Song Dong 12" x 16" Charcoal

Song Dong is exhibiting 10,000 items of rubbish accumulated by his mother in 50 years. The exhibition is called 'Waste Not' and is in Beijing now.

I did my usual thing of watching the news and pausing on an item that interested me to draw. Imagine how dopey I feel now to discover that Song Dong was shown at the Barbican in London last year.

Oblivious is my middle name!

 

Duchess of Cambridge 12" x 16" oil

 

The first official portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge unveiled today, by Paul Emsley.

 

 

 

In my humble opinion, it is an excellent copy of a photograph, which takes skill to achieve, and if photo-realism is to your liking then it is good, but it lacks life, vitality, soul. This has illustrated to me, beyond doubt, that portraits need to be painted from life. It's as though the artist has engaged with the photo but not the person. But what are we to do? Folk don't have the time or inclination to sit.

Having said that, my own sketch  was again painted from the TV.

 

Les Mis 16" x 12" Oil

 

Eight Oscar nominations for Les Miserables.

I have long thought I would get back to this blog. It is a very good warm up exercise to take a random image from the news and sketch it. Fingers crossed.