Thinking about Pre History - Iron Age Fort

So you have this bright idea - how on earth do you progress it? Well that is the first question that needs to be addressed when starting to think about the Prehistoric project. Fortunately I know something about Iron Age Britain so this might help but not at the moment. Instead I have decided just to sketch out some basic ideas - an Iron Age fort, an Iron Age man and the so on. Just how these all fit together I haven't got a clue at the moment but somehow they will.

Beyond the artistic I have been researching the Iron Age quite extensively over the past few months so that may well give me some clues. I suspect I may well be spending some time in the cotswolds - especially around the Gloucestershire, Oxon, Warwickshire borders. The more I think about this the more interesting it gets.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

A doodle or sketch - not sure which

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Kedleston Hall

I have just spent an enjoyable afternoon at my friend David's McMillan fundrasier.  One of the things that looking at all the art on display has inspired me to is to make a new series of photographs.  I have decided to give the project the title of Pre Historic and no doubt over the next few months I will be building up a portfolio of work so that I can put them all together in a new book which I would hope to publish in the spring.  That's the plan which of course I'll completely ignore but there we are.

So why Kedleston Hall?  Well why not - I just fancied making an image and this was the first one that came to mind - that makes a grand total of 12 photographic images I have made this year.  Not bad going even if I say so myself. 

Simon Marchini 

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

An ironic banksy

And who said the Americans don'y get irony

Simon Marchini 

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Article: Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field Lives On

Really good article, if a little bitchy.

Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field Lives On
http://gizmodo.com/5946966/

Sent via Flipboard

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Another time saver from Apple

So you want to buy something from the Apple stores wall display and you can't find sales person (whatever the approved apple term for them is) well now you can scan and go.  I used the new service and I have to say it is really easy.  What the app does is that it turns your iPhone into a barcode scanner and then charges you for the item.  Once this is done then you simply pick up you item and go.   It was really simple.  Of course you have to have an iPhone and an iTunes account but I suspect that there are few Apple users that don't have either.

So what did I buy?  The Trackpad and it is really good.   Given the size of the iMac screen I found that I was zooming the mouse all over the place and after a while this was becoming tiresome.  The Trackpad seems the answer - although it is taling a little time to get use to all the functionality - over 20 years of using a mouse can't be forgotten overnight!  Other than that I think it should be a good investment.   

Simon Marchini 

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Dima Rebus (dimarebus.com)

Now these are wonderfully interesting watercolours.

Dima Rebus
http://dimarebus.com/

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

30+ Photorealistic Pencil Portraits

I look at these incredibly crafted pieces and my heart drops.  Not because they lack craft but because they lack soul.  I may have said this before  but to  paraphrase Hockney..." where is the poetry?..."   Plus all of these are copies of other people's creative work, i.e. the photographers or graphic designers who created the image that these are copies of.

So lets celebrate all the craft here, not just the artists who created the drawings.

30+ Photorealistic Pencil Portraits Of Famous Celebrities
http://www.modny73.com/artwork/30-photorealistic-pencil-portraits-of-famous-celebrities/

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

iPhone 5 Camera Sensor Pitted Against Canon 5D

I read this and couldn't help myself - I just had to scream at my iPad - "What is the Point of This!!!"   The canon is better even at its worst setting and what would happen if you closed it down to, oh lets say f8 or perhaps the light conditions are not so bright or perhaps at night or perhaps you want to change a lens or...the list is almost endless.

This reminds me of the old logical problem..my cat has four legs, so does my dog therefore my dog is a cat.  In fact this has more point to it than trying compare, at best a £50 pound camera and lens with something that costs so much more.   

Oh some times I just want to scream!

iPhone 5 Camera Sensor Pitted Against the Canon 5D Mark III
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/09/24/iphone-5-camera-sensor-pitted-against-the-canon-5d-mark-iii/

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Beautiful Oil Paintings Using a Palette Knife

If these paintings are as striking in real life as the images on line are then they would be worth seeing.

Beautiful Oil Paintings Using Only a Palette Knife
http://twistedsifter.com/2012/09/oil-paintings-using-only-a-palette-knife-leonid-afremov/

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Is it a painting or is it a photograph?

I guess this video is just another demonstration that drawing any form of distinctions within art is ultimately pointless.  Yet I still try to - what does that say about me? 

Simon Marchini 

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Exploring Local - the problem with Apple Maps

A thoughtful analysis of how things probably went at Apple - hubris anyone?

Exploring Local
http://blog.telemapics.com/

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Iron Age Man

I am starting on a project to create a large drawing/watercolour of an Iron Age community with a number of people prominent in the drawing. The question is what do Iron Age people look like? This is an interesting question as the answer is we don't really know. There are late Iron Age bog bodies that give some idea and descriptions in Roman and Greek sources, notably Julius Caesar, but even these only give a partial answer for numerous reasons.

So the approach I have taken is to look at the life style and see how the people living that life style today might look. Fortunately there is a group of people who fit the description - farmers and so I have been looking at older farmer faces and builds to see where that might take me.

The next question is clothing. Again the evidence for this is somewhat mixed but they certainly had woven cloths, perhaps a form of tartan. The final question would be stature. Again the bog bodies provide a possible answer in that they were significantly short with a body developed by hard work in the fields with scares from battles.

So I am trying to create an image of a short, tough, weathered faced individual who might only be no more than 20 or so years of age but has spent a lot of his life outdoors. With this in mind this is one of my first stabs at trying to capture such an individual.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Inspired Marilyn

This drawing is based on a Marilyn image which, if I'm honest as got away from me. That being said it might not be such a great likeness but its a great face and to be quite honest I don't care that the likeness anymore - I just want to see what face appears in the end.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Welcome To Apple’s iOS6 Map

The mapping system is a joke at the moment - I tried to find my address on the satellite and found that it is covered in cloud - perhaps that is caused by the stream coming out of my ears!  Even the detail I could see isn't as in depth as Google.

Welcome To Apple’s iOS6 Map — Where Berlin Is Now Called “Schoeneiche”
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/20/welcome-to-apples-ios6-map-where-berlin-is-now-called-schoeneiche/

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Kingswear's Dart Princess ferry thief

Well if you're going to take a vehicle you may as well make it worth your while!

Kingswear's Dart Princess ferry thief 'Jack Sparrow' jailed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-19661144

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

I am as yet imperfect. But I'm learning

So said the sage of Cupertino Siri...I've just updated to iOS 6 and one of the first things I wanted to try out was the much vaunted Siri and it didn't disappoint. I read somewhere that this is the Microsoft paper lip of the iPad generation and from what I've seen at the moment that about sums up the program. No doubt it will get better but I won't hold my breath nor will I use it. Goodness only knows what Martin Scorsese's diary was like after Siri had butchered it.

Still it does make for a great parlour game for about 5 minutes. Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Who is Marilyn Monroe? Asked the Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

Who indeed is Marilyn Monroe? I haven't got the first clue and having examined many images over the past few days I really don't think no one knows. Undoubtedly there may be a few people still alive who actually did know the woman but they must be an ever decreasing group.

For the rest all we have is the myth based on what? Well a bunch of variable movies and almost limitless images circulating to enforce and enhance the image of a mysterious creature. She really isn't a human being anymore but semi goddess. So we are served up Marilyn the sex goddess or Marilyn the exploited play thing of a President who is as much a Demi-god as she or perhaps a woman just trying to make her way in a mans world or all of these or none. On a more practical level the week has been a fascinating experience - trying many things before coming to the conclusion that I am, at heart, a really conservative artist who likes nothing better than to sit down with a pencil, graphite or conte, and try to make the best likeness I can. I think I have succeeded in that endeavour in some small way.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

NPP | National Photographic Portrait Prize 2011 | The Australian

Of course it is impossible to say for certain from the Internet but in principle the photographs in the Australian version of the portrait prize are of a higher standard than the British.

I wonder why that is?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/gallery-e6frg6n6-1226012006561?page=2

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Marilyn No - Mad Men....maybe

This was a drawing that really got away from me, which at one point was really annoying then I just went with the flow and just enjoyed creating this Mad Manesque image. Sometimes I think you have to remember that this is supposed to be enjoyable and rewarding as well as deeply frustrating.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

The Hounds of Love

Day two of the Monroe exploration and I seem to be going in a totally different direction - a bit more Frank Auerbach (only a bit). Again the question is it a likeness, I am not sure but then again I really don't know what a likeness of Monroe should be as she changed so much. Perhaps Warhol had it right all along.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

This Old US Army Camera Had a 100 inch lens

Now I wonder if this the camera used to capture the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing?

This Old US Army Camera Had a 100-Inch Infrared Lens and Required a Spotter
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/09/14/this-old-us-army-camera-had-a-100-inch-infrared-lens-and-required-a-spotter/

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Classic Monroe

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Windswept Monroe

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Marilyn at 50

Now I know she was only 36 when she died, my god 36 and it is 50 years since she died and yet here she is probably more powerful than she ever was! Anyway as I was drawing this I suddenly realised that this might have been how she might have looked at 50 - all the pain of a life spent being exploited and exploiting in probable equal measure etched into her eyes. So very sad.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Finding Marylyn

My friend's daughter has asked to make a drawing of Marylyn Monroe as a birthday present and so this morning I started searching for Monroe and it soon became apparent there is no true image of the late star. Every photograph is a manipulation of some truth of what we, the viewer, brings to experience. Now this is hardly a new revelation but it does make trying to produce something interesting an even greater challenge. The flip side of this is that anything you produce could be Marylyn - indeed searching through Google again and again you come up with Marylyn impersonators, some good some not so. It seems we all have our views as to what Ms Monroe should look like.

An interesting challenge.

BTW this is just a first stab at the problem and a particularly good likeness - although as I write this I really don't know what a good likeness might be!

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Damn it, let's give Richard II... (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)

So much for burying him at Leicester Cathedral which is just spitting distance from where the remains were discovered.  But the reality is that if this is Richard 3rd, and I think that is still a huge  if, then he should be buried with all honours of a fallen monarch - and Westminster Abbey is the only fitting resting place.  Question is what sort of grave should he have, Henry 7th has a large and impressive one - should Richard have something similar?  All is resting on the DNA results...just like an episode of Jeremy Kyle.

Damn it, let's give Richard III one last, glorious summer – Telegraph Blogs
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100181096/damn-it-lets-give-richard-iii-one-last-glorious-summer/

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

iiPhone 5

So the latest iPhone has arrived and Apple has maintained their tradition of making things a little better but no great earth shakers. Of course Apple will argue that the all new iPhone 5 is the most important phone they have ever made which of course is nonsense. This honour goes to the original iPhone which was earthshaking and literally changed the whole phone market.

Would I buy one? Well not at the moment because there doesn't really appear to be a good enough reason to do that and surprise surprise my iPhone 4 works perfectly, in fact my iPhone 3 is still working perfectly and being used by a friend who isn't renown for treating equipment with kid gloves.

So what have we learnt? Well I suspect that we are reaching a bit of a plateau in phone development when all the 'easy' things have been done and we will face an incremental world. An interesting thing did come out of the launch of the iPhone though, that the iOS/iTunes environment is the real driver and so perhaps this is where the great innovations will be found that can make best use of all that computing power in your pocket. Only time will tell.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Boris Johnson is no laughing matter

A pretty standard Guardian piece bitchy with faint praise and admiration.  But only the Guardian would think that Luton is ' the North '

Boris Johnson is no laughing matter
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/12/boris-johnson-no-laughing-matter?mobile-redirect=false

---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Boredom has set in

There comes a time when I am using Brushes that boredom sets in. I know the work isn't anywhere nears as I would really want it but the sterile, inanimate nature of using the iPad finally gets too much and I can't take anymore. Well I have just reached that point and so this is the final result.

When I view other artists work who use an iPad I marvel at what they can produce. They certain have great skills and must have a greater dollop of patients than I have but given all that I quite like this image.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Hard work

Last night I started to rematch one of my favourite movies, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and this has inspired me to try and make a Brushes painting. After just over an hour this morning has got me this far. I think it is time for lunch and think about the way ahead.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Sketching Antious

After watching the very watchable series by Alistair Sook on the art of ancient Rome I became aware of the cult of Antinous. Now I was aware of Antious but not of his significance in the gay community nor as a cult figure throughout the Roman empire. He was a young man when he died so was captured at his most perfect - not for him the cares of age written large across his features.

Now the challenge for me is to try and convert the sketch into a water colour drawing - let the fun begin!

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Elephant

For some strange reason Posterous didn't post this the other day. I must say since they were taken over by Twitter or Facebook or whomever the service has started to become a much shakier - lets see if this one posts correctly.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Wandering Nipple

Well its the morning after the night before and time to reflect on the work I created last night at the life drawing session. The first thing to say in future I must remember to take an eraser. The first drawing shows the wandering of the models nipple across the page as I try and place it correctly in relation to the rest of the drawing. You can also see the way that the collar bone slowly moved up the page, like some inverse tide line, as I realised my errors and tried to correct them.

In the past I would simply erase these marks, but of course without an eraser I couldn't do that. I couldn't shade them out either because the skin tone just wouldn't allow that. So they are left and I am quite happy about that actually.

By the time I had finished the first drawing I just felt like creating some looser work hence the second drawing. It was also fun watching model fall asleep and still hold her position, mostly. Overall a great way to spend a wet Monday evening even if the plain song music kept making me think of a medieval setting rather than somewhere in the second decade of the 21st century above a florists in Oadby. But again that is my problem. Next week I might attempt a quick portrait painting - now that will be fun! Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Drawing a naked woman

Started something new this evening - life drawing where I decide what to do - really enjoyable. Only one problem - the plain song music is making me see the model as a nun - very bizarre!

I'm on line at:

www.flickr.com/photos/guthlac
http://simonmarchini.posterous.com

www.simonmarchini.co.uk

I hope you enjoy

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Coming over all neo classical

Feeling a bit under the weather today so what better excuse does one need to sit down and draw. This is the result - just a bit neo-classical me thinks. Oh if you are bothered/interested it is inspired by the wonderful Rebecca Hall from the equally spell binding Parade's End - I hear BAFTA's calling.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Elephant - Playing around with an idea

A good friend of mine has asked me to make a drawing of an elephant as a birthday gift - well actually it was her children - so I have been thinking through some ideas as to how this can be achieved. Here is one of the experiments.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Leicester Museum

I had a very enjoyable couple of hours at Leicester Museum this morning and knocked up a couple of sketches which I really enjoyed.

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Making Real Progress

Well after two weekly sessions this is the result and I have to saw I am really quite proud of myself. During the process I have come to understand a whole lot better what I have to do to produce something really interesting in a group painting session - be myself. This should be self evident but it has taken the best part of a year to realise this.

This year I have now attended three art course where the last two sessions have been just the model sitting in the same pose. The first one was a bit of a disaster - I didn't really know what I was doing and I had no idea as to how to control the process. The end of the second course was a lot better and was able to show glimpse of what could be - even though in the second session I ruined the good work I did in the first. By the third session the penny had dropped and I decided to be my own boss and just work at my own pace. The result was a painting that isn't anywhere near completed but one where what I have done is of a much more satisfactory standard.

So should I try and finish the paint on my own? No as I feel that is a recipe for disaster - I need the model in front of me to able to get the skin tones I want. I had planned to do this but I just don't have the mental skills available to do this. In truth when painting skin it is so much better to have the real thing in front of you!

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous