On a cold October morning they took to the skies on an ambitious flight over Saint Petersburg. Who are they? Maybe early aeronauts testing whether it is possible to breathe at such heights or wealthy pleasure seekers wanting to be among the first humans to fly.
In any case, their journey must have been an amazing one, filled with exhiliration and awe and I have imagined the scene here in this print.
I’ve been so fed up with web design these last few days that I finally took time away from work and wound down with some Photoshop. I started and completed A Gentleman’s Regret this evening within a couple of hours. This one is definitely gonna get printed. I like it’s dark, moody style and plan to do more in this style very soon 
.
“A gentleman alone with his regrets”
Here’s the framed version too! I’ll be selling my prints after Christmas on Etsy. Very excited!
I did this sketch some time ago in Photoshop. You can see I got lazy (or bored) and left her ear sort of deformed. I do remember spending a lot of time on her hand, which is my favourite part of this portrait.
Kristen Scott Thomas in one of my favourite actresses. The English Patient, probably being one of her most memorable movies, but she is also fabulous in many of her French movies, particularly Il y a longtemps que je t’aime (I’ve loved you so long), in which she plays a mother who has apparently murdered her young son. Let’s not forget her outstanding perfomances in Gosford Park and The Horse Whisperer. I last saw her in the emotionally turbulent French drama, Leaving, alongside Sergi López. An brilliant movie!
She has such class and is of course beautiful and unlike many big movie actresses is ageing gracefully. She is still gorgeous at 51. So this sketch was my small tribute to her and her amazing acting talent.
Here’s another photomanipulation I did recently. I’m not too keen on this one, only because it’s a little too angelic and ‘pretty’ for my taste but when I start an image I often have no idea where it’s going to go and I guess this one strayed off my usual path. I’ve called it the lonely time-keeper and maybe the idea is that she is an angel charged with keeping watch over time. And the minutes tick by slowly.
For those of you are aren’t sure what photomanipultion is, let me explain quickly. You take some photographs and edit them (cutting parts out, changing colours, adjusting shapes) until they create a completly new image. It’s now considered an art form in its own right, as to do it well you need to have the same understanding of light and form, perspective and composition as any artist has.
Working on this image for instance, I created some textures for the background, edited the girl (see original photo below), by changing her skin tone and texture, altering the shape of her face and her lips particularly to make her look more angelic. I painted her hair and added in stock photos of her wings, along with the balloons, birds and the watch. I also added some lace textures for her dress straps.
Here’s the original photo I worked with to create the image.
The image took about 6 hours to complete (with breaks for munch and so on).
When doing photomanipulation, all of the elements need to blend seamlessly for the image to work. You need to pay special attention to adjusting the colours so that each element works in the image. Hope you like.
The Lonley Timekeeper : Copyright Tracey Meagher 2011
Most of the men in Vettriano’s paintings look like characters who have walked straight out of the pages of an F.Scott Fitzgerald novel. Any one of them could be Jay Gatsby or Dick Diver, with their impeccable suits and sleek combed back haircuts.
Being a huge fan of Fitzgerald and his flawed heroes, it’s not surprising that Vettriano is a favourite artist of mine (not that I know too many. The other is Ed Gorey … so that should give you some insight into my range when it comes to artists!) I discovered Vettriano years back when the Sunday Times did a feature on him and not long after that Anthony bought me one of his books.
Vettriano is probably best known for The Singing Butler, a painting which sold for three quaters of a million pound back in 2004. I knew this painting as a print, long before I ever heard of Vettriano ( born Jack Hoggan bye the way, not quite as ‘arty’ is it !!!) While his beach and seaside paintings drum up a whole load of romaticism and nostalgia for the lost days when ladies and gents picnicked at the seaside, these aren’t my favourite at all!
His work has a far edgier side and when he is not painting the Vettriano beachscape, he is painting almost fetishly, voyeuristic glimpses into very private worlds, inhabited by broken and fragile people. The characters in his paintings are usually couples (sometimes threesomes!), portrayed either as very tactile and/or romantically connected (often with suggestions that they shouldn’t be as in Words of Wisdom) or distant but sharing the same space while separated by an emotional tension, as in A Very Married Woman, below.
"A Very Married Woman" … and a very mixed up man!
Let's go back to my place … "Words Of Wisdom"? I don't think so!
Vettriano takes you into the kind of worlds that other painters typically don’t bother with where adulterers and prostitutes, dancers and mistresses, all struggle through live, sharing that unspoken secret … that in private we know that life is what it is, when nobody else is watching there are no lies. I think this is what Vettriano does best. He exposes the fabrications and pretensions and presents what often lies behind the lie of the normal, happy life; adultery, desires, prostitution, desperation, fetishes. It’s all there in Vettriano’s work and that makes it all the more interesting.
He is a very contemporary and relevant artist despite the old time feel to his art. The balance works brilliantly and I admire him for taking on subjects just not considered ‘worthy’ enough by many other, artists, who often remain snobby about their subject matter!
Here is a couple of my other Vettriano favourites …
What's got her all bombed out … Oh it's "The Letter"
Looks like Mr Anonymous just stepped into the … "Parlour Of Temptation"
Tracey Meagher | Create your badge
I’m a web designer, internet marketer, writer of very odd poetry, digital artist, film lover, mother of four, wanna be photographer, happy go lucky, agnostic dog lover. This is my blog.
Balloon Over St.Petersburg 5″ x 5″ Print
A Gentleman’s Regret – 5″ x 5″ Print
Bizarre Little Ramblings … And A Poem
Digital Art : My Photoshop Sketch of Kristen Scott Thomas
Bernard And Doris. A Review.