White Ladies - 14

I have chickened out of doing the hands today..I'm going to find a some one to model for me so I can take some good accurate photos to work from. You can see a tree taking shape...they always look a little out of place at his stage, but one the sky is added in, it'll be fine. there will be a similar tree in the same place between each Tennis girl.

Below is a shot of my garden this evening. The UK is currently under the grip of a very unusual for the time of year, cold spell. some parts of the country are experiencing dramatic snow fall and subzero temperatures. some of which have been forecast to reach  -20 degrees tonight.My area has seen light coverings of snow, but a good fall was occurring when I took this photo earlier.The cold spell is set to last until the weekend at least.

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Pencil lines in the background will possibly give you some clue as to where I'm going (you'd be right to guess trees)...although it's not the whole story.My next objective is to have a go at all the Tennis girl's hands.

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The fifth Tennis Girl; is now in place. Sorry I didn't post yesterday, we had a very dear old friend to stay.It was a special time of remembering times gone by. so today, i'm back in the saddle.....

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Have had a nice trip out for lunch today with Jan mainly to spend some money I was given for my Birthday. I bought a book about Alphonse Mucha. I've loved his work since my teenage years and today found a book which does justice to his work. We ate at a Thai noodle bar and used chopsticks...which I like to call 'Knitting noodles'...
The fourth tennis girl is added...now it starts to get interesting.

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The third Tennis girl is coming along nicely. Her dress is based again on a design worn by Chris Evert.Today I had one of those eureka moments concerning other aspects of the picture. Can't wait to uncover my ideas for you!

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Excuse me for the absence over the weekend..I was celebrating my birthday.It was a lovely time which ended on Sunday evening with a big family meal for which my eldest son Sam came back from university for.It wasn't a significant landmark (apart from the fact that I'm still alive!). Next year I shall reach the grand age of 50 and even now am planning the proposed Moulin Rouge themed party I'm going to throw!

I've started work on Tennis girl 3 today...believe it or not there will still be room for half a tennis girl on the left and right of these three!...it will all make sense eventually. Planning the rest of the picture is fun and is presenting many variations all of which ill be good. I've plenty of time to make the right choice. I also have to work on a commercial commission which needs to be finished before the end of the year. I can't show you what it is yet, but will be very pleased to reveal all next year sometime!

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Had a very poor nights sleep last night so had a slow day. Couldn't concentrate fully. but worked on second tennis girl. Her hair, ribbon and dress are based on dresses worn by Chris Evert in the early 1970's. the extra frill around the neck is not authentic for Chrissie but was seen in a Virginia Slims tournament video being worn by an unidentified player.

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It's interesting...at least to me, that the original concept for this piece has changed so much from the beginning. Probably not just yet, but I will return to the idea with me sitting on the park bench...that's for next year. Today I've begun work on the second tennis girl..



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The day's work is not that apparent, but if you compare to yesterday, you can see that I've added deeper shades to her skin and buttons to her dress.What I haven't shown is the two tennis girls either side of her which have been roughed in..The complicated work on rendering the hands is looming ominously!

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I'm still hovering in the area of "Oh Matron" and 'Carry On Nurse', that is until I add in the surreal  elements at a later date.I've worked on the folds in the material of the girls bodice here after the photo was taken...it looks like she is being accosted by two demonically clawed hands! On a more personal note, it's good to be back in the groove of dotting on a piece after so much dithering and sketching.

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Slowly proceeding with this now...notice the DNA Double Helix necklace and Shuttle pendant!

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Not done an awful lot on this today because it's been Jan's birthday, so we've been out to buy her a nice party dress and to have some lunch. But I have tentatively added in a bit of hair....did I tell you I love Bob hairstyles?

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You're going to wish you'd deleted my blog....but hold still dear reader, I've not trashed Restart 2, but I so love my 'Ooops Girls' that I couldn't carry on with out trying another face...I like this one. Who knows, maybe I'll treat you to restart 4 tomorrow!hahaha. I don't think so...I'm of the mind that if this doesn't work, I'm going to give up on the composition and mothball it.

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It's almost comical hat I should settle on this face.You won't believe the difficulty I had resisting the desire to make her one of my 'Oops Girls'..I wanted a certain amount of attitude, and I think I've got it here.Sweetness and light she ain't...lets see how it translates to the rest of the composition!

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 Another restart...here's the development from the pencil sketch to the dotting stage. You can see I decided to go with the bobbed hair style again...hopefully this time I'll be successful.

White Ladies

Well...I'm such an idiot. So this time I've decided to hold back my progress photographs for a short little while , because every time I show them, it results in me making a mess of them! So, just to keep you up to speed, I've settled on a face for my main character and I've begun dotting at last. Things have progressed well today so far. I shall show you what I've achieved tomorrow....hopefully!

White Ladies - update

After producing over 30 drawings of faces, I think I might have settled on one that I'm just about satisfied with. There's no point in rushing these things, I'm counting on spending the next couple of months working on it , so I need to be happy to do so. I know you've heard all these things before, and I'll probably say them again!

So a big thank you for your continued patience !

White Ladies - AARRGGHH!

Guess what?...another day, another failure! ( Readers should disregard any hysterical and negative nihilistic vocabulary used in this post, but it's a means of release!) I hate days like today, I seem to have been wrestling with treacle and gas. I have a very clear vision of what I'd like to achieve, but the process of realising that vision is hampered by my total; lack of ability in doing so. Always just out of reach, the face of my beloved Tennis Girl is enigmatic and judgmental...calling forth a response. so far I've created a murderess and a goody two shoes....and I need to be happy with what I'm working with. It's a times like this that a real model, a muse with the special something I'm looking for would be what is needed. however, I'm used to spending hours sketching and re sketching...I know I'll arrive at the correct features eventually.

You see, even after nearly thirty years of  dotting, thousands of hours working, looking, seeing ( yes the two are very different!) and creating...the technique gets easier, but the representation of the content becomes harder and more complex. But sometimes I wish I could just fall asleep and wake up with a different life...maybe I could be a brick layer or someone in local goverment...maybe finances......but who am I kidding? I'm stuck with what I am and I suppose I'd better make the best of it...it's a curse and a joy!

See you tomorrow with hopefully something better to show you!...or not....

White Ladies - 1 The restart.

Here we go again!

White Ladies

Went off into town this morning and bought appropriate watercolour paper and returned home to start work on a revised and improved version of White Ladies.All being well, i'll show you the progress tomorrow. But in the mean time, with apologies to m Face book friends who've already seen these photographs, here are a few pics I took on Saturday when Annie and I went for a walk around the historic Derby Arboretum.If you'd like to read up on the significance of The Arboretum and it's connection with New York, you should head here. So until tomorrow, enjoy the Autumn colours!