Category: My studio

See the studio as a working space over time. See the work as it shapes.

Reflections: 2 months on


Two months on … give or take (including a visit to New Zealand) … and I am in the studio daily. I’m also a latecomer to Pinterest and I am finding this social media platform is one that really suits me. More on Pinterest and NZ a bit later.

So what have I learnt in two months?

1. That I can push around oil paint to create some interesting surfaces

2. That I am still in love with colour and the infiniteness of hues, tints and shades on the palette

3. That I have to work at a reasonable size – almost everything seems too small – each experiment feels confined by its edges

4. That current obsessions and motifs are jockeying for prominence but awesome nature in the form of water and clouds are winning out at the moment (perfect for technical exercises).

I’m photographing stages of technical exercises and here are some thumbnails below. Also being inspired by Artist a day!

Cloud exerciseWarm orb

Water exerciseOrb 2

Orb 3 for grassWater - first layer

Entry into ‘Poser’

Scarab in Poser

My first foray into using Poser, which is an application with 3D models and character creation tools to create and render 3D graphics and animations. The manual is 800+ pages so I am ignoring that and jumping in to play. Luckily there is a scarab beetle in the library so I will use this library model to explore how to change materials, lighting, camera angles and to key frame to create movement. Some of the language of the app is familiar to other programs I have used (Danceforms, and a brief brush with 3D Studio Max).

There is significant complexity/capacity in the editing tools that deal with colour, texture and lighting. You can import textures and/or manipulate diffuse colour, highlights, ambient light and reflection. And you have to choose from individual body parts when making these manipulations.

So, without knowing what I was doing I have changed colours, textures and highlights on the library model. Next I plan to make changes because I know what I’m doing. Also want to change the shape.

No idea yet how I create my own models.

I can see that this is going to be a challenge!