Rhomany's Realm

Some Awesome Student Work From Portraits123

We’re only on week 2 of Portraits 123 and already my students are hard at work and showing massive improvement! I have to say to all of you, you are showing visual improvement from one picture to the next and the sheer volume of work you’re all churning out as practice pieces is incredible! Here’s [...]

29Faces #3-9

On today’s live show I was catching up on my 29 Faces by working on some action figures. These are the Marvel Avengers, based loosely in the film characters, but not really intended to look exactly like them, just approximately. The show was recorded and will be available on iTunes later today, or if you’re impatient [...]

And the Winner is….

Congratulations to Mary Dean for winning my giveaway! I have your email form my blog and I’ll be in touch shortly. Hope you have a great time in class. Commiserations to those who didn’t win, but thank you so much for entering and there’s still time to grab the 25% discount on all 3 classes [...]

Mastering Journal Art Challenge #2

Want to play? Come on over to rhomany.org.uk/classes. Every week we have a new master artist to learn from and try their style, and a journal art prompt to help us along. Last week we were in the Renaissance doing portraits. This week we’re in turn-of-the-century Germany looking at Expressionism and texture. Come and play!

Portraits 1 – Females; 25% OFF ONE WEEK ONLY!

Portraits 1 will teach you the basics of drawing female portraits in front, side and 3/4 profile, using my original system that takes all the guesswork out of working out where to place what on the page. Ideal for beginners and those who already draw alike, this course shows you how to draw stylised portraits [...]

Portraits 123 – Registration OPEN!

Posted by Rhomany on April 1st, 2012

Portraits 123 is an 18 week course that will teach you my very own method of drawing semi-realistic, stylised portraits, using a system of squares and how to apply it to both Female and Male, semi-realistic portraits for your journal art, as well as how to add extra details and stylings to your portraits to really make them pop!

When I began doing portraits I ran into two main issues. First, that every course began with the words ‘Draw an oval/circle’. No matter how hard I tried, I always ended up with a face that was a little squished on one side. On the very rare occasions I actually managed to get a reasonably even oval, I somehow managed to not divide it evenly, resulting in Picasso-style faces with the eyes shifted off to one side. Second, that if I didn’t start with some sort of ‘face shape’ that told me roughly how big the features needed to be, they got so disproportionately large compared to the paper, that I often ran out of room for things like necks and hair.

That is why I developed my system, using a simple square, which is easily drawn with just a ruler. Using this basic shape, you can work out the size of your face and features in relation to each other, the page and other elements of your drawing, without ever having to measure anything. As long as you can divide a square roughly into two or three segments, you can achieve evenly proportioned faces without ever having to ‘Draw an oval’ or having to do any maths at all.

Not only does this system work for front facing, 3/4 profile and side facing portraits for both males and females, which is the basics of what we will cover in Portraits 1 & 2, but it can be applied to facial angles such tilted up or down, with just a few minor alterations, as well as creating a great starting point for using reference photos, which is what we will cover in Portraits 3.

Click here to download the Course Information, Timetable & Supplies PDF

Registration is now open!

Live class Portraits 1 (Female Portraits) begins: May 4th (6 weeks, plus 1 ‘catch up’ week)
Live class Portraits 2 (Male Portraits) begins: May 11th (6 weeks, plus 1 ‘catch up’ week)
Live class Portraits 3 (Stylised Portraits) begins: August 10th (6 weeks, plus 1 ‘catch up’ week)
Self Study beings: Oct 5th

SIGN UP NOW!

Individual class sign ups £40 (approx $63/€60) each

Whimsical Words Self Study NOW OPEN!

Posted by Rhomany on March 31st, 2012

Stop thinking of letters as ‘writing’. Think of them as little works of art.

Let go of the need to have everything straight, uniform and regular.

Lettering can bring a whole new dimension to whatever you create, from scrapbooks and journals to canvas paintings & fabric art. All you need is a few simple tools, a little know how and a dash of creative mojo.

This is not just a class on doodling with a pen people! We’re going to work with pencil and pen to begin with, yes. But then we’re going to use paint and paper to create proper mixed media effects!

Join me for 5 weeks of mixed media lettering fun!

This class is designated as ‘self study’. This means all materials are available as soon as you enter the classroom.

All classes whether live or self study, have full tutor support.

SIGN UP NOW!

£40 (approx $65)

Already a member of the new site? Click here to auto-enrol via Paypal!

Today’s Show is Cancelled

Posted by Rhomany on March 28th, 2012

Sorry everyone but I have no Internet, just 3G on my phone while I’m out with the dog, so there won’t be a live show this afternoon.
I’l be back next week though so see you all them. For today I’m going to take advantage of the oddly summery weather by slathering on some sunblock and heading out to the garden with Maddie, an iced coffee and my art journal.
If you need your fix, don’t forget you can catch up on previous shows on iTunes. Nearly all of them are up now.

CLASSES GALORE! And Exciting News!

Posted by Rhomany on March 26th, 2012

It’s been a bit quiet around here lately and there’s a reason for it. I’m busy working on not just new classes, but a whole new site to host them on. The new site is a dedicated classroom environment (not a ning site!) where everyone can feel free to post their work for constructive critique and know that only those in the class, or just me if you prefer, can see it and comment on it.

It’s going to be awesome and while it’s not ready for public launch yet, I would like to offer existing students the opportunity to join in early. I will be posting over the next week or so in all my existing classrooms with a link to the new site and instructions for how to sign up.

It is also available to new students, who sign up to the following courses:

Cryptic Coptic – available now as a self study* course with tutor support.

Learn how to make yourself a beautiful, coptic bound art journal to do your next class in, come on over and sign up.

SIGN UP NOW!

Self study open now

£25 (approx $32/€24)

This Friday, Whimsical Words live class also comes to an end, which means it will also go to self study. We’ve had a blast the last 5 weeks creating mixed media lettering, and I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the final projects from week 5 and sharing mine with the group.

SIGN UP NOW!

(Self Study opens 1st April)

£40 (approx $63/€60)

And finally… the big news…

Portraits 123 will go live on May 4th, and registration will open April 4th!

There are 3 classes, 1, 2 and 3, covering Female Portraits, Male Portraits and Styling Portraits – more information and registration details on Wednesday, but I can tell you that if you want to do ALL THREE the cost will be £90 (approx $143/€107), which is a saving of 25%!

Also, there will be VERY LIMITED places for those who would like to purchase all three but spread the cost, so if you want to take advantage of paying over 3 months, you’ll need to sign up early.

I can’t wait to get this course started, as I’m so excited to share my new system of drawing stylised portraits with you. If you’re one of those people who has trouble working out how much room you need for your portrait, or the placement of features in side and profile views, then this course is for you! There’s no ‘draw an oval’ to begin with and then spending an hour trying to stop it going wonky, this technique is all based on squares.

It’s so simple and easy to use you’ll be wondering why you ever had trouble with portraits before!

Existing students, do check in on your classes over the next few days to get the information to join the site. All materials from previous classes on Willowing will be staying in place for the time being, so it’s not a requirement to sign up, but all new classes from April 1st will be hosted on my own class site.

Don’t forget too, that while we are now in week 13 of Life Book, that really shouldn’t deter you from signing up still (yes! registration is STILL OPEN!), because all materials will be live until this time next year! Plenty of time to catch up, you could even start in week 14 and do weeks 1-13 in 2013 if you wanted to.

My class for it is coming up in May and I’m really excited to share even more fun lettering techniques with you all!

SIGN UP NOW! (Prices vary according to course choices)

*Self Study means all materials are available immediately, where with a Live course, materials are put over a period of weeks. However, tutor assistance is always available on all my courses, so all classes are considered ‘on going’. Students who attend Live classes get the advantage of having work given out over a set period and working on the same projects and exercises as peers, whereas self study students can access all materials immediately, but also have the advantage of seeing what other people have done already before they start. It just depends how you prefer to study whether you sign up ‘Live’ or not.

Art Journals FREE Class: Watercolour Pencils

Posted by Rhomany on March 21st, 2012

Here’s the piece from today’s UStream. Stephanie had asked for a watercolour pencils tutorial, and for once I actually stuck with just doing those and not throwing everything at it!

To add a little twist (and since I don’t actually have watercolour pencils in portrait colours) I did a portrait in non-natural colours. I think she came out quite fairy like and may even give her wings at some point.

Tomorrow’s Free UStream Class: Watercolour Pencils

Posted by Rhomany on March 20th, 2012

Tomorrow’s UStream class as requested by Stephanie is about using Watercolour Pencils, and I’ll be doing this in the context of journal art.

NOTE! USA SUMMERTIME KICKED IN THIS WEEK BUT BST DOESN’T START TIL 25TH MARCH. EST IS CURRENTLY 4 HOURS DIFFERENT INSTEAD OF THE USUAL 5, FOR THIS SHOW.