That's incredible, thanks for sharing.
Have been on this for a while... and do feel that it's my best piece to date after changing direction in the types of work I am drawing.
Just something a little different. :)
rOtring pen on A4 Cartridge Paper
Final image after a black pencil crayon 'touch up.'
Thanks for looking. :)
Last edited by gregory; 1st August 2014 at 16:40.
Just beautiful. Your eye for detail and your gifted ability for putting it onto paper are really quite wonderful to behold. I spent a memorable week in Venice 20 years ago and this brings it all back. Thank you very much for sharing.
P.s. What a productive way to spend your time too. Makes me ashamed of how I waste my own!
Fantastic work!
Could I ask a couple of questions (sorry if they seem daft but I know nothing about the technique) - do you use a ruler or is it all done free-hand and how do you (if you can) touch up any mistakes?
Brilliant work Gregory!!!!!
Spoiler alert: you have a talent my man.
Stunning, I loved scrolling down!
I’ve been sat in awe studying each stage and the progression: you have such a talent.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
That's really good Gregory; so you start off by working out specific crucial points to sort out your perspective, rough out a skeleton till your happy, and then fill in the detail and shading?
Love the water effect, don't know why but that's so difficult to get right.
Fantastic! And, what's more: It is nice that you're showing different stages of the project. Not only the finished drawing. I wouldn't mind to see more! Menno
I took loads of pics in Venice this June with the intention of doing some charcoal pencil drawings. Haven't got round to it - but you've inspired me. :)
How long did that take by the way? 5 hrs?
That's quite remarkable, I have no doubt I'll come back to look at it again.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Wow, what fantastic work.
I have a Rotring pen too. Somehow I can't make it do what you do, though. ;-)
WOW. I'd rather have your talent than win the lottery for sure. Would love to see all the other work you have done over the years.
Without meaning to sound rude, is that a computer rendered pic to start with?
Cheers,
Neil.
Brilliant! That is a beautiful picture... you are a very talented artist! Thanks for showing.
Rod
That is fantastic and wets the appetite even more. One month from today I will be in this wonderful city.
Paul
Thanks for the kind words gentlemen... it is most appreciated.
I have done a few pieces lately in my 'comfort zone,' though I especially proud of this as it really was a big ask. A friend of mine online suggested I was bonkers taking it on. Probably so! I have done a speedway piece, in between, 'as a break' from this as it really did take it out of me.
As for the 5 hours time..
The Hack: It took about 30 hours in total... possibly more. The grey areas are made up of individual dots, the pen nib is 0.1mm. It probably took about 5 hours just to outline in pencil before I laid down the ink outline.
which takes me to:
Neil.C: No mate... I originally lay down outlines in pencil. Then when I have what I feel is enough... then I lay over the top in ink. I wouldn't know how to do anything on the computer with anything! I am 45 and haven't a clue! I haven't got anything scan wise showing just the pencil part as I just like to crack on. I have the pencil progress outlining on other pieces scanned somewhere I think. Someone saw the early stages of this online, and asked me to scan it through the progression.. otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. It seems like a good idea in retrospect now. :)
The bottom right hand corner probably shows how I work best. I just ink lined a huge area which needed doing in a certain way (in my brain). I ad libbed (winged it) at the end... putting the odd outline in using rOtring Tikky propelling pencil then going random on it.
Kingstepper: No mate, don't have a ruler to hand.. the only time I bother to dig one out is to measure anything that I am listing on SC. I can't correct any mistakes. It's ink: it's in! I have ONE picture sat here 50 percent done that I have totally messed up on. And it was the Norton that my late father owned. I have completely done a wrong section of the frame... and it really can't be saved. However.. everything happens for a reason. I feel I am better equipped today than I was when I originally tried the Norton.. so I will start afresh someday soon.. and hopefully do it better. Everything happens for a reason. But any mistakes have to be worked around. They are there... I know they are... it's how they are bodged... erm... 'addressed' afterwards that counts. LOL.
Sestrel: The water killed me. I did it last over the weekend... and it really was a test. I do use a Prismacolor pencil crayon to shade over certain areas.. which did help. But I stressed over the water for so long. There is a lot of ripples there.
Cheers for all the comments. They mean a lot. I donate much of what I do. I gave a Bob Marley piece to my work Team Leader's son (he is 20 years old and terminally ill.. and a huge Marley fan), I have drawn pieces for severely injured speedway racers and eBayed the pics to raise money for their families hospital visiting expenses etc. I also have just raised £100 for Great Ormond Street Hospital by drawing (and auctioning the orginal and prints) World Speedway Champion Tai Woffinden (GB) and linking my Justgiving page to his GOSH page. It's nice to give a little in life.
However....
Nealywheelie... I'd rather win the lottery and throw the pens in the bin to be honest and spend the rest of my life staring at the sunset in warmer climes with a cold one! Let's keep it real.
Much appreciated everyone.
Greg.
Greg,
that is really good to see the build up of the piece, fantastic work you have my respect -keep it up you have a talent there!
Thanks for answering my (and other) questions!
Love this. Takes me back. Very envious of your drawing talent!
Fascinating! I hope you post others in stages like this, very interesting, and I like the finished work in this case.
Greg, money is just that, money, & you can hoard it, spend it, give it away, but you cannot buy 'talent' with money.
So, you throw your drawing instruments away, pick up the cheque, and go off into the sunset. You lie in your hammock with a cold one, and you're happy. One day drifts into the next and you're still sort of happy. Then one day you wake up and your frustrated, you don't need the hammock, or the cold beer, & the super curry has become boring, along with the amazing sunsets & bending palms in the breeze. All you want to do now is, draw, you need your pens back, you need paper, your brain is restless, you need to stimulate that, you need to express yourself as you did before.
Money cannot buy talent, it is a gift that you were born with, and some people ignore their gift, others exploit it.
So, pardon my ramblings, but, hoestly I am 'keeping it real' i.e. talent is worth more than money and if I were given the choice of being 'talented' or 'rich' I would opt for talent everytime.
I've been playing an old acoustic guitar for a few years now and my wife likes a few tunes from me after dinner on a Sunday evening, but I'll never be any good.
I have a box full of drawing kit, 6 Rotring pens, calligraphy pens, coloured pencils, chalk, charcoal etc but I can't really draw. Don't get me wrong, God loves a tryer, but I know, at the bottom of my heart, my inner brain tells me, I just don't have talent. So that is why I'm so impressed by people that just have natural talent, as you do. And people like yourself make the world a much richer place, so that's good, surely.
Keep up the good work Greg.
Fantastic, Greg. Great talent and application. That water is done with amazing sensitivity. Well done
Thanks for that Greg. Just an idle thought as the work is so good.
Many years ago I was a bit of an artist and pen and ink was my favourite medium, although it was all dip pens and indian ink in those days.
To do something like that with all the perspective problems and to render it so well is really magnificent.
Cheers,
Neil.
Great work! Nice that you included the steps to the final image.
Wow, beautiful! You might consider drawing some popular watches, like vintage rolexes etc. Id certainly would consider buying a pic or two!
Stunning result - beautiful work - and very interesting to see the stages of progression.
I do get it mate... nice sentiments... truly!!!
It's like Del boy on Fools and Horses when he becomes rich and misses how his life was before! Different... but similar. From having fun in the hustle... to nothing. But a richness that brings its own void.
The 'keep it real' was tongue in cheek mate. :) A lottery win would be great as it would mean that working doesn't get in the way of my drawing time. People wonder what they would do if they won the lotter... I'd happily do this. I have my pen, my paper, and tear it off a sheet at a time and clip it onto by £1.99 Amazon bought bulldog-clipped clipboard. No posh easel here. ;) I'd make room for both a lottery win AND art. Not wanting to be greedy and that... ;)
I had a 26 year gap from school to drawing again... God loves a rester too... ;), and just invested one day in the kit to do something creative. It helps me. It makes my brain think and work. And indeed, it is good for the soul.
And your words at the bottom are very kind. :) Thanks all.
I would like to see more please.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Me too. I've always admired the technique.
Gray
Amazing! Just showed it to my 710, as she's just doing a painting by numbers of Venice, she also liked it.
Absolutely amazing, what a talented guy.
As said i would love to see some more of your art work :)
Again... thanks for the kind comments and words.
Throughout my efforts, I haven't documented progress pics nearly as much as I should have. The main thing is trying to get the final piece right.
I have scanned through my laptop and found a few... they are listed here at random.
There are a couple of new-ish watch pieces here too.
A few I don't doubt aren't up to the standard of my Venice piece, I guess it is like everything, you have to strive to improve at anything you do, that only comes with time I guess.
Greg.
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and a few random other pieces....
The Camper was done by using a webpage editor, as was the Heuer logo added to McQueen, just for a play-around. As were other stuff such as the Union Jack on pics etc. I'm trying to learn how to expand from the basic black and white pic to editing things to look better.
The colours on the Cal Crutchlow MotoGP piece were added by hand. That is simply the original. As was the Proplof.
Greg.
Last edited by gregory; 1st August 2014 at 16:46.
You like your motorbikes don't you? ;-)
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Thanks for posting, absolutely stunning what a great talent you have.
There's some fantastic drawings their, absolutely amazing :)
Cheers.
Thanks again gents.
I do sir, this was my late father during my childhood... and the bike that was kept in the living room due to it being almost un-insurable!
Dad with his Manx (Inter: rarer version) Norton:
Most people in those days had a 'stone fireplace' (LOL) as their living room centrepiece, we had a 500cc Norton with a paint-roller tray as an 'oil catcher!' Much to my mum's deligh... erm... dismay!
My dad spannered for a racer at club level, getting him through about 4 Manx GP finishes (a bigger test for man and machine in the late 70's / early 80's), and our holidays were to there every year. Weekends were spent at Carnaby in Brid, Cadwell Park etc., all of them with me hanging out in the paddock / pits area.
A wonderful childhood!
I am still at Owlerton (not very far from yourself Eddie) every other Thursday, weather permitting, watching the speedway. Though the sport is struggling at local track level.
Greg. :)