Skot Marshall ~ Featured Artist

Skot is another artist found through DeviantArt where he goes by the name Lord Hoki, living on Austrailia’s East Coast Skot works in a variety of media creating a range of drawn, painted and sculpted objects.  Much of his DeviantArt account is taken up with his Hoki range of work such as those pictured below:

Above is just one of a wide range of character sketches featured in Skot’s DeviantArt account.  Aside from the sketches there are also fully worked up paintings (see below) in what is probably best described as, full 21st century technicolour:

I really love the blending and highlighting used in this painting, the background providing a wonderful richly textured contrast with the smooth features of the the face itself.  It could be that I’m attracted to these works thanks to the eyes – eyes being something of an obsession for me – and what eyes these are!  I almost feel like I could fall into them, a real focal point of many of these Hoki works.

If you like these characters painted, then you may well like them painted on t-shirts (below), wear an original work on your chest … I’d pay for that!

It only seems right that the Hoki’s be brought to life in an altogether more 3-dimensional fashion, and so it is we discover Captain Hoki:

The Captain here is a sculpture in papier mache that really fits in with it’s 2-dimensional forebears, the nose and eyes being the main feature with colouring and details in keeping with the designs I’ve already featured here and the others in Skot’s gallery.

Given what’s gone before you may well be forgiven that Skot is something of a one trick pony, yet nothing could be further from the truth and so, before I finish this post I’d like to share a few of Skot’s other works with you.

A pencil sketch entitled “My Dad”, we presume it is … his … not mine!

A couple of bird boxes made from reclaimed and recycled materials … makes me think that the birds we get around where I am are a bit rubbish.  Having said that the Buzzards, Grouse and Barn Owls are pretty cool … oh! and we don’t get deadly spiders, snakes or other nasties!!

As ever I can’t recommend enough that you check out this artists gallery which is available here.

In the eye of the beholder …

Painting, or more specifically, what constitutes a ‘good painting’ is something that has no doubt been contested since the dawn of time when man first began daubing paint on cave walls.  You can almost discern, through the mists of time, the first critic carefully contemplating some abstract image of a hunting party bringing down a mammoth, I  wonder how long he paused before delivering his verdict with the business end of his wooden club … and creative types think the critics now can be harsh!!

Jolene and I spent the day yesterday wandering around the Kelvingrove Art Galleries and Museum, a long day with kids in tow but well worth it for the fantastic range of arts and crafts from across time from Egyptian artefacts, to Scottish pre-history through to reflections on modern society.  The Art Galleries have an extremely fine selection of paintings, not least of all one of Jolene’s favourites, Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John on the Cross, and my own personal favourite, Van Gogh’s, A Portrait of Alexander Reid, pictured below:

Jolene and I actually decided to buy a small framed reproduction of this painting from the museum shop, although we weren’t necessarily so keen to be hanging Jolene’s favourite Dali anywhere in the house!

Coming back from the galleries, and having enjoyed a quiet dinner down at the pub, we came home well fed and well motivated, if for no other reason than it can be difficult to wander around any gallery now without looking at some of the exhibits and wondering just how some of the items can be considered to be art, let alone of high enough calibre to be hung in a prestigious gallery.  Faced with paintings that you feel your three year old could produce given half the chance it’s difficult not to think, I could do that!

So we did!

Jolene started it when she began slapping red paint onto a canvas (7″ x 9.5″), and to be honest I thought that that would be that, I had already named it ‘red paint on canvas’ … a masterpiece to behold and clearly befitting of any up market gallery.  Alas there was no stopping her and she carried on initially by gluing on a foreground and then over-painting this with some actual subject matter, by this point she had already made some of the ‘modern art’ I’ve seen elsewhere look amateurish and so it was she ended up with the picture above.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t about to be outdone by Jolene and had made a grab for my own canvas (12″ x 12″) – typically for me it already had some unfinished rubbish on it – following Jolene’s lead though it wasn’t long until I too had daubed over the canvas with red, indeed I had already named this one too, ‘even more red paint on canvas’ … genius, eh?!

I was kind of perturbed when I saw that Jolene wasn’t going to be content with slapping some paint on the canvas and that I might actually have to put some thought in to what I was doing, I ruminated a some ideas many of which I had to discard as they were too involved, beyond my ability to execute or clearly plagiarised from somewhere else and instead I ended up with this (below).

It’s funny though how ones attitudes change to art as you get older, there was a time when I couldn’t understand how someone might stand and look at a painting for any more than a moment, yet when you actually see some of the true masterpieces in person there is so much to see beyond the bigger picture that it can be difficult not to look at them with a more discerning and focused eye, you don’t need to like everything you see, but you should be able to decide what you like and why.

Just from a general interest point-of-view I thought I would just upload a couple of the other paintings we have hanging around the house.

We were gifted the painting above by Jolene’s mother and father who brought it back from a trip of a lifetime to Nepal.  The one below was picked up during our Holiday last year in Wester Ross from a lady who ran a small shop out of a shed selling soap, her son was the artist and he had produced a few of these paintings featuring a central Celtic Knot design.

Gruber ~ Demon in a waistcoat

I had promised to have this finished by April 2009, so obviously I’m delighted to have finished it before it goes a full year past my own self-imposed ‘due date’!

Like most of his erstwhile and largely forgotten friends Gruber is keen on world domination, although it’s perhaps telling that he and his cohorts are largely forgotten given their compete ineptitude when it comes to matters of actually achieving world domination.  Indeed his most well known cousin, Gravalash, was defeated by his inability to get off a high shelf and whilst such trifling difficulties are unlikely to be of much difficulty to this fellow the complexities of reaching the door handle have limited the range of Gruber and the fulfilment of his innocuous plans.

He dreams of breaking loose and running free as he once did, although he is still haunted by the nightmare of attempting to cross a field of snow that proved to be too cold for his tippy-toes, alas what else is left for him other than to stand at the window and wave at the post lady …

Gruber stands at 18.5″ / 47cm tall, is 16.25″ / 41cm from the tip of one horn to the tip of the other, and is approx 11″ / 28cm deep.

He is available for sale, to a good (and secure) home in our Coriandr shop, here – additional images are also there.

Kezeff ~ featured artist

I’ve really been taken by the work of Kezeff, another artist I found on DeviantArt.  I’ve only been following them for a short period, but even in that time I have been fairly impressed not only by the quality of their work but by the creativity behind it and the seemingly highly effective execution of that creativity.  Kezeff uses super-sculpey in creating their sculptures, a hugely popular material (and something I’ve been itching to try myself) and I believe paints them up with acrylics for the most part. You can find more of their work here.

Face Parts Study

Aspiring artists and sculptors would do well to take a leaf out of Kezeff’s book and do some studies of whatever their preferred subject matter is. I’m sure it’s something that I would benefit from, even where your intention is to twist it in some fashion understanding the basic anatomy of your subject can be hugely beneficial.

Much of Kezeff’s work appears to consist of busts either in a more realistic fashion as with this piece here:

Battle Chasers Knolan Bust

Or something a bit more corrupted like this fellow:

Zed

Kezeff has also worked to create some the more quirky pieces such as these wee characters here:

Snoogle

Pumpkin Carl

I really enjoy viewing the sculptures that Kezeff creates, but what keeps me coming back for more (aside from the cool subject matter) is the attention to detail that he puts into the sculptures. Look back over the images above and notice the wrinkles and creases in the skin, the underlying bone structure, the attention to making moist elements appear moist and the variation in skin tone and texture. It’s each of these elements that add up to make some rather great sculptures and I can’t recommend enough that you take a look at their DeviantArt account to see more of their work.

With luck I’ll have one of my own sculptures to share with you soon, I can’t promise it’ll be as refined as these but it will be in my own particular (shouldn’t that be peculiar?! – ed.) style!!

Papier mache wall art

It’s been commented on in the past that there are strange things going on in the dark recesses of my mind, that they seem to bleed out into the light through what I create … I think ‘they’ may have a point.

I seem to have a raft of canvasses lying around and despite repeated attempts to paint something of any worth on them I seem to fail and fail again.  The canvas here has been used so many times now that I can’t recall how many images lie beneath this final effort, perhaps it’s a furious amalgam of all that went before, a seething anger at the ineptitude slapped on the canvas below.

Whatever it is, using a canvas as a base for some wall art/sculpture is an avenue of interest to me and something I feel sure I will pursue further at some future point.  In the meantime I can think of at least two (more conventional) sculptures that deserve to be finished after well over a years worth of idling!

Wall art W.I.P.

It’s always a bit of struggle for me to get back into the swing of the craft thing following the festive frivolities, of course it hasn’t helped that we were on emergency fuel rations until our delivery arrived Wednesday and I had to spend the next three days shifting it up the hill to the house … that’s another story though!

Currently I’m working on this piece of wall art that I last picked up during late November or December and following the break I’ve lacked any kind of motivation to pick it up again.  Losing momentum can be a real struggle at times and until you can gather yourself to move on projects can idle and die, this can be a real issue with materials like papier mache which require long drying periods in between adding layers or building up texture or depth.

The concept isn’t exactly a new one but it’s one I’ve been keen to experiment with and following my fourth sub-standard painting on this canvas I decided it was time to use it for something other than painting … I suppose you might suggest that the previous efforts have been consumed by the character emerging from the canvas now.  He certainly looks like he might have a touch of indigestion!

more plant pot decor

This will probably be the final batch of plant pokes until after Christmas as ‘other priorities’ take over … also, the workshop gets hellish cold at this time of year due to gaping gaps under the doors and roof which may as well not be there when the cold winter gales get going!

Click image for full view!

As ever these were made using the power carver, actually my new power carver following the untimely demise of my last one.  I went for a different model and whilst it doesn’t have the same grunt as it’s predecessor it’s actually not too bad once you get used to it’s foibles!  Next time I may need to invest in one of the heavier duty motors.

There’s a good chance that I’ll be putting the power carver to greater use in the future for larger carvings, currently I exclusively use traditional hand tools for these but the amount of time this takes just even from a roughing out point-of-view can be excruciating … time will tell.  Still at least the traditional tools can be used in the house … by the fire!

Sock creatures

Jolene’s been busy with her needle and thread, pulling up her socks, and putting together some more of her cute and cuddly creatures.  Stripes seem to be a recurring theme, but the first cuddly creature featured here is a luxurious little soul made out of angora …

As much as I love the soft autumnal colours in the angora creature above, the vibrant summery colours of the creature below are also rather fab.  We had pretty much decided that this one had something a pig-tailed school girl about it, but now I look at the pictures here I can’t help thinking it looks more like the irritated mother of a naughty school girl, hands on hips!

Meanwhile, I’ve also been finishing off my second and, I promise you, final sock creature … it’s no great work of art, but it’s definitely got character!

Sock creatures, a monstrous diversion!

Sewing is really Jolene’s thing, obviously I’m far more interested in manly arts and crafts rather than these silly women’s past-times!  Obviously I jest, but sewing isn’t really what I do … other than from a utilitarian stand-point it’s not a craft I’ve ever felt the need to refine, alas, with time to kill and the workshop outside getting colder and colder as winter sets in I was persuaded to have a go at making a sock creature or two.

This is my first effort, and whilst I don’t think it’s a complete failure …

… I can’t help thinking that she looks like a bit of an old slapper!

We’ll be selling Jolene’s ones at our forth-coming craft fayres, we’ll announce dates shortly.

Sock Creatures

These fun chaps were supposed to be sock monsters but they just aren’t at all scary.  In fact, they are so cute it hurts me to look at them so I think they must be banished to the sock drawer from wence they came!  (They didn’t really, they are brand new non-smelly socks).

This is something of a brand new obsession for me and I can’t seem to stop making them, which is unfortunate because I should really be making up a stock of birds for the upcoming craft fairs.  There are so many possibilities and since making these two at the start of the week, I’ve made a further two that are entirely different despite being fashioned from the other sock in each of the pairs.  It’s so much fun seeing your creation come to life, it’s a bit addictive.

This happy chap is known to his other sock friends as Ben the Bovine.  His peculiarly dimpled lips make him look somewhat like a cow and he is teased daily for this unfortunate feature.  In reality he is a sheep (or at least that’s what our three year old thinks) and he needs a loving home where he can be supported in the pursuit of baa-ing.

Sergeant Slim here at your service…stiff upper lip and no messing around.  See the thin yet ever so carefully crafted moustache?  He spends hours every morning grooming his facial hair.  Those who know him better, see a twinkle in his eye though and we all know that when no-one’s looking he’s as batty as the rest of the sock creatures.

These and the other sock creatures I create will be on sale at the craft fairs we’re attending this winter…details soon.