An Offer You Can't Refuse - Commission a Pencil Portrait!

This pencil portrait was commissioned recently as an 80th birthday present. It shows the birthday boy back in the 50s, looking a little bit like a member of the Corleone family*. I really like the end result, the image is quite striking and very evocative of the time.

Whilst the reference photo was a strong one in terms of look and character, the size of the image made the sketch a little more challenging, as there was not a huge amount of detail to work with. This meant that I had to use a lot of artistic license in order to make up for the lack of visual fidelity.

If you want to make me an offer I can't refuse, please get in touch via my website, www.artbylukebennett.com where you can view more original artwork or commission a portrait.

*I'm certain the resemblance is purely superficial.

New Painting - 'Here Comes The Sun' - Original 50th Anniversary Beatles Artwork

'Here Comes The Sun' 

Acrylic Paint on Deep Stretch Canvas, Approximately 16 Wide x 12 High x 1.5 inches Deep (406 x 305 x 35mm), finished with Matte Varnish. Ready to hang.

50 years ago this October (2012), The Beatles released their first ever single, 'Love Me Do'. A few days ago, this October, I released (finished) my first ever Beatles painting. Coincidence? Not entirely.

Meticulously hand painted in thick, bold acrylics on a deep stretch canvas, this original artwork features a new take on the iconic imagery of the world famous Abbey Road zebra crossing. The black and white road markings now contoured by the colours of the Union Flag, stretching out to their source, where The Sun (here it comes) bathes The Fab Four in a psychedelic silhouette.

Paying tribute to the best of British, in a year that saw pride in Britain swell with the arrival of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the London Olympics, as well as the Beatles' 50th anniversary as an established act, this original, one of a kind, hand-painted Beatles artwork is evocative in more ways than one.

A perfect collectable for any Beatles fan. Original painting (currently) available and high quality giclée prints (on archival paper or canvas) are available at ArtByLukeBennett.com.




That's the official blurb. Now for the unofficial, erm, not blurb... It's always a nice feeling to finish a painting, especially when it hasn't necessarily gone to plan, *whispers* like this one.
Who knew that painting straight lines would be so hard and time consuming? I didn't, but it turns out it really, really is.
Without going into specifics, there was an awful lot frustration along the way; painting, re-painting, re-re-painting, etc. etc. But, I feel I've learnt lots of useful things as a consequence. I may even share some helpful straight line painting secrets in a future blog post.

In the meantime, here are some more photos of the final piece. They show the painting from many different angles and in natural light. Somehow, taking it outside into the British countryside felt appropriate.

More to come in future updates. As always, for more information, to purchase my original artwork and prints, or to commission a painting, please visit ArtByLukeBennett.com.

Before and After

Sadly, before Christmas, Lucy, one of the two family cats (sister to Minnie) passed away after struggling gallantly with heart disease for several months. She has been sorely missed as she was part of the family for over 16 years and a constant joy to be around. I always looked forward to seeing her when returning home and she always made me laugh and smile. She had one of the most gentle, sweet, playful and loving characters I've ever seen in an animal.

As a tribute, of sorts, I have revisited an earlier painting of Lucy I'd previously 'finished', with the intention of completing it properly in her memory.

This link shows the original blog post I made a few years ago concerning the initial painting. Below is a side by side comparison of the two cat portraits.

Spot the difference! Which one do you prefer?

The medium is acrylic paint on canvas textured board. The painting has been framed and given as a gift to my parents who have it hanging in their dining room.

Night Photography

I feel like I should apologise. For the third update in a row I'm posting photographs and not paintings or drawings. I'm not going to though. It's my blog, I'll do what I want, y'hear me! (I will post some drawings and paintings soon, I promise, I have some underway/completed already. I've just been enjoying the winter scenery a lot lately.)

These were all taken from about 4.30pm onwards and so there was very little light, particularly from the photo of the Knowle Locks sign onwards, where, other than the street lights, it was about as dark as it would get on that night. As such there was a lot of trial and error involved when it came to focusing and framing the shot because nothing could be seen in my viewfinder in the dead of night.

This was somewhat intentional, as I wanted to try out some more long exposures, having dabbled with them in the forest the other weekend. I figured if I waited until dusk, I could use the maximum exposure time allowed by my camera of 15 seconds and see what kind of effects this would create. So, with tripod in tow*, I set off to the nearby canal.

 

The resultant colours are exactly how they came out on the camera, with no post processing, bar a bit of cropping in 2 or 3 of the shots.

Rather amusingly, when taking the following photos by the road side, I noticed that the cars were driving a lot slower than they do normally, clearly mistaking me for some kind of speed cop. Now I finally know how Bruce Wayne feels.

*canal related pun

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!