Light

I'm obsessed with capturing light in photographs. I love the way dust particles
look in high-contrast monochrome.

There was a storm and afterwards, lots of light
shining through water droplets.

I love photographing types of light - dust particles, light in water, anything.

Sketches (2013-15)

Some sketches from the past couple of years - not an exhaustive list, just a few favourites.

Evening

There was something nice about the colours of the sky.

Amputee - WIP Painting

Oils on A2 wood board. Loving working on the unprimed surface as it's much smoother for drawing and the wood just drinks the oils right up.
I was thinking of British woodland, deers caught in traps, trees marked with an X in preparation for felling, etc. There're small pockets of forest where I live that are usually taken for granted, but when you spend a lot of time in the trees, they kind of become part of you again.

Deer

Pencil, pen and oils

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Photographs taken at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The architecture was all Victorian, and the ceilings were incredibly beautiful. 

Mirrors

Luminescence

Acrylic, pencil and oils on wood board. I was representing moon phases through different positions - I wanted to reflect the idea of relinquishing something, and going from indecision to resolution.

A close-up of face and wrist details

Pedestal

Pencil, acrylics and oils on wood board. I was inspired by how heterosexual relationships have so many   strange stereotypes - courting, power balance, all these things are predetermined by society. Sometimes it feels like having a unique or free relationship is impossible because of the pressure to behave in a certain way.

Digital drawing w/ photoshop as preparation

Cut-Paper Dolls

Digital drawing w/ photoshop. I remembered having cut-paper dolls in my childhood, and how you would position them yourself, put clothes on them, make them look how you wanted, essentially. I found a parallel between these dolls and the way that queer women are seen by straight men - there is the idea that their orientation is for the pleasure of men, the way that cut-paper dolls are for our pleasure. The text around them is the real story.

Soma

Digital drawing w/ photoshop, inspired by the soma drug from Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'.

Erl-King

Pencil, pen and oils on cartridge paper. Inspired by the short story 'Erl-King' by Angela Carter.

Aschenputtel

Pencil, pen and oils on cartridge paper. I was reading Grimm's fairytales, and also Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber', which focuses on bringing out the latent sexually violent content of fairytales. Freudian psychology was also an interest of mine, and I applied the Electra complex theory to the German version of Cinderella called 'Aschenputtel'.

Scans done at different intervals during the process - from pencil, pen, to coloured

Pin-Up

Digital drawing w/ photoshop. I was very inspired by the pin-up artist Gil Elvgren (find his art here: http://elvgrenpinup.com/) and also the concept art for Bioshock. Old Hollywood loved blue, gold and red, so those were my staple colours.

The rough drawing before adding
 the backdrop or text

Refined drawing with backdrop

The City Seraph

Digital painting w/ photoshop. I like neon visuals a lot and wanted to put Christian motifs in a fictional cyberpunk city - using religion as an excuse for hedonism, basically. (I think I had watched Blade Runner too many times.)

WIP shot without the text and the candles
(the halo was inspired by Byzantine mosaics)

Playing with high threshold effects.
(I was planning on furthering the piece somehow
but I couldn't find the time)

Beginning This Blog

Hi!
I'm Drew. I'm 18 and I live in the UK.
I'm creating this blog so I can share my art obsessions and general oddness with you - here you will find my traditional art (oils, drawings, sketches), digital art, photographs (not 'photography' because that implies I'm a professional when I'm just hiding behind a camera) and writing, such as poetry.