A game

Today we are playing "guess who went to the European Masters exhibition"?

One thing I really liked there was looking at the way color was used in many of the pieces... some of the paintings just felt like a breath of fresh spring or summer air. Lots of high-value paintings, sometimes with NO real darks at all. I guess Monet is one of the better-known examples of painters using these kind of colors.

Anyway, I started this as an illustration that was going to have a character in a foreground balloon but I ran out of time and anyway I liked the spacious, calm feel of this.

All my work with color recently is starting to affect my work, too, which is encouraging.

Paintings

Another color study, this time I wanted to try a film/photography approach, using color as a stylistic thing in the shadows and highlights. Worked ok, I think it has potential. I should start focusing on accuracy and proportion as well when i do these studies, because a well-colored but very wonky face still ends up looking weird!

EDIT : Ok, every time I glanced upon this image, the severe wonkiness was giving me the irrits, so a few seconds with Liquify in Photoshop and it's a lot better, but I have kept a little thumbnail of the original proportions in the corner to remind me that it's worth spending a *bit* of time on construction even for quick stuff.


Then, following the same idea, trying to paint depth of field, which is pretty much a totally wrong concept, but i like the idea of capturing a 'lens' with its particular qualities and artifacts in paint...

I'm getting a bit keen to try some "real" painting, on canvas, so that will be cool. Gotta keep working on anatomy and portraiture fundamentals as well, though.

Color studies

A few quick digipaintings to test out some of the colour theory stuff I've been learning recently. Very interesting.

I can see already how a better understanding of colour and lighting will help my work... some of it is technical knowledge/science of why, and some of it is artsy "this is how you can manipulate colour even if it's not technically what you see". Both of which are very valid.

Not concerned about proportions or accuracy here, it was all about the color.

I'm particularly pleased with the nose on the first one... that rosy glowing look that comes from saturated color next to quite neutral midtones. Something I've appreciated a lot in other people's work but never really understood.

Quick painting

Was messing around with a quick idea, and ended up with this. Some proportion issues but i like the overall graphic-ish feel and the color palette.

Value study

Today I did some reading about colors, skintones, color temperature and all that sort of stuff. A lot to think about, and I realised a few things I was doing wrong, which is good.

Didn't have time to play around with it but I did a quick values study, since getting the values right is just as important (or even more, I guess).

On the left is my attempt (in 5 tones), on the right is the reference image, and a posterised version of it in the corner. As you can see, I didn't do TOO badly, but I didn't use my highlight color enough, and the shadow-covered eye I kept too bright (which I knew I was doing but even after adjusting I guess I didn't do enough).

Painting

At the moment I'm pretty impressed by some painters who use color in really interesting ways - either unrealistically, or in a realistic palette but with dashes of contrast colors throughout. I wanted to give a shot at using a non-realistic palette and also thought i might try something from my head (no references) to see if my recent work has been paying off.

Overall I was pretty pleased - I felt like I had a better sense of the form and contours of the face, but there are still plenty of problem areas. But that's good to know, so I can work on it. And I also realised that even in some areas I knew how it should look but my rendering skills let me down, particularly around the mouth.

The color was fun to play around with, I think i will study some examples to get an understanding of how to use color effectively and creatively.

Sketchbook scans

Back into sketching again... trying to work on anatomy (where I seem to have forgotten the little I learnt, but hopefully it will refresh quickly) and also faces in particular so I can start doing portraiture.
I'll be picking up some acrylics soon too, would love to get into some proper painting.

I want to experiment a lot and go a bit wild, but also be very disciplined in developing some skills. And illustrate. And do sculpting. And everything.

Focus!