Pond photo study - Work in progress

Continuing my journey of sketching for the sake of sketching. There is an element of abstraction to it that I really enjoy, of looking for hidden rhythms and relationships. It is helping me let go of perfection and just focus on the act of mark-making. It is fun mapping out those hidden zones! 

My goal is to do much more loose sketching like this. Occasionally I will take my favorites to the next level. I love the source photo for this one and my goal is to do it justice.

Having the abstract lines in place makes it much easier to map out the values. I started with the most extreme values first and then filled in the in-between values.

My main goal for this photo study is to emulate the oil painting process as much as possible. I don't have time to do actual paintings right now, and I miss it so much! In the meantime, I want to remember the joy of painting even if it's through a digital medium. 

So far, I have found ways to imitate my painting process on the computer. It will help me make better decisions when painting for real, as well as make my digital and analog art processes more similar in certain ways.