Michael Moore, sketched from a book cover in Pitt fine liner pens.
Dita Von Teese in Letraset and Pitt pens, unfortunately its a bit ruined bottom right from when I fell down the stairs and threw a can of pop over it.
Very rough pen sketch for ideas for an environmental project, theme was 'Too little, too late'.
Think this was just a composite of 2 scenes from the comics, sketched in marker pens,
Francisco Goya, sketched in liner pens when I was writing about his 'Saturn' painting and others in his black period. Goya is a massive inspiration to my artistic tastes and I have no idea how or if that manifests in my photography, but his work really grabs me and throws me around the room, astonishing. I sketched him from a self portrait of his own, a small image on Wikipedia, but I certainly sketched him to look far more intense and damaged than his own self image. I remember really enjoying doing this, even filling in all that black, much like the blue Woody Allen painting below, I was creating the image of someone I really admire and that makes it a far easier task
How did I end up a photographer?
For me there are many factors but the starting point was actually from getting an appreciation of art and a desire to put myself into an arena of artistic creativity.
I did no creative work really from 1991 to 2005, when replacing my Woody Allen videos with DVD's led me to watch far too many of them in a short space of time. I think he got into my head and I have always identified with Allen within his films.
I was fascinated by Annie Hall and Take the Money and Run at an age where I can't have understood the Freudian references or subtle nuances, but I was a spoddy kid with messy hair and thick black-rimmed glasses, I guess it started there.
So in 2005 I was watching these DVD's and also starting to notice art more, then I got the itch to do something bold and art based.
I got a canvas, some cheap acrylics in blue, black and white, and I did the blue Woody Allen painting above, just to get it out of my system. A few sketches here and there over the years, a dabble with marker pens, a redundancy, unemployment, the loss of a home and voila, perhaps a final opportunity to change my career path, to find a new direction and commit to it.
With the economy in free fall, it made sense to study now, it was going to be hard to get by but I just wanted to spend the second half of my life doing something creative, something that is mine.
So I got on a Contemporary Art course and photography found me and now it is what I do, and what I hope to make a career within, but working for myself.
I've not sketched in months and so this work is all from 2005 to 2010. I can't see links between where I was going with this and what I do now in photography, other than a certain fascination with the portrait and lighting within images of any type. Either way, those drawings are part of how I got to the point I am now - trying to break it as a photographer.
Many thanks for taking the time to view my blog, please feel free to comment or get in touch,
Lee
