Optical Illusion

I have been experimenting recently with anamorphic perspective. This is when a picture, when viewed face on, looks very distorted - but when viewed from the correct angle looks perfectly normal.

It can also create some very bizarre optical illusions like this.



Here I have painted a very crude Rubic style cube on a piece of board. By placing the two cup & saucers on the painting it creates the illusion that one cup is greatly larger than the other even though they are both the same size.

The only drawback is that these type of effects can only be viewed properly from the one, very precise, angle. They are great fun though and I will be trying out some more soon.

Florida

It's been a while since my last post but I have been away for a couple of weeks dodging the storms over in Florida.

It was purely a pleasure trip as opposed to business which unfortunately means I am unable to offset it against my tax : ) It's probably the last place on earth to visit if you intend on a relaxing holiday - we did have a wonderful (& exhausting) time though in the Disney & Universal parks and had a drive to the Kennedy Space Centre on the east coast.

My son & I tried out as many roller coasters as possible and found the best one was the 'Manta' in Sea World. The wettest ride has to be the Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges at Universal's Islands of Adventure - make sure you ride it on a hot day as it took hours for all of us to dry out.
The Tower of Terror at Disney's Hollywood Studios is also worth a go.



Also, the Islands of Adventure had one of our favourite restaurants - the Mythos, which looks as if it has been carved out of the side of a mountain. If you ever eat there try the salmon which I adore and thoroughly recommend. The prices are also quite reasonable (compared to other theme park restaurants).

Driving was great fun and it was the first time I have driven in the US - it took me nearly two weeks to get used to turning right on a red light only to quickly get out of the habit once back in the UK.



We had a Dodge Caravan which probably did about 17 miles to a gallon. This meant that, although the fuel was a lot cheaper, it was still more expensive to drive around. Having a toll booth every few yards (or so it seemed) also totted up the costs especially when I got lost driving from the airport to the hotel and went though the same toll twice.

Now we just need another holiday to recover : )

Trompe l'oeil Butterfly

Here is the picture that Billy (DIY SOS) asked me to paint. It is for a charity auction in aid of the Keech Cottage Children's Hospice near Luton. Their website can be found here.



The trompe l'oeil has been painted onto a small canvas 30 x 40cm - compared to what I am accustomed to that is microscopic : )
The butterfly depicted is a Peacock and the background is a simple aged stone effect with lots of paint splattering from a toothbrush - apparently they also brush teeth : )

I also promised Billy that I would get my children to paint a butterfly each as well which they duly did.

Billy popped round this evening on his way to the next DIY SOS shoot to pick up all three masterpieces. I will keep you posted as to how they all fare in the auction.

Provencal Window Mural Video

Here is the finished video as promised - I had a lot more footage to edit down this time but managed to get the video time to just over 4 minutes. Hope you enjoy it.

There was one slight mishap during the filming - I accidentally knocked the camera tripod and had to re-position it. I nearly got it back into the same position.



I also quickly put this video together.

In order to paint the Provence scene I had to first roller over the crumbling wall effect I had painted a few weeks ago.
It would have been criminal 'not' to film it.

DIY SOS

I have been painting some trompe l'oeil up in Norfolk over the last couple of days with BBC1's DIY SOS team.

I cannot divulge anymore information about what it was I painted and the nature of the overall makeover that Julia Kendell designed - you will have to wait until the show airs which may be towards the end of the year.
The Gosport show that I did with Gordon Collett was filmed in the March and broadcasted the following September so I'm guessing around six months.

I can say that it was a more extravagant piece than I painted at Gosport where I painted a simple stoneblocking effect. Although most of the credit for the Gosport show goes to Gordon who painted the fantastic trompe l'oeil statuette and the dinosaur. Gordon was unable to the make the dates for this show - hopefully there will be other opportunities.

It was great to meet up with everyone again- Julia, Nick, Billy, Chris, Julian, Mark & Mat. They all really work hard on these projects (including Nick) and put in long hours to ensure everything completes on time. The two days I was there we finished around 9pm which suited me as I had about four days work to cram into two. I could have done without taking a wrong turn on the way back to Essex though. Fortunately I managed to get home just before midnight !

Billy has also set me an artistic task in aid of a charity he supports - I may even rope in my daughter Hannah to help me.

Provence Window Trompe l'oeil Mural

This is a picture of the latest trompe project that I have filmed.

I tried something a little more involved this time with more use of perspective techniques - especially for the louvre door. It was also a bit more time consuming and took a little longer than anticipated.

I had an empty bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape which I had polished off months ago. I had been meaning to use as a reference for a while now and seeing as it hails from Provence this seemed an ideal opportunity to paint it within the mural.

It may also take a while before I get the time to edit all the raw footage as I have another daunting project this week which I will write about soon.

Yet More Salespeople

Those sales calls are coming thick & fast - I had yet another telephone call from a company who (surprise surprise) claimed they were part of Google and offered to get my site listed higher up the index - for a fee of course.
As we were both sat in front of our computers I also opened up Google so I could check my listing.

The conversation went as follows -

Me - I've opened up Google

Salesman - OK

Me - I'm using Firefox, what browser are you using ?

Salesmen - Google

Me - No, what internet browser are you using.

Salesman - Google !

Me - What, Google Chrome ? (this is Google's new browser by the way)

Salesmen - No, Google !

Me - Google is a search engine - what internet browser are you using ie Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc..

Salesman - Oh, er Internet Explorer.


The conversation went downhill from this point.


It also transpires (as if I could not have guessed) that the company were not part of or owned by Google.
But then again why let the truth get in the way of a sales pitch : )