Member Focus Month - Linda McNamara-Boonstra

Just when you thought it was safe to open your Google Reader again!!! Still some more member focus days, you guys. Here's an amazing entry from Linda Boonstra - and I may have one more for you tomorrow. :)

Drawing is my biggest and most long standing passion. My attention span is horribly short and I don’t always have a lot of patience, but putting a pencil to paper has managed to stay attractive for a quarter of a century, though on an off and on basis. To this day I am not sure why I decided not to pursue art more seriously after secondary school when I had to choose my higher education it just did not feel right. I went on to study English instead and this led me to Ireland from my homeland, the Netherlands.

After university I have worked in a few less than satisfying fulltime jobs followed up by a two art courses that held a heavy focus on contemporary art, something it turns out I have as little interest in as I previously expected. I am a designer and an illustrator at heart and I appreciate beauty and skill: this is something I hope to show. I enjoy working both digitally (in Corel Painter and ArtRage) and traditionally (with pencil, felt tip markers and water colours). My work in mainly character based, I like to render a lot of people and animals and I draw my inspiration from life as well as things I see in films or on TV or the internet. I also have a great interest in mythology, supernatural phenomena and the fantasy genre and this too is often seen in my work.

At the moment I am happy enough working fulltime in a non-art-related job as beggars cannot be choosers in Ireland but I continue to hone my craft at the Pubscrawl and elsewhere. I have just decided to follow some life drawing classes and have recently started volunteering in a birds of prey centre in exchange for being allowed free entrance to draw their birds. When I am rich and famous, I will have the Pubscrawl to thank for most of my friends, all fine likeminded artists and I would recommend joining or starting such a group to anyone.

Galway Pub Scrawl #63 - We are the Paint Eaters

Oh wow, we had a great Pub Scrawl this week. It is hot as hell in Galway, but we still had great attendance. I thought everyone would be lying at home in their freezers, but McSwiggans had the doors cracked wide open and we had a great time.

Check out the images -

Don't forget to come join us for the next Pub Scrawl - Walken would have made a better Jar Jar Binks!

Admin Monday 21 MAY 2012

Oh hi there, I didn't see you come in. We've had a busy month on the Pub Scrawl blog with more member focus days! You can now catch the art of -

Yolande O'Brien
Ger Coady
Mary Lillis
and Patrick Gavin

We also have a very special event coming up in June, when Alan Corbett is coming to give a special 1-day version of his Illustration Course. Call it a masterclass, call it a crash-course, call it what you like. It's on June 16th from 10:00 in the hospitable arms of 091 Labs. You can check in your interest in the Facebook Event Page, or by emailing me (donalfall at gmail.com) or leaving a comment on this post. There'll be a lot more on that as we get closer to the day anyhow. Time to catch up on some links!

Another long list of the things I ramble on and on about on the facebook group. Come join us there! It's not all me spamming everyone with cool art links. But they are cool art links. Here's some!

Muddy Colors announced changes to their roster of bloggers! Don't worry - the changes are great.

Wayne O'Connor reminded us all that The Gazebo, Ireland's newest RPG magazine, will be looking for Dystopian Future imagery for their upcoming second issue. If you would like to contact them, download the issue to find out how to contact them. Download the issue anyway!

Jon Schindehette published an interesting (and somewhat funny) post about his D&D Art Philosophy.

Poor old Maurice Sendak passed away. I liked Scott M. Fischer's tribute. There was also some posts of his unreleased drawings and intaglio prints on BrainPickings.org

Underpaintings awarded one of their unofficial "Certificate of Excellence" posts to Jacques Bredy - I am loving his work.

Dianne Mize linked to a place where you can download a free PDF of The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides. Buyer beware on that link though! I have a hard copy so I didn't mess with the download.

You can find direct scans of Leyendecker covers on this blog over here.


wazabi, who was one of the Concepting Leads on the Avengers, posted some movie concept art on conceptart.org! While the mighty Mike Butkus shared some Game of Thrones concept art!

Andreas Englund shared his portraits of a not-so-perfect Super Hero

Patrick reminded us of Jason Chan's blog.

Alan Hurley wrote about finding awesome artists through facebook

Now that is a Centaur Knight!

If you're into 3d modelling, Serge Birault is running a cool contest - 3d modelling one of his super cute girl paintings!

John Michael Carter runs an excellent portfolio site.

Galway City Museum ran an event for National Drawing Day. I had forgotten National Drawing Day was a thing. Next year, the Galway Pub Scrawl are marking the occasion somehow, somewhere.

And finally, if you like Golden Age Comics and old picture stories from magazines, I have a blog for you to check out. This scan of illustrations by Frank Brangwyn really caught my eye.

That's it you guys. Don't forget our next Pub Scrawl on Monday the 20th of May in McSwiggans - We are the Paint Eaters! and drop me a line or post a comment here if you are interested in the Illustration Workshop.

Member Focus Month - Patrick Gavin

We carry on Member Focus Month with Patrick's profile. Make fun of him in the comments if you like, he's gone to London for Kapow! so he probably won't see them til Monday. My understanding is they have no internet in London (only joking Patrick, hope you have a good time showing your portfolio around!).

Greetings, My name is Patrick and I'am what you might call a Purveyor of the Imaginary made Manifest, which is a pretty way of saying I make things up and scribble them down.
For as long as I can remember Art (and to a smaller degree, craft), has always been my first love, from my first colouring book right up to my shiny new wacom I've been creating fanciful, bizarre and silly images and committing them to paper.

So, when I came of age I emerged from the dark forests of my homeland (Mayo) and travelled east in search of training and guidance. My journey brought me to the bustling metropolis of Dublin where I found a temple dedicated to the artily... arts.
Within this 'Art College' I dabbled in a number of mediums including pencil and inks, found objects, cardboard model making, painting, clay, wood, comics, graphic design, print, photography, costume making and more recently, digital art, and finally settling on, of all things, metalwork, so as you can see, my muses have tended towards the schizophrenic, and I often find myself easily distrac....

sorry where was I, oh yes, but it is in the last few years that I have put all of my effort and focus into becoming a concept art and character illustrator.
Those are the fine fellows behind the scenes of many films, tv, or even video games, who first conceive and create the look and designs that will inspire the
costumes, sets, and action of the final production. To work on the design of a big hollywood film or video game would truly be my dream come true.
As a result I have been busy conjuring up creatures & characters for fantasy, scifi, history and legend, as well as weapons and vehicles in an attempt to better my skills in these areas.

So, hopefully the next time you hear or read my name, its shall be way, way, way, waaaay down the credits on some game or movie, that, while you may or may not think was any good, I hope that at least it looked pretty cool!

Member Focus Month - Mary Lillis

More Member Focussing with Mary Lillis. Mary is the regular I have known the longest (about half my life so far) and was the least willing to entertain the idea I would write her bio for her. I don't know if these two facts are connected.

I have always been creative but as I couldn't study art in Secondary School I didn't realise I was any good at it until I was 17. I started dabbling in design in college and after a one year course in the fabulous Moinin na gCiseach Community College Galway I was a qualified Graphic Designer. Several years of freelance work on the side of a retail career(!) and I finally got a "real" job.

Doing Graphic Design for a print company doesn't allow much creativity so I get my inspiration from design competitions from sites like http://www.talenthouse.com/creative and http://www.threadless.com/loves.

These sites,a lot of random T shirt designing and Pubscrawl (of course!) give me the inspiration to keep going with my art. I may never be famous but lots of (mostly) positive comments from complete strangers (and occasional famous authors) keep me going. :)

Find me at..

http://marv42.deviantart.com/
http://www.wix.com/marv42/marylillis-portfolio

and..

http://www.qwertee.com/product/sherlock-a-scandal-in-middle-earth/
http://atrium.threadless.com/CBLDF/subs/#/submission/the-day-the-saucers-came-5/

and http://marylillis.blogspot.com/ as of recently (31 MAY 2012)
.

Galway Pub Scrawl #62 - Listen all of Y'all

We had a great night last night at the Pub Scrawl and we're having a great month here on the blog with the member focus month! Keep on lookin' you guys.

That's a good looking gathering -

Jodi is at a new piecework...

Yolande is making her choker in a different set of colours -

Mary -

Crowd -

oisin -

Linda -

Patrick -

Grainne -

Me -

Awesome! Check on back in on Wednesday, we should have a package of images from Patrick, I am hoping?!?

Member Focus May - Ger Coady

Our member focus swings to Ger Coady next. You can find more of him on DeviantArt and at his new blog, here. Don't forget we're on on monday - Pub Scrawl #62 - Listen all of Y'all!


My name is Gerard Coady and I have been drawing, painting, making things and making stuff up all of my life. I have always loved fantastical creations and imaginary worlds. In particular I like when they are done in all the detail of real life. I like knowing how things work and like to bring a believability of function into my own work. Although thats not to say one shouldn't stretch believability or just plain forget about it sometimes too. Plus I am a sucker for good style. I guess thats one of the most interesting things about this kind of art. The thin veil between realism and style.

Well before I digress into long ranting I should probably put some info in this bio.
A few years back I finished a physics degree and had enough of that. The main thing I learned was that art was the only thing that would ever truly satisfy me. Since then I have been learning and practicing in the hopes that eventually I can make a career out of this. Just this week I started my blog which I will be updating often with sketches and even a few finished works. With plenty of drivel like this to add flavour http://gerardcoady.blogspot.com/

One of the greatest thing about this whole art hoopla is the people. Getting involved in groups like the NUIG art society, hello to Podge! and Galway pubscrawl, hello Donal! Groups like these have been a great source of inspiration, information, tips, tricks and just plain old fun. Which is so important because thats why we all started in the first place and its good to be reminded of that.

Ok, I will wrap this up. Already. Was it a bio? Was it useful? Probably neither. But hopefully someone will take the time to read it. If not what the hell. Just look at the pictures. Thats what its all really for.

Thanks for your time everyone.
Regards,
Gerard Coady.