Prince Street Mosaic.

I created "Prince Street Mosaic" from materials left over from the creation of "River Mosaic" in 1983. The piece itself is "quite cumbersome" as it is a layer of vinyl tile on sheet steel mounted on a crude wooden frame. I seem to remember that it was "heritage year" or there abouts and I felt both of these images to be part of Hulls heritage, my approach to the "mosaic work" however was not conventional.

for further information visit www.thepainterscollection.com "the home of quality reproduction"

Community Routes continued...

As you probably appreciate my area model did indeed grow exponentially as I recognised the route that my virtual camera would need to travel in order to carry on creating this series of animations from it. I began to regard my model as having some sort of historical context as I had created it as accurately as my methods allowed and during the course of modelling changes were inevitably happening to my real world subject, new buildings, one way systems which of course I had to reflect. however I found myself "out on a limb" in creating it and failed to gain any real interest for the idea from the organisations portrayed as they are all community charities existing through funding that was always restrictive. I carried on regardless, of course, consumed with creative passion.

Links to organisations shown in these animations are Unity in Community and Greenwood Housing, North Hull Community Centre.

Community Routes

As my computer model of the area where I lived grew, I started to consider uses for it outside of purely creating "animation for animations sake". I decided that I could utilise my model to illustrate the routes between the various community organisations that where spread across the area as I considered that people in general may not necessarily know where they are or what services each had to offer. The result is a series of "fly through" animations that I entitled "Community Routes".

Links to Organisations portrayed in these animations are Unity in Community, Endike Methodist Church, and Endike Community Care Association (ECCA).

"A Ride in the Park" 2008.

I came across this old unmarked photograph one day that struck me as decidedly "odd" to modern sensibilities and definitely would not be considered "allowable" by today's standards.

I decided that I would attempt to paint a coloured version of it that for me held a very symbolic and separate "message" as the wheel of life, with the Ostrich as a symbol of flight and the children "nested" in the cart about to "flee the nest" metaphorically speaking. As they say, "every picture tells a story" which sometimes when translated into symbolism can be quite interesting also.

two carts

"Two Wagons" is a small 35 second animation I created in 2004. At the time I was interested in attempting to create a computer project that looked at the history of an area to show how an area had grown and developed over time. It may look odd setting historical figures in a modern setting but I did not want to jeopardise any funding that may have been forthcoming at the time by being seen to be already working on the proposed project.

I had wanted to prove to myself that I could animate a horse walking, which proved to be far harder then I had at first imagined. Luckily help was at hand through the work of Eadweard Moybridge the eminent pioneering Edwardian photographer who had published a series of photographs of horse movements in order to win a wager that when running a horse always had one "hoof" in contact with the ground.

Deliah MacNamara of Imagine Dpm

I have just completed a three day course "Promoting your Business on the Internet" which was run by the wonderful Deliah MacNamara of "Imagine Dpm" and was, conveniently, just down the road from my home at the "City Learning Centre" on Hopewell Road, here in East Hull.

Deliah's course was sublime and helped us all to be more comfortable within a virtual environment. The learning was straight forward and simple and Deliah herself was very warm, friendly and approachable.

Our group was very small and quickly warmed to both the course and to one another. There was "Ralph" who has a vast experience of the Construction Industry, and "Martin" a Teacher and member of the local "Green Party". There was also "Big Bad Bill" who's off to Brazil shortly on a mission to teach as many Brazilians as possible to speak En

glish, and Bill's daughter "Jayne" whom I have to thank for the photographs in this article. And last but by no means least "Nick" who has shown us all that it is possible to chase your dreams to find your "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow.

I wholeheartedly recommend that anyone with any trepidation of the web or of the benefits that can be brought to your business through it should immediately talk to "Deliah MacNamara" and book themselves onto one of the many and varied courses on offer with "Imagine Dpm"

Reality Bytes

I created "Reality Bytes" in 2004 although the computer modelling was started some 3 years prior to this video.
I was not altogether happy with the background music that I had created for this piece as it was a bit "rushed". I have subsequently remixed another soundtrack for it which I hope you will enjoy.

Hi my name is Stephen Shepherd and I am a multi media artist based in Hull, East Yorkshire. In 2007 I set up "the painter's collection dot com", to enable me to market Limited Edition artist reproductions of my artwork.

The website was set up in order to market my product to both galleries and the general public and provides the highest quality of reproduction that complies with standards as defined by the Fine Art Trade Guild for artist's reproduction, and each piece is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Please visit http://www.thepainterscollection.com

"The Home of Quality Artist's Collectables".

Butchers Row, Coventry, circa 1890

When I was a lad, my father gave me a book about the S.O.E. (special operations executive) in WWII a section of which dealt with the Enigma machine and the code breakers of Bletchley Park. The book explained that we (the British) were actually accurately deciphering German military codes as early as 1941 and further explained that one of Winston Churchill's hardest decisions was a decision to put up no defence to the extensive bombing by the Germans of Leicester and Coventry as to do so would have alerted the Germans that we were reading their codes and would have jeopardised the planned outcome of the war.

Years later I came across an old photograph from a glass plate negative and realised that this was one of the areas referred to in this story. I was compelled to create this drawing of it, which was no easy task as I had to find a number of different reproductions taken from the original glass negative in order to piece together the detail which was not present as a whole in any of the reproductions themselves.

High Quality Limited Edition Artist Reproductions of my pen and ink drawing are available and can be found by visiting "http://www.thepainterscollection.com".

Beverley Barge, the Syntan

In 2004 I was lucky enough to take a river journey on the then newly restored Beverley barge, the Syntan after receiving an invitation from Mr Iain Campbell of the Beverley Barge Preservation Society.
In 1999 Mr Campbell and his friends had discovered the Beverley barge Syntan as a wreck near Doncaster and had brought her back to Beverley to begin a "restoration" project and to this end had formed the Beverley Barge Preservation Society in order to raise the necessary finance to accomplish the task.
As Mr Campbell had been of considerable assistance to me, I created 3 small animations of the Syntan as a thank you to him for his assistance. To learn more about the Syntan or to contact Mr Campbell and his friends visit "http://www.syntanbarge.org.uk".

Christophers Dream

"Christopher's Dream" 2001 was created from a jumbled collection of computer models that I had created some time previously. The helicopter was my first real computer model, a Wessex Lynx modelled in around 1999. I felt very "accomplished" as I had worked out the setup for the independent rotations that needed to travel with and match the movement of the helicopter body. I also remember how at the time the demands on computer memory drove me to be in a continuous upgrading mode with my hardware in order for me to create this animation, which was my first attempt to "tell a story".

Dockland Illusion 1983

The above painting was painted using "Humbrol"enamels above a sheet of well "primed" 6mm sheet steel mounted upon a hard wood frame.
The central image is the same as my painting "River Mosaic" that is utilised as the "Banner" for this "Blog".

At the time that I created "Dockland Illusion" I was fascinated by pattern and realised that it could be used to form an image, as in the principle of "mosaic" that utilises small coloured cubes to represent more complex forms, but that also pattern could be used to distress or disrupt an image as with for example raindrops on a windscreen or that indeed it could also be used to integrate multiple images into a single "whole"..

This idea became the underlying principle in the creation of this piece as at the centre pattern is used to form the image (in the form of tiny squares of colour) whereas in the surrounding "outside" areas pattern is used to disrupt and also to form the idea of a dockland surrounding (integrating a number of seperate "images" into the illusion of a singular "whole")..