Current Work - Pencils within Portraiture

Pencil work is both equally as beautiful in colour and black and white. Below, again linking to my current portraiture project, are some of my current pieces and some of the equipment that I use and, I personally believe, are the most effective. 

A4 Coloured Pencil Artist Research (Marion Bolognesi)

The small piece to the left is a coloured pencil piece I completed in my sketch book as part of my artist research into Marion Bolognesi. Her work is usually completed in water colour but as a medium that is like painting with smoke, I decided to interpret her art work and attempt to re-produce it using the same colour pallet but in a completely different medium. For this piece I used Derwent coloured pencils which can be bought from an good art store or can be found online.

A4 Graphite Pencil Artist Research (Marion Bolognesi)

Again, this was completed in my sketch book as part of my artist research into Marion Bolognesi. In this piece I removed the colour completely from the focus and instead created a tonal drawing focusing on dark and light and the grey-scale rather than a warm colour pallet that the reference photograph shows. This allowed me to see the change in mood by removing the colour and to perceive my work from a different perspective. This piece was completed in a Derwent sketching set which included: charcoal, graphite, graphite stick, putty rubber, sharpener, tinted charcoal, sketching pencils, and coloured sketching pencils. 

Current Work - Portraiture

A4 Fine-liner and White Emulsion

Below I've just selected a couple of pieces of work that I've currently completed - or am nearing completion for my art course. 

The piece to the right is a full frontal fine-liner and white emulsion piece I did on A4 cardboard of my Dad. As I'm currently focusing on timelines I accentuated my Dad's wrinkles (to his dismay) through the use of cross-hatching techniques and multiple other drawing techniques. My current topic focuses on human timelines and particularly looks at the change in the human face as it grows older. 

This piece was taken from my own personal photo-shoot of my Dad and is one of many pieces that I have completed in a similar style with changes in medium, surface, size, style and inspiration. 

A3 Fine-liner 

The piece to the left is an A3 completed angular portrait of one of my sisters. I love fine-liner as a medium as I am able to select the finest (mine finest is 005) or the thickest (my thickest is Faber-Castell's Bold) to create different line styles and structures in order to create tone, highlights, the impression of marks or mark making with quick strokes of my pens. 

Again, this piece was completed from one of my personal photo-shoots of my sister for my art course. The angular pose in which I ave captured her allowed me to show my talent in 3-D effect (her nose, as an example) and proportions. 

I post all of my artwork online via my twitter account, @allanna_tagg, follow me if you would like to see more of my work. Hopefully I will soon be setting up a Facebook page for commissioned pieces of work - I have completed several commissions already which I will create a post about as soon as possible. 

Moroccan Madness

Recently, I have returned from a 5 day adventure from Morocco, Africa. I had such an amazing time that I thought I'd update you with a little information on what went on and some art work that Morocco inspired me to do...

Day 1

So, after a cramped and bustling 3 hours and 5 minute long flight, we finally arrived in Marrakesh and were greeted by our lovely guide, Nabil. We then had a coach journey through the city to our hotel which was fantastic (minus the food). After settling in, and eating some curious cuisine we had a wild card game of Czechoslovakian Spoons (look it up) and reared ready for the next day!

Day 2

Day 2 involved getting up at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. and driving into town to visit the Moroccan Souks. After the initial hitting stench of donkeys and shit, you're smothered (almost literally) by spice smells, meats, and the overwhelming scent of leather. People are constantly shouting and talking at one another, you're eyes are assaulted by the array of colours which attack you non-stop, and the space... There isn't any. Basically. And yet, the people are so friendly (and weird: at one point a man put his head directly in front of my own and simply said, "Asleep.") that the first hand senses seem to fade off into the distance. After winding our way through the labyrinth of the souks we found ourselves in the heart of the market place - confronted by acrobats, monkeys, snake charmers and thousands of stalls filled with oddments and trinkets galore. After a quick talk on the history of the souks and a the market square we had some free time to explore, wander round or what myself and a friend decided to do was eat on a gorgeous terrace over-looking the entire square. After returning to the hotel, eating some suspicious looking food (and immediately regretting it) a few of us decided to walk into town and head to a great bar called LEVEL 5. Followed by a much deserved McDonalds we staggered home through the drizzly rain and back to the hotel for a decent night's sleep.

Day 3
Waking up at 6 a.m. is very difficult when you're supposed to be on holiday, but in order to survive the 2 hour coach journey into the Atlas Mountains, the early get up was much needed. The trek through the mountains was pretty tough: steep hills, steps taller than myself (not hard to be), and all this was done through the scorching Moroccan heat. Probably the best day of the entire trip, the views were unbeatable, the location was breath-taking and once we climbed through the village and reached the guest house at the top - the entire journey had been worthwhile. We were welcomed by outstanding folk who had prepared a delicious traditional Moroccan feast! FINALLY, DELICIOUS FOOD! After resting up a while and scoffing down the amazing food, we made our way back down through the mountains to the minibuses which brought us back to the hotel.

Day 4
On our second to last day we decided to head out to the coastal towns of Marrakesh (which were unfortunately 3 hours away by coach) and visit an Argan Oil factory. We got to meet the wonderful ladies who spend hours every day picking, crushing and grinding down the argan nuts to produce fantastic products such as the Argan Oil itself, shampoo, and several herbal remedies. We then drove into the city and leisurely walked through more markets and souks to be confronted by the beautiful sight of the ocean and the huge stretch of beach. Once we had been taken around the markets we were left to our own devices for a while which was cleverly spent  eating delicious pizza and buying gifts for friends and family. A quick walk down to the waters edge and a look at the gorgeous beach made the 3 hour journey definitely worthwhile. Back at the hotel we order in some well deserved Domino's pizzas and then headed out into town to check out Marrakesh's night life.

Day 5
Well the final day came around fast! We had to be out of our rooms for 9 a.m. and so we decided to spend the unplanned first part of the day walking around town, and eating ice cream at the most beautiful ice cream parlor I've ever seen! We then met back up outside the hotel and split off into two groups, some people went into town to do some sketches and the rest of the group went camel riding! (Yes, yes I did go camel riding.) An amazing experience I will never forget. We arrived back outside the hotel at around 5 p.m. local time, and left the unbeatable Morocco behind.

An Abstract Introduction

Art. Food. Sex. Life. Hm, for the foreseeable future, or maybe the near future, I'm almost certain that that is all I'll need to live. Art. Food. Sex. Life. Maybe you're wondering why. Maybe you're wondering if this is important to you. Maybe you're not wondering at all. Maybe the only reason you have found yourself on this blog is because you're bored shitless of whatever it is you are supposed to be doing. I think the latter is the most obvious choice here. Well me too, I too am bored shitless. And seen as I suffer from insomnia I have even more time to waste doing absolutely nothing. 

I say that, but when I think about it that's what I'm doing... I'm thinking - constantly. Can't stop. I'm addicted. I have a problem. It is an issue in my life. Even this, right now, this is just a twisted, weird, tangent of a narration I am having with myself in my head. But, yet I'm enjoying it. I love thinking. I love dreaming. I love being able to be whoever I want to with absolute control over myself and well everyone else. Now that sounds quite psychotic, doesn't it? It's not though, think about it, in your head, in your mind, you get to do, say, act, perform, talk, eat, sleep, shag, fuck, abuse drugs for fun, abuse people who treat you badly, without any judgement being passed. Of course there is always your own opinion of yourself, but hey, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who really knows me, maybe you do too. On the face of it, I'm a completely different person to who I'd really like to be. If I smile at you, I might not be agreeing with you or laughing at your chauvinistic "joke", or your homophobic insults, or your prejudiced remarks, I might really be beating you to death with the lead pipe in the dining room - but you all thought it was Professor Plum, right? Violence is not the answer... Not always. 

What I am trying to get at, what is really making my skin crawl, are bitches. Now as a female, and as a feminist, I am not just referring to women, and I am absolutely avoiding sexism. What I do mean when I say the term 'bitches' is a human being who is so hypocritical, so self-centered, so critical towards others, towards people who will walk from a crowd and go the way that they want to go instead of where they "should" want to, and are so wrapped up in their own "perfect" lives they cannot see the damage they are doing to others. Maybe us, as human beings, should start to think about ourselves in an out-of-body way. Look at yourself, look at your life. Start being who you really want to be and stop worrying about what may happen. Art. Food. Sex. Life. Maybe you need to start living, maybe you need to stop worrying, and maybe you should make a change to help yourself, and others. Take that trip, ask that guy out, learn French, eat pizza, drink, laugh, fuck bitches and get money. But ultimately, love who you are. 

An inspiring video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAKtEI7PBho