The Art of Caricature

Following on from my last post about Rodney Pike, I was so inspired by what he’s doing that I thought I’d have a go at creating a caricature of my own. I’m always keen to try something new and I was especially interested to see if I could actually do it.

But, I personally think caricatures only have wide appeal when they depict someone famous and who most people would recognise, otherwise the effect is lost. So perhaps I should try one of our NZ politicians — after all, there is an election coming up.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun creating this. Who knows, perhaps I’ll do more...

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Here’s one I did of Tame Iti a well known and recognisable face in New Zealand.
Read the news story that helps to explain this here

Turning Photography into Framed Works of Art

When it comes to producing works of art and particularly paintings on canvas, I’m a bit impatient. And yet I’m constantly having new ideas about what kind of paintings I’d like to produce. That’s where photography can aid the whole process by speeding it up.

 Take for example the photo that I spoke about in my last post. These days with modern technology it’s a pretty simple process turning such photos into beautiful paintings by applying painterly effects and textures to the image on the computer and then printing them off onto stretched canvas.

I’ve been planning to make such paintings available for sale. If you’re interested in purchasing one visit my online store and order one today. Click here

Another Artist Impression

Creating artist impressions is an enjoyable outlet for a few of the things that really interest me.

Firstly it’s drawing, but with a focus on architectural subjects. Drawing houses and buildings is probably about as close to actual property development as I’ll ever get. Although as a keen Do-it-yourself-er, I’ve tried building all sorts of things around my place from pergolas, garden sheds and sleepouts to landscaping stuff like retaining walls, decks and fences.

I don’t think I’ve built any of those things without drawing them first to make sure I like what I’m doing and to work out how much it’ll cost.

Secondly, I love working on landscaping projects, the whole gardening thing and the myriad of possibilities there are for beautifying a property with plants, shrubs and trees is just the icing on the cake. If you’ve read anything on my Garden Blog then you’ll know how much I enjoy that kind of thing.

So, although I’ve never actually studied architecture or horticulture and I’m not actually a builder, that hasn’t diminished my interest in those things. And the good thing about drawing them is I can dream big and it doesn’t cost me anything except a bit of time and imagination. So, what better way to put all those interests together than drawing artist’s impressions.

So this is what I do. The first thing I need is a set of architects drawings, a couple of elevations like so...



From those I create a 3D model and then add colour and detail to all the visible surfaces...



Then, using the architects site plan and a photo of the property as references...



I position the 3d model making sure the model is rotated to the correct viewing angle and scaled to the correct size. Then with a few landscaping features added like stone walls and garden planting, as well as 1 or 2  adjustments to colours and other minor details, the job was practically done.

It’s a worthwhile investment for any property developer to make, especially if financing the project is an issue. An artist’s impression like this can be used to arrange funding especially for spec building, where a buyer needs to be lined up first before the commitment is made to start building.