NYC has some amazing photo opportunities!

Here are some of my snaps from my recent stay in The Big Apple. I had the most amazing time there and none of the photos can do it justice but it shows it off well.

During my stay I was lucky enough to be able to experience Manhattanhenge. When the sun sets inbetween the buildings. Manhattanhenge — sometimes referred to as the Manhattan Solstice — is a circumstance which occurs twice a year, during which the setting sun aligns with the east–west streets of the main street grid in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The neologism is derived from Stonehenge, where the sun aligns with the stones on the solstices with a similarly dramatic effect. The word was popularized in 2002 by Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. The term applies to those streets that follow the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which are laid out in a grid offset 29.0 degrees from true east–west. (The 29.0 degrees should be added to true east and west, making the western bearing approximately 299.0 degrees.) During Manhattanhenge, an observer on one of the gridded east-west streets will see the sun setting over New Jersey directly opposite, from the street, along its centerline.

NYC had some amazing sunsets...

From the top of the rock, the views were amazing. I could see completely over Central Park on one side then got a clear view of all the buildings on the other.

I just love this typical American shot.

I'm not a huge fan of colour picking but I couldn't resist it with this photo of an American taxi and school bus.

The fountain in Central Park.

 The Lady herself, The Statue of Liberty.

I took a ride on the East River Ferry and took in the views from Dumbo, the viewing point and also walked over Brooklyn Bridge for these photos.

My visit to the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park NYC

So... Last week I spent over a week in NYC. Obviously, the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park was at the top of my list of places to visit.

As I walked up through the bottom of Central Park and rounded the corner to see it, my jaw dropped open. Firstly, it was much bigger than I expected and it was SO well made with such amazing attention to detail.

It was a very busy attraction, mostly with children climbing all over it. It was lovely to see a bunch of timelessly classic characters being enjoyed still to this day.

The sculpture was constructed in 1959 by José de Creeft under the commission of philanthropist George Delacorte so that children could visit and experience the wonder of Lewis Carroll’s classic story. Atypical of most sculptures, children are invited to climb, touch and crawl all over Alice and her friends. In fact, through the decades thousands of hands and feet have literally polished parts of the statue’s surface smooth.

The design for the bronze sculpture was patterned off the original illustrations of John Tenniel that were used in the first published edition of the book. The obvious centerpiece of the work, Alice, who depicts the face of Creeft’s daughter, Donna, is pictured sitting on a giant mushroom reaching toward a pocket watch held by the White Rabbit. Peering over her shoulder is the Cheshire Cat, surrounded by the Dormouse, Alice's cat Dinah, and the Mad Hatter -- a caricature of George Delacorte. 

Photography wasn't too easy as I tried to get the statue in and keep the children out. Below are my attempts...

Baby pandas-drawn by hand.

Today I drew these cute little baby pandas today. I used pen to outline,  watercolour pencils to block in colour and water filled brushes to blend.

Peacock digital drawing

This is one of my most recent digital drawings. I wanted to create something colourful and vaguely realistic so a peacock was perfect...

Dog, by request.

A friend of mine was heart broken when her beloved dog, Beatie, passed away. I was honored when she asked me to do a drawing of her. With this one, I decided to take some photos during the drawing process. 

This is my work area, all set up and ready to go. You can see the reference photo I was working from. Note the cup of tea ;) I work on Bristol Board paper for pencil drawings. You can see the other bits and bobs I use all lined up too...

I always start with the eyes. I lay a tissue over the area I have already worked on to stop my hand from smudging it...

After the eyes, I started working on the nose. You can faintly see in this photo that when working from photos, I use a grid system to draw to make sure I get all proportions correct and stay true to the animal and it's character...

Next I started to render the fur, which is the most time consuming part as it is built up in lots of layers....

This next photo makes me smile. I got to a stage in the drawing where I was struggling. I had done most of the dark fur but still had the white fur around her muzzle to draw. I don't find white fur easy to draw. It needs to have enough definition in it to look like fur without giving it too much contrast so it doesn't look too dark. I had put down my pencil and was sat staring at the drawing, having a break. At that moment, the clouds parted outside my window, a ray of sunshine shone through and and cast a beautiful rainbow right on to the page. I'm not one to believe in afterlife (don't worry, this blog is for my creative work, not my religious thoughts so I won't go into detail), but I gave Beatie a little nod and a smile and immediately felt ready to carry on...

Here are some photos of the finished piece. 

My friend doesn't live near to me so I posted the drawing to her and her family. I also added this poem in with it too:

You thought of her today,

But that is nothing new.

You thought about her yesterday,

And days before that too.

You think of her in silence,

You often speak her name.

Now all you have are memories,

And this picture for a frame.

This memory of her is your keepsake,

With which I hope you'll never part.

You have this in your keeping,

You'll always have Beatie in your heart.

My friend was delighted with it.

Horse

I've always been a 'horsey person', so it was no surprise that one made it's way into my artwork.

Dog and cat, on request

After I drew Eddie and shared the drawing on my Facebook page, the sister of a friend expressed how much she liked it. I knew she was a fellow animal lover and had pets of her own so I used one of the photos of her cat and dog she had shared and did a drawing from it.

Eddie the cat

While I worked in London, I grew rather fond of my bosses cat, Eddie. He was a real placid sweetie and had the the most amazing tones and contrasts in his fur and lovable big eyes. One day, I decided to draw him. until then, I had never drawn fur before, so this was my first attempt. I was rather pleased with it. It took 12-14 hours to draw.

Star Wars fun

This one was to play with mixing photography and Photoshop skills together. There are two photos here, one of my daughter, wearing a brown hoody and the other, my friend wearing a brown dressing gown. I used a typical Star Wars background, layered my friend then my daughter on top, then used various techniques in Photoshop to create the light sabers and the lightening effect. I'm pleased with it, apart from the shadow the the bottom of the figures that I just couldn't get right.

Digital drawing playing with skin tone/blending.

With this one, I wanted to have a go at something more 'realistic'. So, ironically, I chose to draw Poison Ivy, the comic book character. I wanted to really focus on blending skin so it was nice and smooth. I was pleased with the skin and her proportions, but not too happy with her face and hair.

My third digital drawing, the scribbley one.

Once I had my head around digital art a bit more, I moved on to playing with texture. With this one, I wanted to move away from the previous black outlines and see what I could create using only scribbles of colour. So, basically, this is just layers and layers of scribbles!

An emotional second digital drawing

This second one has a bit more emotion to it and each person will draw their own conclusion of what it's all about. I have my own private opinion and you'll have yours. It was also my first go at using layers within my drawing. So, the bottom layer is the crumpled paper, the middle layer is the music score and the top layer is my drawing. 10 points to anyone who can guess what the piece of music is...

My first digital drawing

Once I had got to grips with Adobe Photoshop and how to use it to draw, I realised I was never going to reach my potential by using a computer mouse (any digital artist will tell you, it's immmpossible!). Once I invested in a Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet, (which, bearing in mind,  is a very basic drawing tablet), things took a turn for the better. This are some of the first drawings I created digitally...

This first one is just me getting to grips. It's basic, cartoony and colourful, which is what I was going for. Make of the message what you will...