pretty!

Just a quick doodle tonight… perhaps inspired by Chinese New Year – although I wasn’t consciously thinking about it, just doodling!It’s fun to make pretty pictures – no other raison d’être is required!

UPDATE: New sonnet from Tom!

Contemplative downcast eyes
consider now the future’s course
as the watchers of the skies
look up to see the lunar source
of light return to bless the Earth
while fireworks and cries of mirth
greet the Water Dragon’s year
of wealth and health both far and near.
Her inward gaze now gathers strength
at this auspicious turning point
when Fortune will her goal anoint
with success for life’s full length.
As the sliver-Moon arises
She sets her sights on life’s surprises.

Copyright (C) 2012 TJ Radcliffe

"what have I done now?!"

At about the same time as Marlowe (last post) is contemplating his problems, Dru is somewhere else with problems of her own. I thought it was about time I showed our heroine… Decided to just show a suggestion of the background. I hope you can tell she’s on a ship.

UPDATE: In from Tom – new poem!

It seemed like such a fine idea
to cut the cable, setting free
this ship of fools, like wise Sophia
teaching him a lesson, see!
The deed is done, though now I wonder
if in my haste to steal his thunder
by leaving him marooned alone
I’m not mistaken in my tone?
Perhaps if I’d been less reproaching,
not let his people’s ways be mine–
though in my anger it seemed fine–
I wouldn’t now these doubts be broaching.
Now what’s that bumping on the hull!?
A bear, a duck, a wayward gull?

Copyright (C) 2012 TJ Radcliffe

image (cc) 2012 Hilary Farmer

flickering light

A quick post with a teaser from Songs of Albion. We are trying to keep a good buffer so this picture which I just drew won’t come up in the story until February. I am pleased with how the lighting and texture turned out. As well I think the expression does represent what he has just learned… not good news at all.

UPDATE: New poem from Tom for this image:

Old shadows dance across the light while ghost’s
dry crackled voices whisper in the dark
behind the fire. Bright sparks rise high above
the burning battlefield where memory
lies wounded in the wake of noble war
while all around my sometime comrades die
without the benefit of glory. I am
alone and still those knights of memory ride
out to the fields and charge each other down
for king or God or lady’s sacred favour,
down in droves while arrows fall unnoted
midst the ranks of human children grown
to fight and kill and die while shadows dance
behind the fire’s light as darkness whispers.

Copyright (C) 2012 TJ Radcliffe

image (cc) 2012 Hilary Farmer

first, to cover the canvas

The is the beginning stage of a painting which ended up as a Christmas present. It doesn’t look great at this point but getting some paint on the canvas helps break the ice and get over that initial “fear of the blank page”. There is also a very rough indication of the direction of the final piece. In the end, some of this layer will actually show through as watery reflections.

taking shape

At this point, quite a lot of the painting has been sketched in but it is still quite rough. The leaves in the background for example are very gestural… the painting was now set aside for a couple of months. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to finish it to my liking but in the end I decided to give it a shot.

finished!

Sometimes working on a painting, I need to cultivate a “let’s just see what happens” attitude. If I am trying to hard to make it come out a particular way, it is less likely to succeed than if I flow with where the painting wants to go. That sounds flaky but it works for me! In this case, the leaves got quite a lot more definition and some aspects of the water were highlighted to get a shimmer as well as other details being enhanced. Unfortunately, the photo isn’t great. I need some tips on photographing paintings – anyone? At least I took several the photographs before varnishing it. After, even though it improved the look of the painting, the extra sheen was really difficult to work around.

close-up

and a close-up of the final painting.

Happy New Year and happy painting – or whatever your creative urges may be in 2012!

images (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer

wintery togetherness

A quick doodle to celebrate the season… so busy with everything related to said season that I haven’t been posting much here and the buffer for Albion is getting smaller. Hopefully I can catch back up over the holidays.

Wishing you the Best of the Season and a Wonderful New Year.

UPDATE: New sonnet from Tom to capture both the cold and the warmth of winter…

The winter night in glinting diamond silence
sparkles in cold light, the Solstice Moon
glows bright upon the hills with blue fluorescence
across the open spaces deeply strewn
with virgin snow: a wonderland of ice
where lovers might take pause to contemplate
the beauty of this frozen paradise
where nothing moves and everything awaits.
Their hands are joined within a single glove
the touch of skin a promise for the night
to come while silently the stars above
reflect the frozen diamonds of the night.
One single thing belies the winter the cold:
The warmth of hands that other hands enfold

Copyright (C) 2011 TJ Radcliffe

(cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer

studying as usual...

A very quick sketch today… sometimes it is best to catch someone while they are absorbed and not aware of being drawn. While this angle doesn’t show much, it’s nice to explore different views of the face.

UPDATE: New Pushkin sonnet from Tom!

Sometimes I get this funny feeling
that someone’s watching in the wings
just out of vision’s circle, stealing
glimpses of some hidden things.
Perhaps it’s my imagination
but it plays hob with concentration
when I feel I’m being watched
by a hunter, arrow notched.
Who knows what lurks on darkened paths
that lie beyond the realm of sight
encapsulated by the night:
the western star’s eternal baths.
There’s something watching me, I’m sure,
behind the veil of night obscure.

Copyright (C) 2011 TJ Radcliffe

image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer

water and flowers...

A very loose and quick doodle today. I was thinking of using a Monet for a starting point as I did for Remembrance Day but in the end I just started doodling randomly and this is the result. Water and flowers… always pretty!

UPDATE: New poem from Tom – lovely, evocative…

The morning mist upon the pond
draws my eye from here, beyond
the croaking frogs whose call inspires
their distant cousins to respond.

Across the field of dewy flowers
there in some wooded secret bower
awaits a question in the dark
calling me with silent power.

A mourning dove is cooing soft
a duck in panic bursts aloft
to startle me from reverie
my path now turning toward the croft.

The pond is still in golden light
but I have years still left to fight
and ancient wrongs to yet make right
and ancient wrongs to yet make right.

With apologies to Robert Frost!

(c) Tom Radcliffe 2011

image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer

thinking...

Once again I have been very busy with making drawings and keeping up a decent buffer for Albion and so have been spending less time creating images especially for this blog… and when I do, they are quicker sketches rather than very detailed or designed. However, I still feel that it is possible to learn something from spontaneous doodling and so I am sharing this example. Besides, doodling is fun!

In other news, I am now on Twitter so you can follow me @hjfarmer When I figure out how to, I will add the link to the blog! For some reason the first time I tried, the whole configuration of my blog changed – and we can’t be havin’ with that!

UPDATE: New sonnet from Tom. Thanks!!

What fresh-faced bloom of golden youth
What rosy cheeks and limpid eyes
Wide open to perceive the truth
Not anticipating lies:
He’s unafraid and curious
About the world mysterious
As he sets off to go… explore
And open up each hidden door.
A decade gone the bloom will wither
The field of innocence will grow
Long hedges: wisdom row on row
Calling truths from hence to hither
While those eyes will ever strive
To see that beauty can survive.

Copyright (C) 2011 TJ Radcliffe

image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer

what is this white stuff??

A very random doodle today. Actually we’ve been having a very mild fall so far but the weather is supposed to change tomorrow so winter must have been on my mind!

She seems to be in the midst of saying something but I’m not sure what it is…

UPDATE: Just in – a lovely and bilingual approach to the illustration in the for of a Pushkin sonnet no less!

“I love this season’s consumation:
Je ne suis pas un hiver-phobe!
Mais oui, it’s still a small frustration
when the city dons her robe
of downy white; so soft, enchanting,
yet quite enough to set me ranting!
Le métro est en retard!
The slippery streets make driving hard!
But walking is for lower classes,
non pour une ingénue like me
caught adrift on snowy seas
until her handsome hero passes
who will my dreadful stress assuage
And be my knight, mon homme de neige!”

Copyright (C) 2011 TJ Radcliffe

image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer

Poppies!

A field of poppies… inspired by Monet’s Poppies Blooming. I made some modifications… and of course, not oil painting! Although I did this doodle about two months ago, it was always intended to be for Remembrance Day. We are even working it into the flow for Songs of Albion.

UPDATE: New sonnet for Remembrance Day from Tom – thanks!!

Behold the men who lie beneath the Earth
where now the bright red splashes of the flowers
belie those times when once a human’s worth
was measured by the armies of the Powers
who needed cannon fodder for the fields
they sowed with arty, gas and Maxim fire,
where boys were carried homeward homeward on their shields
but never quite escaped the mud and mire.
Behold the peaceful meadow, poppy-clad,
where ghosts are never quiet in the night,
beneath the autumn sun where once the mad
convinced the world that war was something right.
Behold the dead, the boys who never age:
Whose ghosts won’t rest until it’s peace we wage.

Copyright (C) 2011 Tom Radcliffe

image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer