Colin Nyhan 5th May 2025 The majority of these portfolio entries are gleaned from exercises undertaken while taking two OCA (The Open College of the Arts) foundation courses – a drawing foundation completed in 2023 […]
Category: portfolio
retina
In the summer of 2020, during the first lockdown, the retina in my right eye detached. The operation to re-attach it went well but, a few months afterwards, there were complications. I now have much […]
seven days
I was looking through the blogs of some students taking the OCA illustration degree course and one of the projects asked to create something around a two word theme – “Seven Days” – no further […]
work work
A couple of examples of what I get up to in my current (soon to be ex) day job as a solution architect in IT. Wherever possible, I prefer to convey information in pictorial form. […]
a british splash
The brief here was to arrange a composition that indicates human presence in some way without actually including the figure and to think about creating an atmosphere that has an element of mystery. This obviously […]
manhole
The brief was to look at the overlooked – what might seem mundane at first but can come to life when you start really looking at the different shapes and colours. They (?) say all […]
cabinet of curiosities
A combination of photo collage and digital paint. The collage was initially put together in PowerPoint and then paint and distortions applied in Adobe Fresco. Based on those arcade machines where punters try to grab […]
selfie
Interesting to compare this recent digital version with some analogue ones from a couple of years ago. Media and technique differences aside (and hair/beard length, and some weight loss), there’s a definite shift in demeanour. […]
ashes to ashes
An Irish Ash Wednesday tradition (the day after Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Tuesday/Mardi Gras – the first day of Lent) is going to morning mass before work or school and getting damp ash daubed on your forehead […]
first contact
A development of one of my “folk and their dogs” sketches. Digital. I had issues getting the dogs well defined against a busy sea backdrop – solved by using strategically placed pure white surf.
folk (and their dogs)
People in Places. The place – Felixstowe promenade and beach. The people – dog walkers (mostly). These are iPad/Adobe Fresco creations. Below is a not entirely successful development of one of the above. I had […]
negative energy
An exercise exploring negative space. Mom and child watch while Dad snaps a wave up close. On Felixstowe beach, during storm Darragh. I couldn’t think of any existing sketch that would lend itself to the […]
out and about
This one is based on a wider field photo of people at the chip shop at the front of Felixstowe pier as darkness was descending. When reviewing on my computer, the little girl, with her […]
outside in
I had been promising myself that I would try a Caroline Walker-esque indoor-outdoor style of painting and here it is – a view of my kitchen-living room from the back garden. I do have orange […]
interiors
My east-facing front room on a rare sunny winters morning, with the sunlight hitting the mantle wall. Some other interior views around my house, focusing on the light (iPad/Fresco).
unfinished peppers
I gave up on this one because I wasn’t feeling it but my tutor quite liked it as it is so including it here as a work-in-progress-but-actually-kinda-works-as-a-finished-piece piece. An earlier version of the same subject […]
the orange one
No – not him. An exercise in using just two complementary colours. A couple of beer bottles and some oranges. The bottles are a dark brown in real life – Duval beer (a very nice […]
pool people
The ask here was to include some hand-drawn figures in a photographic scene. I decided to use my kitchen sink as the basis for a swimming pool scene. This gave me the opportunity to explore […]
monotype
The brief was to produce a series of monotype prints on the theme of balance. What I’ve found with this exercise is that the results fall out of the process rather than being pre-planned and […]
a photomontage
Imagining what my seaside street could look like in the not-so-distant future. The source image from Google street view: Pushing PowerPoint to it’s limits.
a vision from hell
The ask was to storyboard some footage from a film or TV show. Hand-drawn in pencil and manipulated in PowerPoint. Raising Arizona – The Coen Brothers – 1987 The story so far: Convenience store robber […]
hands
Coloured pencil on paper. Here I am applying some of the techniques used by Egon Schiele to make the compositions more interesting and to create more dramatic negative spaces – letting the hands touch or […]
dark to light
Exploring the technique of covering the whole page with graphite first and then lifting off to create the image.
