Shakespeare in London, a change of view

Thursday and Friday, 31st of May and 1st of June and an extra five hours in the Weekend

First of all I painted the Shakespeare Bust which is part of the memorial to the First Folio being printed.  This completed it meant that the whole of the North section was completed.

After having done, I really felt that this particular project was taking too long for what it was.  I decided as this point to stop painting the other elements and see if I could just fit them together as they were.

I kept all of the North location North and thes rest underneath.  Instead of using the Thames I decided to put all of the locations on one street. I think the way the Westminster Shakespeare is standing on the ground really does look very cool :D 

After have done this I thought the Southwark window really didn't look good in the picture anymore.  It is of a higher detail than the rest and as you can see suddenly a huge bloody load of blue.  I decided to take it out and enlarge the Globe Theatre as that really looked too small as well.  I proably will add a bit more texture to the road to make it a bit more clear.

I then added the title to the picture.

I decided to put the window on the back of the information pamflet together all of the location information (still to be added) as there is no disturbance on that side with other colours etc.

Stained Glass Window

Thursday and Friday,  17th and 25th of May

The last couple of weeks I worked on the Southwark Cathedral section.  I have doen a bit less work because the weatehr's just so bloody good but also the heat is a bit aggrevating at times especially when combined with hay fever.  I've had to work downstairs because it's been too hot in my room and I find I get distracted quicker down there than I do up here.   Luckily it's going to be a bit cooler this week. 

Anyway here's the painting...

The actual cathedral still need some extra detail but I can do that in the computer :D  Especially the three little bits at the bottom.

Shakespeare and the Gatehouse

Wednesday, 9th of May

This day was Shakespeare in London day.  I started off by doing the Shakespeare statue in the Westminster Cathedral.  To be honest I got a bit bored doing it and I was also concentrating too much.  When concentrating too much, which I was also doing on the Hooded Man picture, it just doesn't seem to work.  I decided to put a movie on and this worked a lot better.  While busy listening to Christopher Lee in the guise of Sherlock Holmes solve a crime I managed to finish it off quite nicely.

Then I carried on with the St Bartholomew's Gatehouse, front and back, while watching Anchorman :DThis is the first time I've actually used the blue in the paintings for this.  I'd imagine the majority of the blue details will be added digitally.  I still feel that this is the right colour scheme to use, as I showed in my visual mind-map.  I know I seem to spend a lot of time and only have few pictures, but painting like that just takes a long time, there'nothing I can do about that to be honest.  I did manage to fix this the next day though :D

Skulls, Abbeys and Theatres...

Actually only one of each :D

Thursday, 3rd of May

The day was started by painting the Abbey and the skull from the V&A.  I did the building quite roughly as I knew if I did it with painstaking detail that I could possibly die in the long process, obviously a slight exaggeration there but it wasn't really necessary either to do that much detail.  I did the building first then the skull.

I then added black outlines to the building in photoshop, this took annoyingly long compared to doing it with pen.  As I mentioned earlier I can't do the pen straight onto the painting because the black doesn't scan black.  After having done the building I suddenly thought, duh just put tracing paper over the top and draw the black lines like that.  This way they'll match perfectly and I still be able to enhance the layers seperately.  I shall do this from now on. 

I might change some of the outlines on the Abbey because I'm not very happy with it at the moment.  All it's done is make it look more wonky.  I will me doing it again when I doing the skull by hand. 

I also painted the Globe Theatre, exterior only.

This too will have the lines added by on hand by using tracing paper.  I hope to make the thatch look better as well.  I know it's not completely perfect perspective-wise etc. but I very rarely draw buildings, I avoid them in fact.  So I think so far I'm doing pretty well considering.

Shakespeare Details

Today I made it my mission get all of the loose parts of Shakespeare's London reading for painting as this is going to be quite the task.  I am very happy to say that I have just finished.  A lot of them took quite long as they have to be drawn small so I can later scan them into the computer to finish off the whole pictures.  There's not too much to say today really.  Some of them were ok as they were but I shall now show you the owns I fine-tuned today.

I started with the George Inn because I knew I had to put people in the Inn and I wasn't particularly looking forward to it.  I have a book at home on Tudor Clothing (and how to make them) so I used this as a reference.  Some may not all be from exactly the same time but it´s doesn´t need to really be that historically uccurate anyway, roundabouts is good enough.  I put Shakepseare in the corner sitting behind a table with his head back, hopefully he be laughing if I can manage it.  Opposite him sits a man calling to the bar maid for another beer.  Next to him sits a roll of parchment, could this possibly be one of Shakespeare´s acting troup?  The man in the back is hanging over the table looking pretty depressed, good to shove him in the corner so he looks even more alone and tragic.  The man at the round table is trying to greet the man coming in in a stiff manner but the man coming into the inn seems more interested in the bar maid.  Hopefully that will all become a bit more clear when coloured.  I drew it on an A5 so I can at least enlarge it to an A4 for painting. 

Next I did the First Folio Bust.  It's basically just a literal depiction of the bust.  Just as well I fixed it up though, the first one I sketched I realized was practically missing an arm.

Then I did the statue of Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey.  I changed the hand a bit so that it was pointing into the eyesocket more.  I am concidering to paint the figure as a real person in stead of a statue, or maybe even a statue turning into a real person, colour wise.  I say this as it is such a live-like sculpture and when I saw it, it really was like he was standing there himself.

Next was the Stain-Glass Window from Southwark Cathedral.  I started off by taking the Midsummer Night's Dream window and the Hamlet window and merging them together in photoshop.

I then drew the pencil sketch version.  It seems as though I drawn the donkey head on Bottom too big, although the one in the real window is quite large as well.  I'll see whether I need to fix it up or not.  This was also drawn on an A5 so I'll enlarge it to an A4 for painting so I don't drive myself insane, well more insane :p, I can do the face and hair then as well, hopefully.

The final major sketch today was the Shakespeare portrait which is positioned next to the Globe in the whole image.  I went for the kind of ruggid pirate look to make him look a bit more dishy than the usual weedy balding bloak you see in pictures.  I thought the earring was a nice added touch as a fashion of the time.  I saw a gold ring in a different painting but I thought the pearl drop was better in this case.  I can finish off the final details in it when it is painted, such as hair, shading, clothing patterns etc.  Might need to fix the eyes a little bit, slightly off.

The other pictures only had minor changes so I'll just leave those out here. 

Shakespeare in London Planning and Sketching

Tuesday and Wednesday, 17th and 18th of April

I started off by looking at the Shakespeare locations that I went to/tried to get to.  I then selected which I thought were best to represent visually.  I decided on:

The Globe Theatre

The George Inn

Memorial First Folio

St Bartholomew’s Gate

Westminster Abbey

Southwark Cathedral

V&A Props

I thought this was a good mix of places directly related to him, places from his time, tributes and Shakespeare in modern times.  Other places not on the image will be included in the write-up on the other side.  I decided I also wanted to include the Thames river.  To me this is a real part of London and its history and I love the way in divides the city it two. 

I then made a visual mind-map.  It is very basic as the majority is based on having been there so I just gave a few things to show this.  Thinking about the different places blue really springs out for me as a colour.  I think it's also a good colour to use in combination with ochre.  The ochre shows the old historical side ill the blues shown below have a more modern and fresh feeling to them.  I skipped doing a written one as I had already made somany notes on my trip to London I felt this unnecessary.  

 Something very noticable about London is the vast size of it and the huge amount of places and things to see there.  In my nine days I saw so much much looking at the city overal there's just so much more to see.  I really that feeling to be included that there's a lot in a small space with nothing in between, because to me that really is what London is like.  

I first had the idea to include many pictures of Shakespeare on the map with the different locations.  But when I started sketching I didn't really feel this was right, a bit like saying the same thing twice.  I was better of using the space for the locations.  I also tried with less images of Shakespeare surrounded by the locations but I thought they were dull.  

I then tried using the Thames as the dividing line, at first I thought this might be a bit obvious but I decided it was actually a good idea to help keep it an interpretation but still some sense of where the places are located.  I put the locations North of the Thames above and South beneath, very logical. I also though this was a good break in the very full picture and good way of incorporating the text.  Above in the mindmap, you can see a lot of inky text, which of course can also be interpretated as water.  

This is just a basic sketch of approximately how it will look.  I wanted to play with the scales of things to make it more of a mitch-match of places.  The Southwark stained-glass window I have portrayed as larger than the cathredal itself and although not visible here the window is a mix of two of the windows commemorating Shakespeare.  The George in needs mor people in it so it becomes a lively tavern. I don't think the pillar from inside the Globe should be stretching over the Thames either.  I decided to change the sculpture inside Westminster Cathedral a bit.  Instead of leaning against the pile of books he's leaning on a giant version of the signed skull prop in the V&A and instead of him pointing to a scroll is now pointed into the socket of the skull.  I have now done a basic trace of all of the loose elements and will be working on them indivisually.  This is so that I can scan them as I don't have a good enough camera to photgraph a whole large picture but I also want to be able to easily manipulate the sections seperately in photoshop.  This also maked it easier to change the bits if unhappy at a later stage.  I'm going to be using the same method of acrylic and fineliner so I can really work on this style development and potentially add a bit of the background from the Herne picture earlier.  When this is completed this will work as one side of the "map", more of an tourist information pamphlet really, and it could also function as a poster.  I will ask what Elizabeth and Meghan think in both senses.  Just one of those things I'll try out further down the lign.  Obviously the Thames only looks like a ribbon at the moment, but as the good old expression goes: "children and idiots..."