What are canvas keys?

My canvases arrived today, and stapled to each one was a familiar little plastic bag containing 8 little pieces of wood. Every time I've bought ready-stretched canvas, I've always wondered what these things are, and how to use them. So I thought I'd try and find out.

On the label that came with the canvases, it said "canvas stretcher bars", so I Googled it, and came up with a lot of stuff about making canvas, stretching your own canvas, and framing canvas, but nothing about my little wooden friends. It turns out stretcher bars are the actual lengths of wood that hold the canvas together. I should have known that! In a last ditch effort, I typed in "little pieces of wood that come with canvas", and Google threw up this page from painting.about.com. Apparently the little wedges are called canvas keys, and they're used to tighten a sagging canvas. Well, it just so happens, as I mentioned yesterday, that I'm currently suffering from sagging canvas syndrome, so I thought these would be just the ticket. The site says that "you put them into the slots made for them in the corners of the stretcher bars, then tap them in further to tighten or square up (align) the canvas." Well I put one in one of the slots made for them, and it went straight through and tried to poke through the canvas on the other side! I thought I must be doing something wrong, but I just couldn't get it to wedge in there. Then I tried it on one of the new canvases I got today, and it worked a treat. That's what you get for buying ultra-cheap Chinese canvas!

Anyway, I did another search for canvas keys but nothing much came up, so I'm not convinced that that is what they're really called (or maybe they're just too insignificant to have many web pages dedicated to them). If anyone can confirm or deny this, you would satisfy my curiosity. (I really should have more important things to think about!)

Tags: canvas, stretcher bars, canvas keys, canvas wedge, painting

Painting a boat - A minor mishap!

I've fallen at the first hurdle with my boat painting. As you can see in the image below, I've made a schoolboy error when transferring the image from photograph to canvas. The photograph is 7" x 5", but the canvas is 24" x 20". It doesn't take Carol Vorderman to tell you that those numbers don't add up. In the image below, I've overlaid the photograph onto the sketch I made on the canvas, and made it semi-transparent. You can see that the boat I have drawn is quite a bit taller than the boat in the photo, because the canvas is taller than the photo, and therefore the squares in the 4 x 4 grid I drew are also taller. Whoops!

So, what can I do about it? Well, I was going to whitewash the canvas and start again, but I just happened to notice that the canvas in question was also slightly warped (you can see the wrinkle in the top right hand corner), so it won't lie flat against a wall. I think if I'm giving this to someone as a gift, then they should at least be able to hang it up, so I'm going to start again on a new canvas and use that one for some of my own studies or caricatures. I ordered some canvases online yesterday at www.artifolk.co.uk. I'm not sure how much canvas goes for in this country (I've previously bought it very cheap from China - hence the poor quality!), but this site seemed quite competetive compared to the five or six sites I checked out. They currently offer Winsor & Newton canvases at half price, so I bought 3 20" x 24" and 4 12" x 12" as well as a 250ml bottle of Daler-Rowney white paint for about £41 (free delivery on orders over £40). Not super cheap, but I know it's a good brand so hopefully the quality will be good. If anyone knows a better site for online art supplies, I'd love to know about it.

And the solution to the size issue? I think I'll redraw the grid at about 24" x 17.5" and add a bit of extra sky at the top and sea at the bottom. Problem solved! Okay, I'll post an update when my new canvas arrives!


How NOT to transfer a drawing to the canvas

Tags: painting, proportion, acrylic, technique, art supplies, canvas

Painting a boat - step 1 - transferring the image to the canvas

Here's something I'm working on for a Christmas present (I'm pretty sure the recipient doesn't even know what a blog is, so hopefully there's no danger of spoiling the surprise!) In another break from my usual portraits, I'm having a go at painting a boat. I'll post my progress here, as well as a brief description of the techniques used.

Step one was to transfer the outline of the image from the source photograph to the canvas. To do this, I scanned in the photo, then using Fireworks, I superimposed a 4x4 rectangle grid over it:



Then I divided the canvas up into the same kind of grid using a hard 2H pencil (you can't see the lines clearly here due to poor photography!) Once the grid is drawn, it's easy to sketch in the outline of the image, and a lot faster and more accurate than trying to draw it freehand:



Keep checking back for updates.

Tags: painting, lessons, tutorials, illustration

Caricature of the Week - Johnny Depp by Heather Houghton

Everyone seems to be Johnny Depp mad these days, but there is a distinct lack of quality Depp caricatures to be found on the web. I do like this one though, by illustrator Heather Houghton.



I want to try one myself. In fact I have so many ideas for caricatures that it pains me how little free time I have to actually draw them. I'm away most of this weekend, but I plan to get sketching when I get back on Sunday. Good intentions and all that!

Tags: johnny depp, caricature, illustration, painting

A little progress with Mr. Eko

I only had 10 minutes before work to add a bit more shading to this one, I'll try to finish it tonight.

Tags: drawing, sketching, Lost, Mr. Eko, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Sketch of Mr. Eko from Lost

Here's where I'm up to with the latest Lost character, Mr. Eko, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. I held off from drawing him, as he didn't enter the show until season 2, and I didn't want to spoil anything for the Brits who hadn't seen it yet.

This was going to be a rough sketch, but I started to like where it was going, so I'm working on it a bit more as a tonal exercise. Unfortunately I didn't really plan it, so the top of his head doesn't fit on the paper. Ah well, it's the face that counts.

Incidentally, I got the photo for this drawing from the amazing gallery at www.lost-media.com, which contains literally thousands of hi-res Lost screencaps, from every episode of the show, as well as publicity shots of all the actors.

Check back later to see my progress with Mr. Eko

Tags: Lost, Mr. Eko, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, illustration, caricature, drawing

Caricature of the Week - Michael Jackson by Paddy Boehm

With Jacko's recent disappointing appearance at the World Music Awards, I thought I'd have a look for some cool Michael Jackson caricatures. Everyone knows his face is like some kind of weird plasticine mask, and almost every caricaturist out there has drawn his mug at some point (I even had a go myself once!) I particularly like this one by German artist Paddy Boehm.

I think it would be fun to try a caricature of the Thriller-era Michael Jackson, before he got too wacky-looking. Maybe I'll go for it one of these days.

Tags: caricature, michael jackson, illustration

Caricature sketch of Jin from Lost

Now that Season 3 of Lost has started, I've been inspired to start drawing these guys again. Here's a first attempt at Jin, played by Daniel Dae Kim. Apparently he couldn't speak any Korean before the show started. He does a good impersonation then!

I think the likeness is lacking something in the eyes and mouth, but I really needed to exaggerate those huge cheekbones! My friend thought it was Orlando Bloom, haha! Then he tried to redeem himself by saying he hasn't seen him with his hair this long. Anyway, I'll try again later.

Tags: Lost 3, Jin, Daniel Dae Kim, Illustration, Caricature, Drawing

Spirited Away painting at last

Here it is at last, I finally got my camera working. I had fun doing this, it's something a bit different from doing portraits. If you like Spirited Away, I can equally recommend the follow-up, Howl's Moving Castle, also made by Hayao Miyazaki, and equally bizarre.

Tags: Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Hayao Miyazaki, illustration, painting

Spirited Away painting finished

I managed to finish the Spirited Away artwork last night, ready to post it this morning, but unfortunately, my camera is on the fritz so I couldn't take a photo of it. The batteries only seem to hold their charge for a few photos. Not sure if the problem is with the batteries, the charger, or the camera itself. Anyway, I'll photograph it and post it tonight if I can. I also started a sketch of Jin from Lost this morning, but I was short on time, so I didn't finish it. That guy has the most prominent cheekbones I've ever seen!

Tags: spirited away, lost, illustration, caricature

Sketch of Will Ferrell

Here's a caricature sketch of Will Ferrell I managed to knock out in about 5 minutes before work this morning. It needs a bit of reworking. The head is too far forward on the neck, and I could probably stretch the forehead a bit more, but I'm happy with the initial likeness. I think Will Ferrell is hilarious and I was suddenly hit with the inspiration to draw him this morning, after watching Old School a few days ago. Maybe this one will turn into a painting. We'll see how it goes.

Tags: will ferrell, sketch, illustration, caricature

Spirited Away painting progress

Almost finished with this painting from Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away now. Just need to finish off the monster and add a little bit of linework. I think I'm only going to outline certain lighter areas like around Chihiro's face and arm. Don't want it to look too cartoony.

Tags: illustration, painting, spirited away, 千と千尋の神隠し, hayao miyazaki

Another tutorial published by China Daily

Checking my stats this morning I found that several visitors had again arrived at this blog from the China Daily website. Turns out they have published my caricature lesson of painting Fan Wei. Not only that, someone has gone to the trouble of translating it into Chinese. Good work fella!

Got a bit sidetracked with the Spirited Away painting and fallen behind on my 'drawing every day' plan, but after reading Steve Pavlina's articles on being an early-riser, I'm determined to start sketching in the morning before work. We'll see how it goes.

Tags: caricature, illustration, drawing, celebrity, steve pavlina

Old sketches

I was tidying some stuff away this weekend and found an old sketchbook, with some old sketches in it. These are from about 5 or 6 years ago, I had to take photos of them because I haven't hooked my scanner up yet.

Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer


Stevie Wonder


Bruce Lee


Some sketches of Freddie Mercury


A study of glasses


Another Freddie Mercury


Eminem


Some mouths

Tags: Freddie Mercury, Eminem, drawing, illustration, artwork

Spirited Away

As I've never really attempted to paint anything other than portraits, I thought I'd try something a bit different. This is some artwork from the movie Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し). The picture actually comes from the sleeve of the soundtrack CD:



I'm about halfway through, after about 90 minutes painting. I'm using acrylics, starting with a thin wash of the peachy colour in the background, I then added the tree, and started on the characters, applying the paint in thin layers. I'll finish it off this weekend hopefully, and post it on Monday.

Tags: 千と千尋の神隠し, Spirited Away, painting, illustration, artwork

Another Peter Kay

Not quite satisfied with my previous Peter Kay, I had a go from a different photo, and I think I like this one better. Still, something doesn't quite fit. I think the individual features are good, but the composition is a little off. I'll try to refine it a bit and then think about painting it.

Tags: caricature, illustration, peter kay, sketch