually sold a few months ago. I'm now working on another. Stay tuned.

It's flattering to know that people are prepared to part with their hard-earned in order to have something I've created. It also provides a nice confidence boost and incentive to keep doing more. Hopefully, quicker, better and more often.

Finished Lion Portrait.

I should have made this post a couple of months ago, but the lion painting has been finished, framed and exhibited. As always I felt like I could have done with another week or so to fine tune it, but never mind. With any luck someone will like it enough to buy it.

"Lions"

A friend of mine wrote a poem once, entitled "Lions". The poem went as follows:

"...
...
...
...... Lions!
...
...
... "

The pause and delivery were integral to the poem's success. Obviously it was better in real life than it is on paper, but to this day it remains the only poem I can recite off by heart. And that, I think, speaks volumes.

It was with this poem in mind acting as a vast well of unending inspiration, that I began my latest painting.

That last sentence is not true. I painted a lion cos I like lions and thought it would be a fun subject. I've only just remembered the "...Lions" incident as I write this.

The painting in its state above is probably about 95% complete. There are a few little bits and bobs I want to tidy up, but as always with painting this could go on indefinitely. The painting is acrylic on canvas, approximately 12 by 9 inches in size. I like the mixture of fine details with broader brush strokes and blocks of colour.

Not as good as it should be.

Hmm, I meant to post this weeks ago, if not months... It's the final scan of a painting of Lucy, my cat. As mentioned in a previous post, there were a few things that made this picture a bit of a chore to do and trickier than it needed to be.

The main problem being the squinty eyes; much more difficult to paint than wide open eyes. She doesn't look quite right as a result. I think it shows in the finished product as, in my opinion, it's not as good as the painting of Minnie. The likeness isn't as strong either, so I'm a little disappointed. Still, consider it a lesson learnt; when painting from a photograph, make sure you choose a good image.

Inspired by my holiday...

...I painted this caricature of my travel buddy. It's based on a camel ride we had when visiting the ruins of Petra in Jordan.

Still not finished.

Another work in progress snapshot. I did a couple of hours over the weekend on this painting, adding some background first, then adding some more detail to the face and improving the contrast in the process. The scan as always has changed the white balance, so it's not entirely representative of the actual painting. In fact, it's not even a scan as my goddamn printer is broken. I have nothing witty to say. Leave now.

Despite the new job, I've still managed to continue with a bit of painting and sketching in my free time.

The above is a work in progress attempt to paint my other cat, Lucy. It's early on, so lacking much detail or refinement. I'm finding her a lot harder to paint than Minnie however, I think mainly due to her having far fewer colours in her fur and markings. Also, the fact I've chosen to paint an image of her in which she's squinting, her eyes therefore not fully in view, is probably not helping. Eyes being a main focal point of a face, providing character and detail, etc.

Ho hum. Lesson learnt. Always have eyes.

Another copy of some existing concept art, again from Fable II. This time a big breasted woman, staple of the video game industry. THEY'RE BIGGER THAN HER HEAD! o_0

And a silly little Darth Vader doodle.

Surprise!

It's been a while. It appears I've gone the way of many Bloggers before me, having started off with good intentions, but then, err, forgotten.. yes forgotten, to post.

Actually that's a bit of a lie. I've not forgotten really. I've been meaning to post but other things keep on getting in the way. My health for one. Also, I've not really felt like I've had anything particularly worth posting of late. But to remedy that, here is a more or less finished scan of the painting of Minnie, my cat.

'More or less finished' in that I could keep working on it, but I'm choosing not to as I'd like to move on to something else. I'm not entirely happy with the background; with hindsight I think keeping it more plain and less busy would perhaps look better. Either that or making it as detailed as the foreground (Minnie), as opposed to the annoying In-Between I seem to have settled on. Next time Gadget... Next time.

Yet Another Quick Update.

Hot off the press, this is the current revision. I've been focusing on fixing the background this afternoon having messed it up somewhat a couple of days ago. It's a definite improvement, looking less like the work of a child and more like that of a man. A big powerful man. I'm in the experimental process of gauging how detailed to make the background whilst keeping the foreground the main focus.