ardent, patient, persistent

"A place to share my process, projects, musings, and really just the hard work of being an illustrator." Anne-Marie Perks is a visual artist who draws (a lot!) creates artwork using a variety of traditional mediums and digital, and loves to tell stories through word, image and animation. I also blog on: biglittletale.tumblr.com website: www.annemarieperks.com

[annemarieperks]

Last pose of the night! Again, inspired by latest season of Sabrina, changing our art model into the spider woman! (at Bucks New University) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8imbjUn6-y/?igshid=1ldul4cn19mwt

[annemarieperks]

More frames from the framing and inspired responses to Sabrina stills working with our lively art model. (at Bucks New University) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8imJ2DHaVy/?igshid=1qa0vn953outl

[annemarieperks]

Third frame from that previous sequence. (at Bucks New University) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8il6jonZ2j/?igshid=2x8fq9qn2ktl

[annemarieperks]

The next series of drawings are working with stills from Sabrina and using the model to translate the movement in each chosen frame, we look at composition in the frame and translating the scene from different angles. The result is an inspired response versus an accurate recording to the scene. (at Bucks New University) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8ilyyanA3E/?igshid=33gqcga3zxil

[annemarieperks]

In the life drawing class for animators we work through a series of strategies or approaches to putting down the pose on paper. Silhouettes are one of those strategies to capture the essence of the pose. In gesture drawing we begin with the line of action. (at Bucks New University) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8ilRw1HHOa/?igshid=14m0ng9q4a8wd

[annemarieperks]

From same life drawing class for animation students- 3 minute gesture drawings. Sometimes I build up all the drawings from 30 second to 3 minute on one paper, wiping back the earlier drawings creating a ghosted record of the warm up session. (at Bucks New University) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8ik6WknOhY/?igshid=1moqvzex8pcr1

[annemarieperks]

In the life drawing class I teach for animation students, we begin every session with 3 minute blind contour drawings. First one with our dominant hand and second one with our non-dominant hand. I draw along with them for much of the session interspersed with ongoing direction and feedback. I love watching the change over in everyone’s contour drawings as we progress in this warm up practice! In every drawing something jumps out like this great profile! A series of timed gesture drawings from 30 seconds to 3 minutes is next. (at Bucks New University) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8ikipEH94w/?igshid=xp4kwnhc7d70

[annemarieperks]

First oil painting in a couple of years! Taking the graphite powder and Black Wing pencil drawing of Pauline (my great grandmother)mounted on board and then oils. https://www.instagram.com/p/B27NiD5HuNC/?igshid=1a155gfcd7r57

[annemarieperks]

Process from first mapping marks to almost done from a great week portrait drawing intensive at #lara.atelier taught by #sofiawelch Loved the discipline of showing up and working with a fabulous model alongside great ongoing feedback from our teacher. https://www.instagram.com/p/B27MMYoHpRB/?igshid=zf7fev1lkwbt

[kimsokol]

New work for upcoming historical fantasy tabletop RPG Age of Aether!  Goblins have longer arms in this setting, I swear I know how long an arm is.

[kimsokol]

Hey @claudela , you ask I answer - and the answer is OH LORD NO I do not just start painting, oh my god I wish I could instead of banging my head against a dozen steps over the course of 20-odd hours.

First it’s thumbnails - sometimes there’s a couple dozen, sometimes just a few, sometimes it’s stuff like this where I have a few to choose from and some more that I just straight-up deleted before finishing because they were bad.  Absolute unskippable first step to figure out composition, TBH.  I used to do these in a sketchbook, but I’ve been trying to work on my value structure so I’m doing them this way instead.  Then I grab a bunch of reference, both photos and other peoples’ art, and try out some colour stuff.

Then, once I’ve got client approval (and a tweak or two) on the comp, I shoot some deeply embarrassing reference photography… when I can I use a friend or hire a model, but this one is all me, my living room, and some empty D&D character sheets taped to the wall.  Also need some clothing reference, in this case just a bunch of photos of Oliver Twist because that’s what the client asked for:

…then take all that and do a final drawing with some final-ish colours to send to the client.  Tell them that there’ll be other posters in there later, I swear.  Think about how I’ve committed to a whole wall of wanted posters and wonder how the hell I’m gonna do that.

Next step: start painting.  Oh god, this is awful.  I’m a joke.  Why did anybody hire me I have forgotten how to do anything I am a menace to myself and those around me, I’m a sham of an artist.

Don’t panic.  (Okay, panic a bit, but then get over it.)  Keep painting.  Pay attention to the reference.  Ask friends for critique.  Redraw things that need redrawing.  Focus on the big shapes.  Draw some damn perspective lines instead of just eyeballing it.  Think through the figure in 3D, where the light would actually hit.  Work out the wanted posters in separate documents and warp them into place.

Get a great paintover from a friend pointing out some places where the colours could use tweaking, stuff about the head angle and the hand pose, and that even for extra-long arms they’re probably too extra long.  Paint and repaint over stuff I’ve done before.  Get it working.

Finish the background.  Flatten the whole thing and paint over top to make it feel a bit more integrated, and make the wanted posters feel less sharp and pasted in.  Final tweaks.  Finally, a painting.  Take a deep breath, send to the client, and desperately pray that they’re happy with it.

For the actually-painting part, a lot of that just comes down to years and years of practice (I’ve been using Photoshop since I was 13, and that was 18 years ago) and for the brushwork - lots of experimentation, flat brushes with angle jitter set to pen tilt that allow some nice directional stuff, and master studies of oil painters to get an idea for how they do their brushwork.  Also a lot of crying.  I promise every amateur artist out there that professionals will gather together and go “OH GOD HOW DO I DO ANY OF THIS, WHY DO WE DO THIS, ART IS A CURSE” (and then get it out of our systems and remember that we do love our jobs a lot and we’re so lucky to have them, but art is still very hard, why do we do this.)

[annemarieperks]

Great documentation on your creative and technique progress! Thank you for sharing it!

[capegraphicnovels]

The wait is over, and we couldn’t be more excited! Posy Simmonds triumphant return to the graphic novel has arrived. The magnificent Cassandra Darke is published today and available everywhere. 

We think that Cassandra is Simmonds’ greatest ever comic creation: a mean, selfish, solitary art dealer, living alone in a £7 million Chelsea townhouse. She has become a social pariah, but doesn’t much care. Between one Christmas and the next, she has sullied the reputation of a West End gallery and has acquired a conviction for fraud, a suspended sentence and a bank balance drained by lawsuits. On the scale of villainy, fraud seems to Cassandra a rather paltry offence – her own crime involving ‘no violence, no weapon, no dead body’. But in Cassandra’s basement, her young ex-lodger, Nicki, has left a surprise, something which implies at least violence and probably a body … Something which forces Cassandra out of her rich enclave and onto the streets. Not those local streets paved with gold and lit with festive glitter, but grimmer, darker places, where she must make the choice between self-sacrifice and running for her life.

We hope you love it as much as we do.

[annemarieperks]

I am so excited by this! Can’t wait to pick up the book.

[annemarieperks]

Most of our colour work on the floor. There were three of us working with @colourtutor all different ages and careers, though no difference with the amazing outcomes of the day. If you’ve been thinking, should I do Colour 2? I say yes! https://www.instagram.com/p/BoEIRLvA_aU/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=16ri6h94fy8e8

[annemarieperks]

Colour 2 with Juliet and @colourtutor was so worth it yesterday. Being able to take a day and working with more depth on what we started with Colour 1 was a treat! I slept so well last night- tiring work and so much fun. https://www.instagram.com/p/BoEHryKg1oD/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=nqr5y7y039x5

[annemarieperks]

Amazing day on Colour Workshop 1 with Juliet Dougherty, #colourtutor.com 23 June. This is an incredible workshop that is intense, inspiring and leaves you wanting to spend days creating colour palettes. Every artist would find this life changing!

[annemarieperks]

I want to do a painting of this one day. This is my great grandmother, drawn using graphite powder, mechanical pencil and Blackwing pencils. I am lucky enough to have a well preserved sepia tone promotional photograph of her. She was an actress in which most of her performances were either theatre or silent film. I was told she never slowed photographs of herself when she got older. I aspire to her in that she was a very creative costume designer, designed and made all her own costumes.

[annemarieperks]

Met May is over and I didn’t post all the mermaids I’m working on, so that will continue behind the scenes for now. This graphite powder and Blackwing pencil drawing is called Grief. I need to get back to watercolour to finish two pieces for covers before the middle of July. It’s good to be busy!

[annemarieperks]

Very busy first assessment week with students at Uni. Another mermaid with an eel companion. Blue col-erase and prismacolor pencils. #mermay2018 #figurativeart #moleskine