CyprusArtists

Good-morning dear members!
This fine morning, I woke up to have discovered a bunch of unresolved messages and notes that were immediately resolved so I would like to apologize for the long ... long... long delay in responding!

Now back to the important stuff!
Back in March 2008, a very generous member spoooki.deviantart.com/ created a very interesting and creative ID for the club found here: CyprusArtists.deviantart.com/a… ... But it has grown old and dusty (Still awesome though!) . So, for all the members of CyprusArtists , ANYONE WHO WANTS TO CREATE A NEW ID DO SO! Upload it onto your account and send us a note with a link (or thumb) to it! Or if you just don't want to upload it to your account, just sent it to cyprusartistsda@gmail.com . They will all go through a poll and the best one shall be chosen for the club's ID and will stand on the club's Profile for as long as it takes for brownies to go yukki!
So, make it creative, unique and try to include the club's colors and font (Oil Green [#485856] and Century Gothic). It can be on any medium (photography, photomanipulation, digital art, fine art etc etc etc). Just remember it must represent the club (i.e. the club's name!)

Thank you If you take part in this, your offering is greatly appreciated.

Administrators:

Where to start?…..My name is Leigh Donovan, I’m 38 years old and originally from Leicestershire, England. I’ve been living in sunny Limassol, Cyprus for the past 15 years now.

I started drawing at a very young age. I can remember spending my pocket money on paper and pencils when my brother and friends where buying comics and sweets! But seriously, I suppose I realized I had a love for art when I was about 11 or 12 years old.

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Pencils have always been my favorite medium, they’re just so easy to pick up and draw. I can paint quite well too, but I don’t enjoy the process of stopping and starting to mix colours. I’ll let you in on a secret ….the ‘best’ and ‘only’ pencils for me are ‘Caran Dache supersoft’ pencils. Don’t ask me where my inspiration comes from I don’t really know, it’s just in my blood to draw. I suppose the biggest inspiration that I can think of comes from life itself. I usually draw spontaneously, with no idea what I’m about to put on the paper. And I rarely work to a title, I make them up afterwards.

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I’ve always been a big fan of visual illusions, that and influences such as Dali, Bosch, HRGiger and Escher lead me towards surrealism. When studying I always found myself torn between ‘fine art’ and pure ‘graphics’. I studied both Art and Technical Drawing at A-level standard, which I think shows in my drawings. I like to think my drawings are surreal in their idea, but still structured technically giving them a good composition.

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I don’t like saying I’m an artist, my wife is a great cook, but she doesn’t call herself a chef! I’d rather say I’m a person who likes to draw a lot. I draw for myself, so there has never been a feeling of I want to be an Artist, but from my early teens I knew that Art would be a life long love affair.

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I studied O-level and A-level Art, passing the first with flying colours, but failing the latter miserably! I still got excepted into Leicester Polytechnic on the strength of my port-folio, but soon realised that I was only motivated towards creating art that came from within me. Being told to work from a title or to design a theme for a restaurant etc just didn’t inspire me. This is when I realized that art was always going to be a hobby rather than a job.

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I rarely venture away from using my pencils, but I have painted many wall murals and kids themed bedrooms. I also like carving candles, the bigger the better! Then when it comes to summer I can be found on ‘Ladies Mile’ beach making massive sand sculptures, maybe I should upload a few photos to DA some day! I don’t go digital though, I can appreciate peoples talent creating digital art, but for me there will always be an element of ‘chance’ involved. Which is ironically what the anti-art art movement (Dada) is based on! I don’t want to upset anyone, there are many talented digital artists who create breath taking work, but a lot of digital art is a collage of ‘stock images’ created by someone else. To me this isn’t pure art, and belongs on magazine covers etc rather than in an art gallery.

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That’s a hard one! I usually sit down with a blank piece of paper (sometimes I’ll draw on white paper, other times I’ll draw on black card, which is like drawing negatively), a 2H pencil, and see where a few doodles will lead me. Once a basic idea of shapes and forms appear, I try to work on and around them to create a balanced image that is pleasing to me. By this stage I will have an idea of what the drawing is going to be about, so I’ll try and add more depth to the subject matter to try and tell a story or to ask questions. Usually the idea for a drawing is the longest process and can be frustrating at times. Once all the line work is in place I’ll start to add colour, I tend to apply all the brighter colours first and finish the drawing off by applying a lot of black pencil to add depth. I’m always running out of black pencils!!! I think the beauty of art is that you never stop learning, so I don’t really have any dos or don’ts about the way I approach each drawing. I rather go with the flow and enjoy the creative experience that each drawing takes me on.

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I don’t really have a favourite, I like the portraits for their technical ability and the challenge of capturing the true likeness of the subject, but I enjoy the process of my surreal work more. If I had to chose a favourite, it would probably be ‘Face The World’, for its all round composition and use of colour.

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Oh, too many to mention! I think we all like and admire artwork that we could never create ourselves. I love and appreciate all styles of art, from surrealism and abstract to hyper-realism. I don’t like someone’s work because of who created it, but rather for its appeal to me personally. From the classics my favourite would be ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ by Hieronymus Bosch, but I also really appreciate the hyper realism of an artist here on DA, Denis Peterson, you should really check him out!! And no they are not photos, they are paintings!!

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To still be creating art when I’m 100!

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I can’t really advise on a career, as for me art is a hobby, but what I would say to any aspiring artist is practice, practice, practice and love what you do.

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Thank you for the opportunity to express myself in words rather than pictures. Keep up the good work at CyprusArtists , it keeps us all inspired and motivated to produce more artwork!

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Administrators:

ALL the members that qualify themselves as willing to pose for art's sake professionally or amateur(illy) and of ALL the members that qualify themselves as photographers in need of these people professionally or amateur(illy) shall be written down so that models can find photographers, and photographers can find models.

There are SIX (6) groups in which you can find yourself into


Electrocuted-Witch alwinred jaune-et-orange










alwinred intruder-x jaune-et-orange NjovuAtraDomina1emmoudion



Gia-G intruder-x







Now, to add yourself on this list, simply SCROLL DOWN to the comment entry box and write a comment stating where you want to be put! This list will be updated relatively often (I hope) so don't worry! You can return here whenever to add your self or subtract yourself from the list.

P.S. Original idea borrowed by modelsgr.deviantart.com/ discovered by a journal entry of khpouros and suggested to the club by admin alwinred

Administrators:

Administrators:

Greeting Earthlings!

We had an emergency administrator meeting yesterday
and we came to the conclusion that there will be a Dev-Meeting!

It will take place at Octana Café (Nicosia) at 7:00 p.m.

The only thing left to decide is the day, which we leave up to you guys!
Either 20, 21 or 22 (of February) vote here: cyprusartists.deviantart.com/j…
It is TOMMOROW Saturday the 21st of February!!!


FOR THE MEETING:

Everyone bring yer cameras, notepads, brushes,laptops, your tools! (ta karkasialikia sas na poskolistume) Vasika ferte oti nane - oti thelete.

Tha kamume kratisi gia to domatio pano, me ta pillows, ena exi nargile, je fagito, pota alla oxi kerasmena. (Bring your own moneys!!)

And put on your funny costumes!

Ta-ta!

Administrators: