• Gabrialla Sanders asked me if it is normal to feel scared and intimidated by a blank canvas.

    The answer is YES. For some reason I was unable to answer here comment so I ‘m making a video for her.

    A Canvas is expensive and easy to ruin. It’s also a statement. It says, I’m painting something special that deserves a frame around it so it can hang on a wall for ever.

    If you are confident that you are ready to make that statement, you will not feel intimidated but enthused and ready to get painting.

    Build your ideas in sketchbooks, learn your craft. learn how paint works on canvas, experiment and be prepared to make a lot of mistakes along the way. many of those mistakes will become the foundation of your own unique style as you learn from them and begin to become an original.

    But don’t expect to stand in front of a blank canvas and have inspiration descend upon you from on high, it doesn’t work like that. You have to build your ideas and techniques until you are ready to make that big statement.

    Good luck 🙂

    Everyone asks about the tools I use when I’m out using my sketchbook.

    The Pentel Aquash Brush is here in the Uk 
    and here in the US 

    Rotring Tikky Graphic in the UK here 
    in the USA 

    The Cotman sketching watercolour set is here in the UK http://amzn.to/1gNpZ8s
    and in the US here: http://amzn.to/1gaG6qA

    The Seawhite of Brighton a5 travel journal is here in the Uk and here in the USA

  • At last a new video on my drawstuffrealeasy channel showing you how to draw Otis the Laser Bunny, the hero of a silly story and animation I’ve been working out with year 2 ( 7 year olds) at The Archbishop Rowan Williams School in Portskewett, Wales.

    Have fun drawing and go to see the story at https://youtu.be/nDURoFb-G-A and makes sure you like and subscribe while you are there – thanks!

     

  • https://youtu.be/nDURoFb-G-A

    small-bunnyYou may not be aware of it, but Wales is undergoing a radical change in its school curriculum. The Creative Learning Through the Arts Action Plan is a brave move to enhance creativity in the population, having realised that the creative industries are where the future lies.

    I’m doing my little bit to get creativity up and flowing again in Welsh schools at the The Archbishop Rowan Williams Church in Wales Primary School in Portskewett.

    We are working on a project called Imagine/Notice. I misheard this as Imagine Otis. So that’s what I’m getting the children to do – imagine who or what Otis/Otys/Otice/Oteece is. We’ve had some really wonderful ideas so far.

    With Year Two, who are about seven years old, I took a few of the children’s themes and put them together. From that union the story of Otis, the Laser Bunny, grew.

    I was thinking about it over half term and came up with the name, Snip-Snap Wolf, and thought perhaps I should write my own version of the story. I then went ahead and made the little animation in the video above.

    Amongst other things, the children will be making books out of their stories, which I’m so looking forward to seeing and probably sharing here in time.