art news
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Four Expert Tips for Painting Wildlife
Painting pictures of wildlife is often one of the more difficult subjects to tackle. For many artists, there is a lot of planning and preparation which goes into creating the perfect wildlife pictures and getting every detail spot on. Whether you’re an artist who’s looking to brush up on your wildlife work or are about to try painting wildlife scenes for the first time, these top tips will help you to perfect your wildlife art and produce paintings which you’ll be forever proud of.
Use Real Life Subjects
When painting wildlife, there are so many more elements that need to be taken into consideration than just the animal or animals themselves. You should try to sketch and paint from real life as often as possible, as this will enable you to see how the animals interact in their natural habitat and create paintings that are as true to life as possible. If it’s not possible to paint and sketch from real life or you are worried about alerting the wildlife to your presence and scaring them away, you might want to consider the use of a trail camera, which you can use to record the wildlife in their natural habitat for a reference. See a guide to the best trail cameras here.
Refining Your Sketches
It’s always tempting to skip straight to the painting stage after you’re drawn up a sketch, however experts say that it always pays off later on down the line to refine and re-refine your sketches before you let any paint touch the paper. You should begin by blocking with basic shapes in several stages and try to represent as much of the animal as possible with these shapes. Then, art experts recommend starting with a focal point, for example an eye, and measuring vital points from this with your pencil. Next, you should refine the sketch, ensuring that the shapes of limbs and facial features are accurate, along with checking vertical and horizontal alignments. This provides you with a good framework for painting or developing layers with confidence.
Stay Stocked Up
If you are observing and painting wildlife from real life, it’s important to ensure that you’re fully stocked up on all the art supplies that you will need and more. When you’re painting wildlife, time is definitely something which is not only your side and you can’t afford to have to run back home for supplies if you run out. Overstocking, rather than understocking, on the equipment that you take with you is definitely the best situation to be in.
Planning
Last but not least, careful planning is essential when you’re going to create a wildlife painting. Deciding which animals you are going to paint, where you are going to find references, and the materials which you are going to use is important. When you are constructing a scene, there are many different elements which should be considered, which is why experts recommend planning your scene on tracing paper first so that you can make any changes if necessary.
Wildlife is a great branch of art that every artist should try at least once!
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Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine
Digital and physical note-taking finally come together in an elegant solution.
Evernote®, the company that is helping the world remember everything, and Moleskine®, the maker of beautifully designed notebooks and accessories, today announced the availability of the Evernote Smart Notebook today in Malaysia.
A collaboration between Moleskine and Evernote, the notebook pairs seamlessly with the Evernote App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch to allow creative ideas to leap from the page and into the digital world. With a simple snapshot taken within Evernote’s App, handwritten words and sketches found inside the new Evernote Smart Notebook are instantly transformed into searchable, shareable and permanent Evernote memories.
The notebooks are available in two sizes, with both grid and ruled page designs —”Evernote Ruled” and “Evernote Squared” — that are optimized for snapshots taken with Evernote’s new Page Camera feature, available exclusively in the company’s application for Apple’s iPhone and iPad. The Page Camera automatically corrects perspective and improves the contrast between the ink or graphite and the Smart Notebook’s pages to create a beautiful note that can be viewed, searched or shared at any time from within Evernote.
Each notebook includes a set of multi-color Moleskine Smart Stickers. These stickers are associated with a custom tag in Evernote. When a snapshot of a page containing one, or more, of the Smart Stickers is taken, the Evernote App’s Page Camera recognizes the stickers and automatically categorizes the digitized page in Evernote. Smart Stickers make digitally organizing your Evernote Smart Notebook content a snap.
Every Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine comes with three months of Evernote Premium (RM45 value). Evernote Premium offers an enhanced Evernote experience with a higher monthly upload capacity, offline notebooks, improved searching for PDFs and images and more note sharing options.
The Evernote Smart Notebook is available in large (RM103) and pocket (RM76) formats at Cziplee Books & Stationery or online at Moleskine Asia.
The Evernote App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch at www.itunes.com/appstore or go to http://evernote.com/evernote for other devices. It is also available for Android but however certain features are not up yet. Evernote representative, Tiang Lim Foo (Market Development – APAC, Evernote) ensured that it will be updated soon.
Tiang Lim Foo, Market Development – APAC, Evernote About Moleskine – The Moleskine® notebook is the heir and successor to the legendary notebooks used by avant-garde artists and thinkers over the past two centuries. A simple black rectangle that held the sketches, notes, stories and ideas that would one day become famous paintings or the pages of beloved books. Today Moleskine is a brand that encompasses a family of nomadic objects dedicated to our mobile identity; flexible and brilliantly simple tools for use in both everyday and extraordinary circumstances, ultimately becoming an integral part of our personality. Notebooks, diaries, journals, bags, writing instruments and reading accessories. Discreet travelling companions, satisfying our desire to express ourselves both on paper and beyond the page.
Moleskine believes in the infinite potential for continuity and connection between the analog world and the digital one. Our research tells us that Moleskine enthusiasts are naturally inclined towards the digital realm and feel completely comfortable using both analog and digital devices, or even merging them together to create new hybrids.
About Evernote – Evernote is helping the world remember everything by building innovative products and services that allow individuals to capture, find and interact with their memories. Evernote apps are available on all major computer, web, mobile, and tablet platforms.
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271 Picasso’s paintings discovered
I have subscribed to the feed of The Telegraph (online) recently and from time to time, I read interesting news. And today, I just read about the discovery of Picasso’s paintings. Very interesting.
source of picture and news: The Telegraph According to The Telegraph, the paintings were found in the possession of Pierre Le Guenneca, a retired odd job man and electrician. But pity him, he was suspected of stealing the paintings. During questioning, Mr Le Guennec said he was given the works after installing alarm systems at three of the artist’s Riviera homes in the three years until he died in 1973 — La Californie, the villa he bought in Cannes in 1955, his chateau de Vauvenargues and Notre-Dame-de-Vie, the farmhouse in Mougins where he died.
Picasso’s heir did not believe the story and said that his father was reluctant to gave away any works, obsessively kept everything and forbade people to enter his studio.
So… were they stolen or given?
I think the old man might be telling the truth. As a struggling artist, I know how hard it is to make ends meet by selling paintings. If I can trade paintings with things I need, I would even if it takes 271 of them.
And of course, I will forbid people to enter my studio because it is not a safe place to be, other than the painter him/herself. I tend to leave paints, tubes, brushes, and water containers all over the place. I remember things just where I placed them last. Having guests would mean that I have to clean the studio. And I hate doing that.
What is your thought on this matter? I want to know.
