The Cult of Beauty

The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900.

I went to the above mentioned expo today, at the V & A, and it was fantastic, well worth the effort. I think I prefer the later 'art for arts sake' paintings over the early preraphaelite pieces, which can be a bit earnest, preachy and over-wrought.

Some of the highlights:

Whistler 'Symphony in White (nubers 1, 2, and 3)

Thomas Armstrong, 'The Hay Field'

Burne-Jones, 'Beguiling of Merlin', 'Laus Veneris' (Much more impressive in the flesh than in reproduction, the detail is stunning)
The Golden Stairs

Lord Leighton, 'Bath of Psyche'

Albert Moore 'Midsummer'

Lawrence Alma-Tadema 'The Tepidarium' (this one is tiny, yet such detail and convincing texture...)

Harry Bates, 'Mors Janua Vitae' (This was a damned impressive thing in real life, can't find a photo that nearly does it justice. It's made of bronze, ivory and mother of pearl.)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: 'The Day Dream'

Albert Gilbert, 'Perseus Arming'.

And much more besides, often featuring peacock feathers.

True Pirates app

The 'True Pirates' game, by Disruptor Beam LLC, is now up on Facebook. I did some arrrt for this, including ships, a couple of the icons, the hideout scene and the maps. Nice to see it all coming together.

Getting Flash

I've been playing with flash, and have had a go at making a character appear to blink and breathe... I think she likes you!

Reworking Old Pieces.

I have been looking through my old drawings, from a more than a couple of years ago, and faults which I could not see at the time leap out at me. Most look under-worked, and too light in tone, owing to my phobia of pencils softer than HB, which I've found very prone to smudging in my hands. I made a mini-mahlstick to counter this problem not long ago. I've been very tempted to rework my older pieces and bring them up to something like my present standard. This I've started to do on such drawings as this:


White Ribbon by ~dashinvaine on deviantART

Which now looks like this:


Black Ribbon by ~dashinvaine on deviantART

Whether this activity is a good idea I don't know. It's alright when it involves minor changes, the correction of missed faults and general finishing off, but there probably comes a point after which it would be better to start again. This is especially the case when one is doing things that change the character of the original picture. There is also the consideration that it might be better to leave old works as they were in order to have a record of your progress!