-
Closing down
I am moving to blogspot. This blog will remain online, but all new posts will be made to my new blog here ( Read more... ) -
A DIY map of the moon
I took this photo of the moon a few days ago, simply using the camera's 10x zoom to get a bit closer (click on the pictures to see larger versions in a new window):
( Read more... ) -
Benoit Mandelbrot (1924 - 2010): Mathematics meets art
I notice that the inventor/discoverer (take your pick) of fractal geometry, Benoit Mandelbrot, has died. Here is a short article from BBC about it ( Read more... ) -
Something Gothic
A copy after "The Crucified Thief" by Robert Campin (c.1375 - 1444). For all its grim subject matter, the original is magnificent, a masterpiece of Early Netherlandish painting, and my rather crude copy cannot begin to do it justice. But here it is anyway; pencil on printer paper, 29cm x 21cm:
( Read more... ) -
Highveld winter scenery
A few days ago, some friends and I visited the small farm some 80 or 90 km east of Pretoria, where I spent much of my youth. I took some photos which, unless I messed up the HTML code or you are using some weird browser, should open in a new window when you click on the smaller images below ( Read more... ) -
I can also mess up Michelangelo...
Not content to make a mockery of Bouguereau's refined figurative art, I decided to turn my infernal gaze on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel decorations. Some friends and I regularly do "hobby evenings": we sit around a table and get drunk, and everyone works on a hobby, whether it be scrapbooking, drawing or just drinking and talking nonsense. This ( Read more... ) -
Apologies to Mr. Bouguereau...
...for this rather amateurish copy of his masterpiece "The Bather." I have gone and turned it into a piece of awkward post-impressionism. The deep rumbling sound you hear is the master spinning in his grave. Alas, strictly realistic drawing is not my strong point.
Mechanical pencil, HB, on a scrap of printer paper about 15cm x 20cm:
( Read more... ) -
Enduring duress due to Dürer
Another of my rather small (about 10cm x 15cm) ballpoint sketches after the Old Masters; this time an engraved portrait by Albrecht Dürer of his friend Willibald Pirckheimer.
( Read more... ) -
Small copies of great works
In some quiet moments at work, I made time to make sketches after some master artists in a small (about 10cm x 15cm) sketchbook. As usual, I couldn't really do justice to the masters, but I suppose one has to start somewhere. They are all in ballpoint pen, and as I usually do, I lived dangerously by not first making pencil sketches - just went at ( Read more... ) -
An unexpected visitor
This magnificent fellow with the red, glowing eyes and ominous skull design on its thorax fluttered into the kitchen last night. I caught it before the cat did, and put it down on a piece of paper where it politely sat still for a few photos, and remained still even when I put down a matchbox beside it for comparison. I then took it outside where ( Read more... )
