A Story Fete

Pencil Drawing Tips on Shape Balance

Composition refers to the relationship of a number of elements that constitute a drawing. The positioning of shapes is one of those elements.

A viewfinder is a see-through adjustable piece of cardboard that lets you frame and isolate certain parts of the composition you are trying to realize. It is an invaluable tool to plan your composition.

You can easily construct a viewfinder as follows:

From a piece of cardboard, cut two identical L-shaped forms.

Join the two pieces together using two paper clips so that they form a square frame.

Because we used two pieces it is now possible to adjust the window of your viewfinder to the size of the scene you want to view.

For the purpose of composing a drawing we must take into account not only the positive shapes (the objects themselves) but also the negative shapes (the empty spaces in-between the objects). In addition, you also must see all those shapes in relation to the dimensions of your drawing paper.

With your viewfinder as an aid you can now apply some or all of the following guidelines:

1. As already pointed out, be aware of the format of your paper when placing your shapes.

2. Throughout your drawing effort be constantly aware of the location of your chosen focal point.

3. Unify not only the positive spaces but also do the same for the negative spaces. A good composition balances both the positive and negative shapes with respect to the focal point.

4. Two equally sized shapes should be positioned more or less the same distance away from the focal point. When one object is much smaller than another then the small object should be proportionately further away from the focal point than the larger one.

5. Generally speaking, a shape-unbalanced drawing or painting will look inharmonious and produce discomfort for the viewer. If this is not your intention you should improve the shape balance. On the other hand, unbalancing your shapes is a good way to purposely create an uncomfortable tension in your work.

6. Objects and/or subjects are best arranged asymmetrically relative to the focal point. Also, tall shapes look often better when they are further away from the focal point, unless they happen to be the focus themselves.

7. For some reason, it is more pleasing to the eye to see a group of an odd number of shapes than a group of an even number of shapes.

8. Your shapes should be arranged in such a way that the eye is always being led back to the focal point.

The few guidelines should give you a good start in your handling of shapes. However, remember not to apply the rules too strictly. Give your intuition and natural ability plenty of room when composing your next masterpiece.

How to draw with pencil and beginners oil painting tips published on these top quality educational web sites.

For the tips about upper back tattoos - read this blog.

I was at a colleague I knows home last week and the subject of art came up. I was quite surprised when I found he had built up a large collection of Tim Bulmer sketches and prints. He told me he just adored the comedy and wit in every print, which made him laugh every time he walked down the landing or looked up from his coffee in the day.

Following our chat I looked into the background of Tim Bulmer his art and prints, to find out some more about the man behind the comedy. One quote that I found from him appeared to have a straight forward into his take on life, Tim Bulmer stated “I am fascinated by the incredible diversity of life and am constantly inspired by the fact that it always seems a whisker away from farce”. When it came to his work he simply said that “wry observation of life and an unwillingness to take anything seriously more or less summed up his work”

Tim Bulmers opportunity arrived when he was working at a gallery and the owners allowed him to show some of his creations. The initial collection of his artwork very soon became really sought after and he was able to leave his everyday job and begin drawing and painting all the time. Tim Bulmer was given the fine art trade guild’s best selling print artist award in 2001, which was a real indicator of his popularity and overall appeal.

I find if you come across Tim Bulmers work that “Farce” is constantly the word that jumps to mind with lots of the environments taking the Michael out of situations political or personal that due to arrogance or ignorance still prevail in our everyday.

There is a big reason why celebrities are flocking to Mia Bossi when they decide its time for a new bag. It is because these bags are nearly indistinguishable from a “non diaper” bag. Celebs like Paula Abdul and Shannon Elizabeth, who are not even moms, are carrying them. Mia Bossi may be responsible for making the term chic diaper bag no longer a contradiction. For the record, it should be mentioned that Mia Bossi bags, although they do not have to be used like this, are also great for lugging around diapers as well as other baby gear. For a sleek and hip looking diaper bag, Mia Bossi is often where the celebrities go.

The Tribal Tattoo is rapidly getting to be one of the most popular selections for individuals searching for something a little bit different than your average tattoo.

Tribal Tattoo designs are believed to have come from Asia although we are not entirely sure. This type of design also includes tattoo designs believed to have come from the Japanese, American Indians, Celts and Hawaiians amongst others.

This type of Tribal Design just looks so good. They are usually applied using one colour - Black. They are very detailed and intricate and look very pleasing. Because they are so detailed it’s fundamental that once you’ve picked your design to find a proficient artist to do the work. Nothing looks worse than a poorly done Tribal Tattoo.

Although not everyone’s pick due to the Tramp Stamp label a tribal tattoo makes an outstanding lower back tattoo. Personally I like them but they are not to everyone’s taste.

This type of design is also a favourite with celebrities like Sandra Bullock (below navel), Pamela Anderson (lower back tattoo) and Henry Rollins (Tribal Sun).

Some examples of Tribal Tattoos include:

• Dragons
• Celtic Knots
• Suns
• Armbands

So, if you want a stunning looking uncommon tattoo you need look no further than the Lower Back Tattoo. Just remember a Tattoo is going to be with you forever. Take your time choosing that ideal tattoo, don’t rush into it.

One of the most beloved attractions in the city of Lubbock, Texas serves to honor the most well known figure the town has known. The Buddy Holly Center has a lot to offer the music lover. If you happen to be a Buddy Holly fan, you don’t want to miss this attraction no matter where you live in the world. You will be able to see what is, perhaps, the most impressive collection of Buddy Holly related items in the world. The Buddy Holly Gallery in the Center, which houses all of the items, is even shaped like one of Buddy’s guitars. Some of the interesting items that you will be able to enjoy at the museum include fan letter, Buddy Holly’s Fender Stratocaster, stage clothing, a pair of Holly’s glasses and a whole lot more. This is the best place to learn about Buddy Holly and The Crickets and their impact on music. A visit to the Center is one that no music fan will forget. Buddy Holly was one of the most influential rockers in history, influencing the Beatles as well as countless other bands. If you are in Lubbock, you can’t miss a trip to the Center. It is well worth the trip.

Beginners Oil Painting Tips - The Block-in Phase

This phase is the second phase of a basic approach to the creation of an oil painting. The first phase is the drawing phase and involves the drawing of the scene you wish to paint. So, at the start of the block-in phase we assume that we have a canvas with the drawing of our scene on it.

During the drawing phase we already resolved many problems and made many decisions about composition, light source, design, focus point, etc. This is a good situation because it is much better to correct mistakes up-front than it is when you have already a lot of paint on your canvas.

The block-in phase consists of establishing the large shapes of color as indicated by the drawing. The emphasis here is on correctly observing the color of these shapes and making sure you maintain the correct geometry.

In this stage you should not be concerned with painting any details. I use usually work with fairly thinned-out paint and a brush that feels a little too large than for the work I’m doing.

Start out with the darkest shapes. Make sure you do not misjudge these dark colors. You will rarely find anything that is totally black. Most dark colors have a certain bias such as blue, brown, or purple.

Next I fill in the brightest colored large shapes. Observe and analyze the color according to hue, value, and intensity. Also, make sure the colors stay harmonized.

Finally, I put in the more subtle colors many of which will be duller and more difficult to judge. Note that these more muddled colors are just as important as the bright colors. In fact, they are part of the reason why the bright colors can shine as they do.

Again, in this phase it is important to forego the details. Only two things count in this phase:

1) The correct coloring of the big shapes. This requires careful observation, analysis, and color mixing. It is important to check and recheck and if you feel the color is not quite right you should take the time to correct it even if you have to scrape it off the canvas.

2) Duplicating the geometry of the drawing. There is often a tendency to grow things. For example, when painting the large areas of a flower we tend naturally to make the flower larger. So, be disciplined and keep looking at the drawing and stay within the lines. Keep everything in its position and its proper dimensions and don’t forget to paint the background if there is one.

At the end of this phase the canvas should be completely covered with paint, i.e., no white areas should be left unpainted. This way you have a good idea of how all the colors look like relative to each other without the presence of the harsh white canvas. You will also be in a good position to judge how well the overall color scheme harmonizes and if you need to make any corrections. And one more time, restrain yourself to add any details.

The end result is a fully colored canvas of large shapes all with the correct color in terms of hue, value, and intensity. During this phase we have also paid attention to the harmony of the colors.

Read more about how to draw with pencil and tattoo tips.

Beginners Oil Painting Tips - The Detail Phase

The fourth and final phase of the basic oil painting process is the detail phase. This is the time to incorporate all the details like small decorations, fine textures, and highlights.

At the end of the first phase we are left with a complete drawing of the scene we wish to paint. The purpose of the second phase (the block-in phase) is to take the drawing and transform it into a series of large colored shapes. These large shapes must have the correct geometry and color. The third phase, i.e., the shaping phase, consists of modeling and refining the large colored shapes we produced in the second phase.

By the end of the shaping phase we should have more or less a finished painting. There are is no white canvas left and all objects and subjects should be drawn and colored correctly. So all that is left to do is adding the details.

Details include things like small twigs, pupils, eye lashes, small lines and curves, and highlights on a cheek or piece of clothing. In short, anything that cannot be done with a large brush.

Some details will require the use of thinned-out paint. For example, when adding thin lines or curves for hair or grass, we can get good results by using thing paint. However, in these situations you should always be aware of the so-called fat-over-lean rule of oil painting.

The fat-over-lean rule of oil painting states that you should always paint fat over lean. The words fat and lean refer to the amount of oil contained in the paint. So, in principal, when applying layers of oil paint on top of each other on your canvas, you should always apply a fatter layer on top of a leaner layer. If you put a lean layer on top of a wet fat layer changes are that, after some time, the lean layer will start to show cracks.

Other details may require the use of thick paint often right out of the tube. This is the case with heavy highlights and very intense accents such as red reflection on a roof of a house.

The reason details are better added at the very end as a fourth phase is that they are usually quite small and need to be placed very precisely. Therefore, it is better to start with painting large general shapes and then to progressively add refinements until the entire scene is correctly reproduced on your canvas. It then becomes much easier to place the details in their correct locations.

Also, details are often meant to be accents of intense color which requires thick paint and therefore, according to the fat-over-lean rule, are best put on last.

Finally, with the benefit of an almost finished painting it becomes much easier to judge if the added details are artistically well-distributed. For example, it is almost always the case that a focal point area will have more detail than other areas.

Learn more about how to draw with pencil.

For the tips about upper back tattoos, read this post.

Who has never heard of a clown who became very popular and rich? Almost all of these jokers have made it to the top of their pedestal entertaining a lot of people in their own special way. Of course, by being successful here is not only through gaining financial freedom or being turned into a millionaire by becoming a clown. It’s how you have touched everybody’s heart and how you make them laugh and be happy in their miserable life. If you are fond of making practical jokes and one-liners and magic shows and all that crazy stuff, why not learn how to be a clown “professionally”? And it’s not a serious joke. If you do decide, don’t let clown schools fool you into enrolling through them. Why, you can even learn how to become one right in your own home at your own pace and time. Who knows? Maybe some of your neighbors will hire you to be the guest during their kid’s birthday party, right? You might wonder why you should try to invest in learning how to become a clown when as matter of fact, there are numerous websites out there that offer all kinds of tips and tricks in becoming a clown. So, why try to pay for something when you can have it for free? Yes, you’re right. There are several sites that do offer some clown tips and tricks like how to paint your face, what kind of costumes you need to wear or what tricks or anecdotes or wise-cracks you need to utter to make everybody laugh. But you see, they’re free because they’re limited. They have limited number of ideas on how to entertain everyone. It’s just like getting a free-trial software on the Internet. You need to buy the whole stuff if you want optimum performance, optimum protection or whatever services a software is offering. It’s jus the same as trying to learn how to become a joker or a clown. With an investment, say, for a book that teaches how to be a clown, you can unlimited ideas and there are many different kinds. There are ideas for kids’ birthday parties, different “motif” for a school trade fair. Why, you might even learn how to be a clown during Halloween and don’t forget that Halloween is just around the corner. Or maybe, you can become a clown during Christmastime and entertain your relatives during Christmas Eve before the hour of 12 strikes. Who know, you might even become famous for your “endeavors”. So, what is the best way to learn how to be a clown? The ideal place to learn is your own home, at your own pace and time and with a little help from this book called “How To Become A Clown: How To Make A Living…Or Simply Entertain Kids By Clowning”. The best part is, you can surprise your kids like during Halloween or Christmas and watch their eyes opened wild with amazement to find out that the best clown they have seen in their life is no one else but their dear old Dad. Now, wouldn’t that make your heart inflate with delight, too?

Beginners Oil Painting Tips - About Brushstrokes and Such

A question: Is there a secret way to hold a brush so every stroke is a stroke of genius?

Best is to hold the brush towards the end of the handle. This gives you a little more space and a better view of your canvas.

If you want more control (e.g., to paint details), you should hold the brush closer to the head. Other than that, there are no secrets. Just experiment and find your own way.

How do you develop style and technique? The answer is: Just practice and further don’t worry about it.

Your style is in your brain while technique building is a matter practice. The manner in which you become fluent in these techniques actually becomes a part of your unique style.

You can also learn a lot from the masters. Don’t copy their moves but, in time, give them your own twist.

Hold the brushes in different ways, put the paint down in different ways, and observe what happens and repeat what works for you.

A brushstroke generally implies four separate actions:

Cleaning the Brush - The main thing to remember here is to always pull your brush, never push it. This reduces wear and also shapes the hairs of the brush.

Shaping the Brush - If you clean a brush correctly it should be shaped and ready to go. However, for delicate work (e.g., thin lines) you can chisel-shape the brush. That is, you hold the brush at a 45 degree angle to your horizontal palette, push down on it, and then slightly forward. The brush tip should now have a straight chisel-like edge.

Loading the Brush - Now you can load the brush with paint in several ways. Shovel-loading a brush means lowering it onto your palette and pushing it at a low angle into a pile of paint. The paint is only on one side of the brush.

To tip-load a brush, you first smooth out the front of the paint pile. Then, you pull a chisel-shaped in a slight arch across the front edge of the pile. The result is a thin line of paint at the very tip of the brush.

If accuracy is of no concern you can pull-load your brush. Pull a brush at an angle through the upper layer of the paint pile. The more paint you want the deeper you should go into the pile. The brush-to-palette angle determines how far down the brush will be covered with paint.

Body-loading is a form of pull-loading but with a small brush-to-palette angle at a thin paint pile.

Application of the Paint - A shovel-loaded brush makes precise strokes of varying thicknesses and almost functions as a writing tool.

A tip-loaded brush can be held perpendicular to the canvas and, while lightly touching the canvas, create very thin lines.

A pull-loaded brush is useful to create run of the mill strokes that don’t require too much precision.

A body-loaded brush is good for applying impasto strokes and heavy highlights. Impasto is a painting style in which the paint is laid-on very thickly.

Much more can be said about this but just remember, the ease with which you apply brushstrokes depends on how you load your brush.

Learn also how to draw with pencil.

For the tattoo art lovers, read useful tattoo tips here.

Pet costumes will come in all shapes and sizes this Halloween and in this article, we want to offer some tips and advice as to ensuring your pet stays safe during this holiday period.

Outfits like the Zelda Queen Pet costume make good sense for your animal. They are not over bearing and usually easily accepted. It’s when you start trying to put on a little too much in the way of accessories that many pets will start to object. Remember, they were not really meant to be dressed to the nines.

The Queen Zelda Pet costume is very simple and involves a Queen Tiara which is non threatening and accompanied by a very attractive looking pink tutu. It’s a great little costume to use for photographic purposes and particularly suitable for dogs.

However, the issue of pet safety still needs to be addressed because it’s an area too often overlooked. We’re not just talking about dressing your animal in a costume. There are several other areas which we’ll highlight during this article that need to be watched carefully.

Your Pets Safety At Halloween

1. Be careful your pet doesn’t get too excited or frightened by the Halloween excitement. Trick or treaters coming to your door will be strangers to your animals and they can either react aggressively or in a scared fashion.

2. Keep your animal on a leash even if they are in the house. again, when strange people come to your door dressed in costumes and not looking all that normal some pets could get aggressive. The leash is a good idea not just for the safety of trick or treaters but also your pet who could even make a beeline for the open door and disappear into the night.

3. Make sure you don’t feed your pet any of the treats available at Halloween. Things like chocolate and candy can actually cause harm to pets so be aware of this and let your children know not to feed the family dog chocolate or candy treats.

4. Avoid leaving pets outside. Halloween, while it can be a fun time also has a sinister side with pets often the target of unnecessary abuse and cruelty.

5. Be careful not to traumatize your pet if you are dressing it in a costume. Most pets are not use to wearing extra gear and while the majority adapt to it, things like tight fitting costumes can definitely cause distress. That’s why outfits like the Zelda Queen Pet Halloween costume make a lot of sense.