anita murphy

I really don’t intend to become a portrait artist. But it seems its all I do right now. I have a painting on my easel and cannot finish it because the portraits keep getting in the way! Having said that if I could ever master portraits in colour I would be very happy. For some…

Wonderful colour of Mango Frappucino and the pink of salmon rolled mixed with the green of lettuce – I’ve scarcely done it credit! Setting goals – I am trying to set myself some achievable goals together with Robin. The infamous body of work still sits there wanting consideration and now we are also trying to…

Need to do more work on darkening the skin tones in comparison with the uniform – even though he has very pale skin I think it could do with some more tonal values. In the photo I used for this he was wearing a tank top/vest and I really didn’t like the way it looked…

The best of this weeks sketches.

Steadily plodding away at this. I can see myself tweaking it forever and a day. Strange how you think something is a good photo for drawing only to discover its absolutely abysmal! The sketching is definitely becoming addictive. You can find me roaming the halls at work with sketchbook clutched tightly and on breaks snatching…

A little bit further with this. Its beginning to appear out of the page which is something that always amazes me. It reminds a little of doing photography and when you slip the exposed paper into the developing fluid and then like magic the image starts to appear. First soft greys and then the tonal…

Sketches from this week. I’m finding sketching in small format quite hard. Instinct for sketching is to be loose and this definitely isn’t. Thinking of working in pen next week – something about ink is freeing in some way – if you make a mistake you can’t do anything about it. I’ve ordered watercolour moleskines…

“I’m not an artist – I’m a phony I have nothing worth saying I’m not sure what I am doing Other people are better than I am I’m only a [student/physicist/mother/whatever] I’ve never had a real exhibit No one likes my work No one understands my work I’m no good” “The first few brushstrokes to…

Struggling with a still life, but at least I have it now on the canvas and ready to paint at the weekend. Evenings I’m doin this portrait – the last of my Marines. Really not happy with the eye and might have to redo that Trying to be more focused. Robin is keeping on the…

Been a long time since I posted here. I’m thinking of moving my blog back here from Yahoo ( http://360.yahoo.com/amartstudio )