I cheated myself, like I knew I would.

Amy Winehouse, black marker pen.
Lauren x

In The Shadows

A quick permanent marker sketching I did while on holiday, based on one of the new Topshop ads :)
Lauren x

I Heard Love is Blind

Lauren x

Kate Moss

Hi everyone!

First of all, sorry about the lack of posts for the last month or so; I've been painting and sketching loads but I just never really had time to upload the photos onto here! So the next few posts will be some quick photos of projects I have been doing recently, hope you like them, and hope you're having a fab summer :)

First up is a black and white portrait of Kate Moss :)

Lauren x

Back To Black

Hi everyone, just a quick post of a painting I did a few days ago, loosely based on the model in this old Chloe ad. what do you think of it? :)
Lauren x

You've Got The Love

Hi everyone, hope you had a good weekend!
Thought I'd show you a painting which I started yesterday and finished off this morning, and it seems to have divided the opinions of the people I've showed it to so far! It's a lot more imperfect and spontaneous than the stuff I normally do, but I'm rather pleased with how it turned out, plus it was great fun to paint! :) I was inspired to do it after I came across these amazing paintings by an artist called Corno, and really wanted to have a go at her style of portraiture. The picture I worked from is this photo of Karen Elson, but I think it turned out to look a bit more like Florence Welch, haha! What do you think?

Lauren x

A Week's Worth of Posts!

Hey everyone, hope you're having a good week :) Remember; It's nearly Friday!
I've been neglecting the blog a bit this week, but only because I've been painting at every spare moment :) This is probably going to be a bit of a long and disjointed post because I've done lots of quick, different paintings this week, but I hope you like them!
This one I did a few days ago, based on this image that I found in an old copy of Vogue; the beautiful Jessica Stam, inexplicably climbing over a load of pianos:

Not too happy with how it turned out, I'm half happy with the background, but she just ended up a bit more yellow and skeletal then planned, haha! Ahh well, not everything turns out perfect :) moving on...

This one was based on an old Moschino ad I found in Vogue, and I tried to interpret it in a pop-art style :) I really love the style created by just using black and the primary colours, so I would definitely do more paintings in this style in the future :)

Next, I thought I would try and improve my portrait painting by doing a quick painty sketch of Keira Knightley on an old Vogue cover...it's not perfect, but better than some of the people I've painted before, haha! I always think getting faces exactly right is THE HARDEST thing to paint or draw. What do you think?

Next is the one I'm personally most proud of, a city-scape based on an image of New York (I think) :)

City scenes are always one of my favourite things to paint, there's just such a shock of light and colour which can't be found anywhere else.

The next photo I'm slightly ashamed of...I painted a Noel Fielding style ghost on the top of my radio. Not really sure why. Boredom probably. But it kind of counts as art, and it makes me smile whenever I see it, so I figured I'd put a quick photo up of it on here, haha! ;)

This morning I found an old canvas I did for GCSE Art, a kind of uninspiring black and white scene, I think it was of the side of a pond, with all the branches and leaves trailing in the water:

Not my best work, so I didn't feel to bad about painting over it, ready to start again with something new, haha! Painting quick pictures on pieces of paper is fine, but I really miss painting on canvas - I just wish it wasn't so expensive!

What do you think my next big project should be? I'm thinking either a big cityscape or a pop-art style portrait :) any suggestions or ideas would be very welcome! 

Hope you're having a good day, sorry this one's been such a long post! :)

Lauren x

Madcap Shambleton

Hey everyone, hope you're having a good weekend :)
So lately I've been majorly inspired by Noel Fielding's art; I bought his book, 'Scribblings of a Madcap Shambleton', last week and I can't stop flicking through it (check out some of his paintings here, here and here) :) I'm a massive fan of the Mighty Boosh, and some of Noel's artwork is kind of featured in the series, so I figured I should check out his book, and I would really recommend it to anyone! I know his work isn't to everyone's taste, but I love the colour and energy that comes across from his paintings, and you can just tell they must have been so great to paint!
So, yesterday I had a go at doing a few portraits in a kind of Noel Fielding style; a rather random mix of people; Noel Fielding, Kate Moss, Lana Del Rey and David Bowie! The Bowie one is my personal favourite, it's the one I did last, and I think I had kind of got the hang of the style by then :)

What do you think? :)

Lauren x

Diamond Blue Baby, New York City

If there's any two arty things I'm hopeless at, it's portraits and watercolours! With this in mind, yesterday I tried to conquer both these fears in one foul swoop, by doing a sketch of my ultimate girl crush, Lana Del Rey (image source here) :) here's how it turned out...

Fairly pleased with how it turned out, it's not as terrible as some of my attempts at drawing people! I started off by blocking out the features and general shape in pencil, added detail in biro, then finally blocked in some basic colour in watercolour :)
What do you think? Hope you're having a good week, everyone!
Lauren x

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There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out

Hi everyone!
Today I did an acrylic painting on watercolour paper, based on this rather blurry photo of a street in Rome that I took a few years ago :)

It turned out a bit more abstract and less photorealistic than what I normally do, but overall I'm happy with it :) only just realised that the paint must still have been a bit wet when I took the photos, oops! haha. Hope you like it :)
Lauren x

Chinatown

Hey everyone, hope you're having a good day :)
Thought I'd put a painting I did last night, hope you like it! It's based on this photo I took a few years ago while in Chinatown in London for Chinese New Year:

And here's what I came up with :) ...

Lauren x

Acrylic Texture

I did these two paintings recently, after purchasing a book called 'Vibrant Acrylics' by Hashim Akib. Although I don't usually like following instructions or tutorials when it comes to painting, I would recommend this book to anyone, simply because  he has so many fresh ideas which are so easily applied and worked in to your style of painting :)

Both of these are acrylics on watercolour paper, hope you like them!
Lauren x

She's A Rainbow

Okay, so another quick post before I head to bed... :)
This is a pastel sketch I did the other day, once again based on an image I found in Harper's Bazaar UK (link here). As soon as I saw the image the colours really grabbed me, and the movement of the skirt was really good to draw;

This one was done using pastels on paper. I always find I have a real love-hate relationship with pastels; love the vibrancy of the colours, hate the smudgy, dusty mess that seems to end up on my bedroom carpet! Overall I really like this one though, what do you think of it?

Also, just on a side-note before I put up too many blog posts, just thought I should mention about some of the images I use. Whenever  I use someone else's photographs as inspiration for sketches (like in this post and the one before), I'm not trying to claim any copyright or ownership for the images, just showing where I  found them :) I really need to get out and start taking my own original photos, as soon as it stops raining everyday, haha!
Hope you're having a good night :)
Lauren x

Alexa Chung

Hi again everyone! 
For my first art post I thought I'd put up a quick biro sketch I did today. It's based on this photo of Alexa Chung which appeared in Harper's Bazaar UK a few months back (on a quick sidenote; I majorly love Alexa Chung. I just want to be her). 

Overall happy with how it turned out, the hand looks at a really weird angle but that's pretty much how she had it in the photo, haha. And as you can probably tell, I'm not a great fan of drawing faces! I always much prefer sketching in biro rather than pencil because it's much more immediate, you don't have the option of rubbing out and agonising over individual marks, so the work produced is much more fresh and raw. What do you think? :) 
Lauren x

Welcome To My Blog!

Ahhh my first post! Hi everyone and welcome to my art blog!
My name is Lauren, I'm eighteen years old and living in the UK :) So basically I was inspired to create this blog after following and being intrigued by loads of other peoples' blogs, never really done one before so we'll see how it turns out! Seeing as I've finished school and will likely have a lot of free time this summer, I thought I'd put together a blog where I could post some of the art I do, and hopefully some of you lovely people will enjoy looking at it! I also love fashion and photography, so some of my artistic inspirations may end up making an appearance sometimes!
So, enjoy! Hope you're having a good day :)
Lauren x