Entertainment

How to draw a Star Wars Tie Fighter

May 11, 2013Be first to comment!

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May the Fourth is Star Wars day – geddit? May the Fourth be with you? To celebrate, I thought I would show you how to draw a Tie Fighter. You may think this is just a drawing of a space fighter, but it is in fact a great lesson in constructing 3d shapes in a 2d space.

Follow the instructions on the video and when you are ready to draw click on the picture for simple drawings of the main stages of construction. Have fun… and may the force be with you!

Saturday with Kate on the Radio

January 26, 2013Be first to comment!

Had a great time with Kate Clark at BBC Radio Gloucester today, where I was the lunchtime guest. Kate was lovely. When she’s not on the radio on Saturday is she’s a reception teacher at school. Reception is like kindergarten.

Kate is also expecting her first child in five weeks. She’s going to be a busy lady!

We had so much to talk about – we chatted away a lot while the music was playing so you don’t get to hear that! You can hear the show for the next seven days by following this link:

How to draw an angry wolf

January 19, 2013Be first to comment!

Still on my quest to empty a biro, I bowed to pressure of requests to draw a Wolf. Normally I’d sketch out in pencil until I was happy I knew what I was going to do, then erase the pencil afterwards, but biro ink is sticky and would probably smudge if I tried to erase over the finished drawing.

So I had to just dive in and see what happened.

There was no reference material for the paws and claws, so I had to make it up from pictures of wolf skeleton paws!

Did I finally empty a biro? You’ll have to watch and see! Now what on Earth am I going to do with an empty biro! There’s another video coming along for that soon!

Snakes, Eyes, and Celtic Knots – The Wednesday Drawing Show

January 16, 2013Be first to comment!

SnakeforSiteThis week’s Wednesday Drawing Show is all about snakes – Why? because it’s The Chinese New Year next Month and it will herald the Year of the Snake. Why now and not Next month, then? Because you need to get some practice in to get ready to celebrate and draw snakes.

According to Wikipedia, “Ancient Chinese wisdom says a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means your family will not starve. The Snake is keen and cunning, quite intelligent and wise.” That’s Chinese Culture. I’m not sure if the snake is as welcome in many other cultures!

In this show I’m going to show you a bit about Eyes and how to draw them from the side. I’ve made a video for monday which will continue this lesson into understanding elipses a bit more.

Then I’m going to show you a three ways of making you snake looks smoother and curvier and then I’ll show you how snakes are involved in celtic knots and the art of the Vikings and Anglo Saxons.

Plus a fun What’s in the mail? A look at the wonderful drawings of famous people that you posted to the http://www.thewednesdaydrawingshow.com/uploadyourdrawings/ website and at the end all the other drawings you have wanted to share. This is getting so popular so quickly I think I’m going to have to put them all in their own video as the show is getting too long!

Also this weeks task to upload to the same address. Draw a snake – Any kind of snake or anything to do with snakes. Snake patterns, celtic knots, realistic snakes, mechanical snakes… let your imagination go wild and then go to http://www.thewednesdaydrawingshow.com/uploadyourdrawings/ and share your work with us all. And don’t forget to tell us you tell us who you are! I’ll look forward to seeing it.

Learn to draw a dancing skeleton!

November 9, 2012Be first to comment!

After my drawing of Psy doing the Gangnam Style dance last week, I had a request from Youtuber @143KNB to draw a skeleton dancing in a Gangnam Style!

This is not such a silly idea as it might seem. Skeletons are tall and thin while videos are wide. I’ve been thinking of doing a skeleton for quite some time, but I was trying to think of a way to make the skeleton a bit lively – make him dance! What a briliant idea!

So this will give you a rough idea of how to draw a skeleton whirling and imaginary lasso while riding an imaginary horse! If you wan really detailed anatomical advice, I’d have a look at the wonderful Dorling Kindersley book on anatomy http://bit.ly/AnatomyForTheArtist-UK

Second at the Wigtown’s Got Talent Competition!

October 1, 2012Be first to comment!

I came second at the Wigtown’s Got Talent competition on Saturday! (I hadn’t really intended to – I was merely padding out the bill!) The winners were the wonderful MacFarlane sisters, who were rightly described as Wigtown mermaids with angel’s voices. (That gives me an idea for a book!)

Any way for your amusement, here’s a video of my performance that was taken by Peter Bestel, proud dad of last year’s winner, Zoe Bestel. I made a video of her fabulous, winning song, 35 missed messages, last year which you can see here.

 

Speaking in a Scottish Accent

April 19, 20126 Comments

How to speak in a Scottish Accent – just some thoughts on the Scottish accent as I’m editing my book, Craig M’nure, Kindle. I’m reading it out aloud in Craig’s weird Scottish accent. He isn’t actually Scottish, he lives in the middle of the Atlantic on his own island, andis mostly influenced by sattelite TV and YouTube (he has the fastest internet connection in the world. His accent is a bit like my worst immpression of a scottish accent, which is a blend of Glasgow, Morningside and Orkney. That’s probably because Craig is my alter ego!

SweetLittleBaby.Com

May 24, 2011Be first to comment!

Have I mentioned SweetLittleBaby.Com? Some thing tells me that I haven’t.

I suppose it’s the beginning of a publishing adventure. It’s been a long,long time coming, but all the elements now seem to be in place and I happen to have the skills to get on with it.

Why Babies? Because I think they are fun and that whole period of babyness is so exciting. Babies are tiring, smelly, loud, and subject to many other fruity adjectives, but they are also great fun and endlessly absorbing.

And I think babies need apps too!

I’m not going to argue with people any more about how real books are better than e-books and apps. Apps are different from books and that’s a fact. I want to make sure that the e-books and apps that are available are really good and suitable. There won’t be advertising or inApp purchase opportunities. I don’t think young families want that and babies certainly don’t.

If you want to see what my app, SweetLittleBabyBoo! is all about, head over to SweetLittleBaby.Com and sign up for the newsletter. You will then be given the address of a live, online version of SweetLittleBabyBoo! that you can play with.

Enjoy – have fun!

Are you confused by Confused.com?

January 9, 20111 Comment

I don’t know about you, but I’m confused by confused.com’s latest TV Advert. Hundreds of cartoon people dance about the screen, seemingly all on E and loved up with each other, singing, “Can anybody find me-e-e-e-eeee, somebody to love?” followed by the strapline, “Eighteen million members and growing!

I’d always thought confused.com was price comparison site. They’d spent a fortune in advertising to convince me that they were. I could even have told you they were mainly an insurance comparison site. After endless repetition, this new campaign finally convinced me that I’d got it wrong all these years and that confused.com was in fact a dating site. I couldn’t see any other meaning to their ad.

Today, I heard the ad running in the background, and had to go and check. Sure enough I was right all along, it’s an insurance comparison site. But I shan’t be using them. If they don’t know what business they are in, who should?

Catherine Feeney – Rumer

October 12, 20102 Comments

I was introduced to the next big thing on breakfast TV this morning. Her name is Rumer. I went along to Spotify to have a listen.

Now I’m a big Burt Bacharach fan and Burt is a fan of Rumer. So he should be, Rumer is his reincarnation. It’s spooky – Rumer has all his tricks and cadences, but not the lyrics – they kind of sound right, but there’s no content to them.

During Rumer’s choruses, silky backing vocals enhance her voice in a way that seemed very reminiscent to me. After four songs that sounded pretty much the same, I put my finger on it – the harmonies are structured in a similar way to Catherine Feeney. I put her album, Hurricane Glass, on and – Ahhhh! That’s what I want to hear in Rumer’s voice, a bit of passion.

If you’ve not heard of Catherine Feeney, here’s a youtube Video link for you, I’m afraid embedding has been disabled. I had tickets to see her earlier this year, but sadly I was unwell and not up to going.

Catherine Feeney is a wonderful singer songwriter. Her songs have great tunes and beautifully written lyrics that mean something and are sung with colour and passion. Rumer’s voice is clinically perfect but I feel her songs have all been crafted by a computer programme given all the ingredients but not the soul. Like Norah Jones before her – not on my Christmas list.

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