smb

smb is alive and kicking! If you really want to know his whereabouts at the moment... He's freezing his ass off on your old ship, yhe Wave Venture, in Victoria, B.C. Canada

OK! Here is my first contribution on the subject! Watch this space for some uploads of the various stages of my next art projects. 'Tell you what... Even if they come out as rejects, I'll bung them in anyway - just to prove that I am not shy!!! Painting is really easy - especially with pastels. It's probably a good idea to at least get some confidence in drawing before you try to start painting. The great news is that, as proved by 'Yours Truly', anyone can draw!! I didn't actually realise this until I read The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. If you can get hold of a copy and work through the book, I can virtually guarantee that it will give you the confidence to get you started - and you'll be amazed at your own results!

I was recently asked by a friend on the bobongbooks.com forums for some help in getting started with painting. This request reminded me that it is high-time I got some more stuff for beginners on artfreaks.com... So I decided to start a new thread here to help budding artists overcome their shyness and inhibitions - and give it a go! I am very much a beginner myself, so my aim with this new thread is really to share some of my experiences and, hopefully, give one or two other people some tips and encouragement to help get them started in their own art-making. First, I'll share some of my thoughts and some of my own experiences in getting started with painting in pastels. Then my plan is to do a upload a few of my own artworks at various stages of their development - just to give you some idea of how I develop my work from initial drawing to final completion. If any members have any similar contributions to add to this forum, that would be really great! You can upload your images in the artfreaks.com Forums - Gallery, then use the "Insert Image" button to insert your images into your post on the forums. Feel free to add your replies to this thread or, if you prefer, by all means start a new topic!

The Santa letter thing sounds like a great idea! I had a look at the website. It looks good to me! I won't be buying any pressies this year as I live alone and I'm off to Cananda in a couple of days to start my next commission; working on board a ship which is stationed out there. By the way, members are very welcome to use these forums for posting their adverts and links with embedded referral code: (with the exception, of course, of links that lead to "adult" websites. These should go either in the comment boxes on the Anything Goes! gallery - or anywhere on the artfreaks.com Top Shelf - which is more or less hidden but easy enough to find if that is what you are after!)