Art Resuming

Hello again and I'm honoured to get back into my art journey again. Earlier when I had to move back to my parents, it's been a good opportunity to sort myself out and because lately I've worked out my next plan of attack to move back into the south east of Melbourne again, I can do some more things I've put on hiatus including art.

Here you see is some snake drawing but this isn't some snake. It's actually a poison snake pokemon called the Ekans. That happened according to the Chinese zodiac that this year is the year of the snake and as I've been a Pokemon newbie since last year. Once I've been aware of that, I went ahead just for fun to use this Ekans to mark the year of the snake and there's been the big fanaticism of Pokemon since I was a boy. That doesn't age.

Other than that, this first painting of Mrs Brinks initiated my journey to become an artist after my day out at the National Gallery of Victoria. After this painting, I've eventually done more and with enough momentum, I've decided to pursue my goal of having my own art exhibition. There's the previous post about this which I'll provide the link below.

My Art Exhibition Prospect

And towards the end of last year, I've been able to showcase my artworks for the public to see. The link will be provided below.

Not One But Two Art Exhibitions

Now, I have completed 10 paintings in my latest portfolio.

What you're seeing here is this Excel spreadsheet of my paintings I'll intend to showcase in my grand exhibition I'm currently working on. The eleventh art project you can see lined up is A Rich Swagman and thankfully made a start.

Firstly, I made the start with some brainstorming. I've written down what swagmen were like and anything they eat and carry. But then, I wanted to do something completely different. I wanted the swagman to be rich and the whole idea of this artwork is to be another thought provoking one along with the Black Sheep Banned painting I've completed earlier. With A Rich Swagman, I wanted to illustrate the wealthy side of Australians but at the same time, there are poor Australians which spell inequality.

With swagmen, they're usually poor travelling from station to station for some work but one thing's for certain. Making the swagman more wealthy is a good challenge with the series of sketches following up.

I first made a start on jewelry. I wanted to feature the golden Rolex watch and the golden rings from the Diamond and Emerald.

And then, the Garnet, Black opal, Jade, Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz and Zircon. This is a good opportunity to work things out. I've made a series of colours for the shading of gold.

With jewelry out of the way, I've worked on this glass teapot. One of the attributes about swagmen is they drank tea except they make them in billies heated up by a camp fire. It's a good exercise rendering the glass teapot in a 3 dimensional way and work out what I needed to do to fine tune when possible.

Next came the China teacup and saucer and another set of shading for the bronze head which'll go with the walking stick to feature in this art project.

And one final bit of shading is for brass.

And this is the rustic antique armchair where the swagman will sit.

There lies another challenge. In this stage, I'm wanting to pick which shaped end table to choose. On the end table, I wanted to place the teapot, China teapot and saucer and the damper along with the small dish of butter.

With this round of sketching under the way, the whole picture is being put into place.

Until finally, any tweaks to where all the props are placed are done and well presented. The next fun stage is sketching out the swagman.

I started off sketching the head and encountered a hurdle in regards to getting the tanned complexion right.

On the next page, I've been able to achieve the shading for the tanned complexion. The secret is not to add some orange or he'll end up looking like Donald Trump. And with his outfit particularly the double-breasted suit jacket, the rich swagman is so far fitting the bill. Next is to work out how he'll sit on the armchair.

From here, I've built up shapes and eventually build up.

Next page and another stage of improvement.

Another set of sketches involve these gold gemstone rings which'll also be featured in this art project.

And with another round of rendering done, another challenge will involve some interior design. I've grabbed those pamphlets to work on for the wall and floor but that'll be it for now. Another thing to mention is I like to give credit to my mum as we both work out challenges for this art project but also, her bags she makes as projects.

All this aside, the year will be a bigger opportunity to showcase my art through more exhibitions. I'm not going to be like Bob Ross as such and treat art as just therapy. Art also is a powerful tool for expressionism with the case of my latest serious works of art which I'm currently producing.

This is one valid message that sums up art. I took this photo along Punt Rd. Hopefully, this'll be inspiring enough.

See you next time!