Saturday, June 30, 2012

Tomorrow - 1st July - IT BEGINS!

It all kicks off tomorrow - the 31 day drawing challenge for the month of July!

Day One kicks us off, your topic is Self Portraits! You can find the rest of the topics here if you want to start planning ahead.

Join the event on Facebook or follow us on Google+ or get an account on Flickr or email me - donalfall (at) gmail.com to share your picture with the group!

Here's a little portrait inspiration for you all.

There'll be a blog post every day to keep everyone appraised of the progress so far.

donalfall out (for a very short time)!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

BUT WAIT - there's more!!!! The 31 day drawing challenge is on!

This is it you guys! The 31-day drawing challenge is ON. Spend July making sketches, paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, whatever you like on the topics below!

Post every scrap of art you make on the topics, no matter how simple or complex. If you miss a day - or many days - it doesn't matter! Jump on with the next day and join back in the fun! Even if you have an older piece that fits the theme of the day, post that! It's all about ideas, art and inspiring each other.

Images posted or linked to here will be posted up on the blog daily - or you can email your pieces to me:

donalfall (at) gmail.com

Day One - Self Portrait
Day Two - Favourite Film
Day Three - Worst Nightmare
Day Four - Still Life
Day Five - Master Copy
Day Six - You as the opposite gender
Day Seven - Favourite animated character
Day Eight - A toy
Day Nine - A mode of transportation
Day Ten - What you wanted to be when you grew up
Day Eleven - Useless Superpower
Day Twelve - A hobo
Day Thirteen - Favourite Mythical Creature
Day Fourteen - Outer Space
Day Fifteen - Fairytale
Day Sixteen - Scenery/Landscape
Day Seventeen - Just a doodle (quick and simple)
Day Eighteen - Something Orange
Day Nineteen - A book cover for your favourite novel
Day Twenty - One of the four seasons
Day Twenty One - An album cover for your favourite band
Day Twenty Two - Draw a treehouse (a dream treehouse?)
Day Twenty Three - A Tarot card
Day Twenty Four - A Monster
Day Twenty Five - Create a business card
Day Twenty Six - Your favourite animal
Day Twenty Seven - An Abstract Painting or Design
Day Twenty Eight - Four pictures that show a character aging
Day Twenty Nine - Fill an entire page with sketches and doodles - no leftover space
Day Thirty - Draw a Gangster, a Pirate, a Knight OR a Samurai
Day Thirty One - Anything you'ld like!

Looking forward to what you've got!

Galway Pub Scrawl #65 - Puny human number one

A very fun - but super warm - night at the Pub Scrawl! Jeebus it's humid here in Galway at the minute - you could dilute your watercolours with your sweat these days.

We're thinking that we'll run our 30 day drawing challenge for the Pub Scrawl through the month of July. Topics will be finalised soon! ANYONE all around the world is encouraged to jump in on this one. When we post the days' results, post a comment with your version of the topic!

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's your pictures from last night!

Everyone working away - note Mary's snazzy waistcoat.


Wait - Jenny has a snazzy waistcoat too? It's the night of the waistcoat!


Ger knocked out a great one - love the logo up top!


Darren hits those watercolours - awesomely!


Patrick's work with his notes & busy work all about.


Linda gives us this Raven!


Smoke is hard to draw, but my Robot is meant to be hovering.


Yolande crochets away as always. So intricate!


Mary plays with boats and grey tones...


And Jenny paints in oil-effect on her iPad! Very cool.


And that was that! Make sure to tune in ALL THROUGH JULY for the awesome 30(1?) day drawing challenge!

donalfall out.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Admin Monday 18th June 2012

Another fortnightly round up of the best links from the Pub Scrawl Facebook Page!

Notices:

Some of us are gathering together material to print a comic! We're using a "Secret" group on Facebook to organise at the moment, but it's no secret, just kept organised for the moment. If you follow through the group link to facebook and find me, send me a note and I'll add you if you're interested in joining this project. If you're not on facebook, send me an email (donalfall - at - gmail - dot - com) and I'll keep you updated. We'll be moving the group to it's own website or blog or whatever soon enough.

After our fun month of member focuses, we're thinking about doing a 30 day drawing challenge! Keep an eye on here & at the facebook group for more details as that evolves.

Links:
If you are (or know) someone under 21 who likes drawing Dragons, you can enter the contest over on The Dracopedia Project to win cool prizes. There's just a week left now, go for it!

I love these painterly works from Hiro Shisato.

Rich Pellegrino has an upcoming solo show.

Mike Hawthorne talked about how he approached making his latest Star Wars cover over on the Dark Horse blog.

The Powell's paintings are pretty sweet!

Unbelievably inspirational artworks are collected over on the, well, Inspirational Artworks blog.

Brandon Graham is giving away comics on his Tumblr in a contest - either reblog his post or enter his colouring contest.

Renae De Liz, one of my favourite artists, is in hospital with a serious infection. You can wish her and her husband, Ray Dillon, well on their respective blogs. You can help out with a donation, if you see fit, or show support by buying yourself a copy of Womanthology.

Adam Paquette's Sketchbook could beat up your sketchbook.

These old Pulp Novel Covers are crazy misogynistic, but they're pretty enjoyable.

Kevin Wueste kicks ass at the whole life drawing thing.

Justin Gerard is calling for Wacom to bring innovation in Digital Painting to the next level.

That's your bunch of links!

donalfall out.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Galway Pub Scrawl Special Event - Alan Corbett Illustrates

So yesterday we had our Illustration class/seminar with Alan Corbett, hosted by our good friends in 091 Labs. It was an interesting day, with a lot to learn over the few hours.



Alan began by introducing himself, giving an overview of his education, how he ended up becoming an Illustrator after beginning a promising career in teaching Yoga to Seniors and how he approached the charming college assignment of "Child & Pet" by turning it into a tale of a father shooting his son when he mistakes him for a polar bear. We also talked a lot about how researching the local history, maps, characters and stories of your home town - or any town - will give you thousands of ideas for stories/graphic novels/children's books/etc.



Then we ran through the contents of Alan's normal 10 week Illustration course fairly quickly, with plenty of Q&A about various points of interest. Obviously we couldn't cover a 10 week class in depth over just one day, but we got a lot of interesting pointers and ideas on how to generate creative storylines, interesting characters, tips about approaches to graphic storytelling and lots and lots of interesting info about how the publishing industry works. We talked a lot about formats, dummy books and how there isn't enough Irish Illustratative Style out in the world. And again and again we came back to the notion that if you can develop an interesting visual identity of your own, there is opportunity out there for your work to see print.



Then after a short break, we went through the steps that Alan uses to create and process his works, with a step-by-step run through of his approach to drawing, thumbnails, final drawing, scans & printing, adding paint in various stages, using Photoshop Layers & the creative use of teabags! We also talked briefly about image design, leading the eye, the rule of thirds & the evils of tangents (apparently Alan would put you in jail forever for them!). After a quick Q&A, Alan headed for the bus home to get back to work again.



Overall, we had a great day and I have to thank Alan for his time & his generous sharing of knowledge & especially the beautiful print he gifted to 091 Labs. He's going to send us up the handouts from his course on the topics that interested us on the day, and encourages anyone who wants to ask him anything to contact him through his website. His book, The Ghost of Shandon is out on August the 11th. Make sure to visit his site, follow him on twitter and like the book on facebook.



Links to remember -

There's an Illustrated Children's book fair yearly in Bologna which is the biggest exhibition of publishers/illustrators etc in the field.

Blurb.com lets you upload your material to make a photo book you can then buy copies of. Perhaps more importantly, you can experiment with all the standard book formats that publishers use in the illustrated book market.

Alan also gave a great recommendation for this book - Illustrating Children's Books by the Head of his Illustration Degree in Cambridge, Martin Salisbury.

That's all folks! I think the day was very sucessful & is something we will experiment with doing more of in the future.

donalfall out.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Don't forget - We have an Illustration class tomorrow!

Alan Corbett is coming to visit us tomorrow to teach a one-day version of his Illustration Class. It's taught by Alan and hosted by our good friends at 091 Labs.

Come along for a full day of Illustration teaching and drawing chatter! The cost on the door will be €10 (€8 for students and 091 members) for the day. Handouts are included in the price. Feel welcome to bring any art supplies you enjoy working with and feel comfortable using, but the handouts are all you need for the day! We'll accommodate as many people as we possibly can, but it is first come first served.

To reserve a space for yourself, join the event on Facebook, email me - donalfall (at) gmail.com - or leave a comment here on the blog. Thanks everybody!

donalfall out.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Galway Pub Scrawl #64 - Walken would have made a better Jar-Jar Binks.

A quiet night at the Pub Scrawl in terms of numbers, but boy were they rowdy!

Here's a group shot. They all looked at the camera this time - I prefer to catch them by surprise.



Ger was working on this AWESOME panel from his fantasy/western.



Yolande was working on her crochet. In the foreground there, you can see one sitting on the book.



My scrawlings.



Patrick was drawing monsters...



I'm not sure if Oisin was drawing characters or making notes about Ceramics. Or both?



And Battlin' Jay Penn was drawing up this awesome inked work.



Guys guys guys - don't forget our Illustration Class THIS SATURDAY!!!! Taught by the excellent Alan Corbett and hosted by our friends at 091 labs, this is an event not to be missed! Join the Facebook event to reserve a space, email me at donalfall [at] gmail.com or comment below to have your name in and be there!!!!!!!!!!!! at 10 AM on Saturday.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Admin Monday 4th June 2012

Well, May was the best! Our member focus time really dragged eyes to the pages of the Pub Scrawl blog and who can blame them! Take some time to revisit the great art of our members at the links below -

Jay Penn
Donal Fallon
Yolande O'Brien
Ger Coady
Mary Lillis
Patrick Gavin
Linda Boonstra
Jenny Magaharan

I'm going to try and divide up things into more important notices and less important links from now on, here we go -

Notices

Don't forget that The Gazebo Magazine is looking for art for their Dystopian Future issue - send them art before the 13th? of June I think. I shall clarify later. You can contact them - gazeb.ezine@gmail.com.

And don't forget the talented Alan Corbett is coming to Galway in 12 days time to teach us his special class on Illustration. You can join it on FB here, email me (donalfall at gmail.com) or leave a comment below this post to show interest.

Our own Jason Penn coloured a kids book, you can pre-order it here.

And here's the links and so forth I've been bothering the Facebook group with daily -

Links

I thought Shreya Shetty's monster was the cutest monster on Creature Spot.

I thought this installation piece was fairly mindblowing -



Yolande shared this project from the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life you can participate in over the summer if you have a chance.

Behance had these great photos from a Dublin based artist.

I thought Britt Wilson's piece on her style of hand lettering was really interesting.

The Underpaintings blog brought us updates from "The Art of the Portrait" conference.

Siggraph shared a video on new visual technologies that we'll be seeing in games, art programs, movies and 3d modelling in the future.


Prime is a free-to-enter Digital Art presentation book. It's short notice to tell you guys about it this year, but remember it for next year!

Ester Curini makes the coolest portraits of animals for my money.

I really, really encourage people to "like" Mike Corriero's page on Facebook. He's then dropping the price of his book when he hits various targets, so buy his book when it becomes cheaper! I already own a copy, so this is a selfless plea. :)

Dan Dos Santos published an amazing piece on how to turn a blogspot page into a beautiful gallery site on Muddy Colours. He then showed us all how it's done. Then our own Mary Lillis gave it a go, to great results!

The Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog had a huge selection of scans of Arthur Rackham art.

Jan Matejko re-created a painting as a 3-D Computer Model. It's pretty amazing!

Come join us next Monday (the 11th) for another edition of the Galway Pub Scrawl! #64 - Walken would have been a better Jar Jar Binks!

Friday, June 1, 2012

And while it's still May (somewhere) - here's another member profile! In fairness, Jenny had this in a while ago but I kind of broke the internet there for a few hours. :) This feature has been tons of fun! I'll be thinking of more things to do soon here at Pub Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawl!!!


I guess you could say I'm one of the least "sketchy" members of the Galway Pubscrawl. Sit me down in McSwiggans, hand me a pencil (as I've usually managed to forget mine), and gaze in wonder at my bewildered countenance! Wait an hour (and a couple of Coronas), and there's a 70% chance you'll return to find me with a blank page (sometimes containing a 404 error), a blank look, and a wail of "Donaaaal? What should I draaaw?", or "Um, I got distracted...", or even more likely "its all gone horribly wrong....".


Although there have been a few golden moments in my pub-scrawling, (both pencil and iPad related), most of my art tends to revolve around messy and/or dangerous materials that would get me thrown out of the bar!


I say messy - welcome to the exciting world of model-painting! Gluing and painting Games Workshop models, is a time consuming art form (I'm no speed painter), but it sure is rewarding to see the finished product :)


And when I say dangerous, I mean the "molten metal, open flame, stuff exploding" kind of dangerous. Yup, I'm learning to be a silversmith! No alcohol allowed in this section... My first piece was a silver and gold ring, but I quickly progressed to making a sterling silver elvish style diadem for a fellow pubscrawler's wedding. A far cry from my humble origins in beaded jewellery ;)


Find me at http://pinguini.deviantart.com/