Doors and rooms

 

Maui waterfall completed

(Art instructor voice) In the previous update we saw the waterfall with a fairly basic color palette. Textures give an otherwise flat color plane more definition. The first layer of color is meant to define the main hues and values. 

But subtractive shading is where the fun really begins!! The waterfall is very red and purple, but with the right colors that can be toned down for a more natural look. By no means am I going for a realistic depiction. But I do want it to be believable!

I love how this came out and I am excited to do more. I love art, man.

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Waterfall WIP

A progress update on my Maui waterfall. This is not my most recent update as I've made significant progress since then. But I will save the final update for later! 

The goal was to keep the palette as limited as possible. Introducing new colors into the mix comes later. I'm having a lot of fun with this.

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Road to Hana: Waterfall (WIP)

I haven't done much art in the past couple weeks due to moving and general stress, but the dust is starting to settle. New art, digital or traditional, is always a good sign! 

Yesterday I started coloring this sketchbook drawing of a waterfall in Maui. The goal is to approach this as if it were a physical painting. My program of choice is Paint Tool SAI version 2.

Some fun things I did to increase the painterly effect:

• Painting with a textured marker brush. I chose the marker brush because it maintains whatever opacity you set it to - it does not build up unless you start drawing on another layer. This allows the drawing and underpainting to remain visible.
• The grainy texture also helps the vibrant colors of the underpainting show through. 
• Added a subtle rock crystal texture to the entire layer. 
• Lastly, adding a subtle fringe layer effect gives it character. 

The goal is to paint everything on this one layer to give it a solid foundation. The intention of this layer is to establish color and important forms, but still look as finished as possible. This is my digital equivalent of painting alla prima. The marker brush blends heavily and picks up other colors. 

I am aiming for expressive colors and forms. I don't want a photorealistic picture of the waterfall. I want to show you what a photograph cannot. It is an exercise in design, creativity, and curation of elements. 

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Kamaole Beach Park I

I have started another Hawaii painting. It is the same size as the other picture. I chose the photo because of its composition. The arrangement of elements is simple but leaves room for interesting details and improvisation. 

I drew the picture first and toned the canvas after, since I used transparent paint. 

Applied gel gloss to the underpainting to add extra texture, but only to certain parts.

Just got a few tubes of paint from Blick. To my collection I have added Cobra water mixable paint colors, all of which were employed.

Yellowish green & Emerald green: Foliage

King's blue & Grayish blue: Sea and sky

Permanent red violet light: Tree

Random thoughts

The grayish blue is very, very oily in the tube. But I like it that way. I also recently learned that water-mixable paint just means you CLEAN it with water, but still use various painting mediums. I use linseed oil and painting medium, but for a long time I was thinning out my paints with plain old water. Now that I am learning more about how paint behaves, I can see why painting mediums are superior. Water is just for cleanup. 

A closeup of the waves and land. The textures make me so happy and I am so in love with these paint colors. The goal is to make a fantastic painting alla prima. But once this is dried, I will add a few smaller details to really bring her to life.

Maui Wowie

It has mostly dried so I was able to add another application of paint. I am hoping to add another level of detail once this layer is dry. I am busy with moving but all I want to do is paint.

Maui landscape update

 I was only going to paint the mountains but I ended up doing the whole thing in one go. It's a fairly small canvas, only 9x12 inches. I was feeling a little nervous where I left off yesterday, but have since then re-gained control. The goal is to paint alla prima; let it dry for at least seven days; and then add a second layer of paint for smaller details and fine tuning. 

It was difficult to get a good photo.

I managed to stay faithful to the value map and I love how the mountains came out, especially the patch of light. The colors are fairly faithful to the source photo.

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Maui landscape

I am so upset about the wildfires in Maui that it makes me sick. In particular I always think about the innocent animals who don't even know what's going on. It makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry, just thinking about it. And knowing how much worse things are going to get from here. Now I'm spiraling. F*%^ climate change. F*&# wildfires.

If it helps, even a little bit, I donated some money to the Maui Humane Society. One thing I have always wanted to do is make art for charity. I have some experience with it - I parted with some of my first oil paintings for a donation fundraiser. 

I've been wanting to start a landscape painting, so why not pick something Hawaii themed? I don't think about what to do with my paintings after they're done - but if this came out nice enough I could probably donate it, somehow? 

My approach was a little different this time: I laid down a layer of brown acrylic paint, then drew over it with colored pencil and paint markers.

Two photos from after I did the underpainting. It will take some more practice because I keep losing the drawing underneath. I really liked the contours in the marker sketch and now you can barely see them. Also this looks like a Georgia O'Keefe painting right now if you catch my drift... 

Because the tone background is so dark, I needed to light up the clouds somehow. I used a very neon pink, and applied multiple layers of that and the paint marker. My last task of the session was adding a layer of gel gloss to give the clouds some texture. 

As you can see, this gel gloss, along with the lighting, produces a tremendous difference. The first picture was taken last night with artificial light. The other was taken today in the morning sun. I suspect the gel gloss brought out the neon red - man, it's loud! But I have big plans for this little painting. Just need to let it dry a bit.

Orange lilies

 Finished my digital scenery painting of the orange lilies. Here is my earlier progress.

I really enjoyed experimenting with textures and abstract shapes. Since the lilies are the focal point, they get more attention to detail. I'm happy with how colorful she came out and I'm looking forward to more. I've been feeling burnt out with digital, but experimenting with traditional art has inspired me to look at art in a new way. It is a constant back and forth conversation.

Orange lilies

Sometimes I like to sketch before bed. Lately I have taken up sketching photos from our recent summer vacation. It looks quite nice, so why not color it?

The fun thing about switching between traditional and digital art is how skills transfer - and transform. I approached this as if it were a traditional painting. I toned the background and placed values before the actual coloring. 

But here's where things get different: I added various textures to the colors. I'm not going for a realistic depiction of the scene. The main focus is the feeling and colors of the scene. I like this approach because it reminds me of pietra dura.

I have made more progress since this update, but I am almost done, so why spoil the surprise? I will leave you with this, though: I'm loving it!!

Experimenting with gel gloss

Here are three small practice pieces: two are on acrylic paper, the other is on some sort of cardboard stock. I added texture using the gel gloss which is white but dries clear. 

Trust me: It dries clear!

The square paintings were done in oil, limited to three colors each. My idea was that I would lay down the colors in a limited palette and then glaze it with additional colors once the paintings have dried. 

W+N Zinc white, W+N cerulean blue hue, Cobra naples yellow light

I am hoping that adding a yellow glaze will make the picture pop. Reflecting on my progress so far, I wish I had added more paint coverage, especially for the water. But it is what it is - adding more paint will just slow me down. I learned my lesson. There's always next time!

Cobra titanium buff, Cobra persian rose, W+N viridian 

The paint coverage is not great - I will be adding a brighter layer on top. The source photo was taken mid-day but the colors I picked out gave me a different result. Happy mistakes!

This last one was a hot mess. I figured I would paint in base colors only and leave the shading for the glazing stage. So I tried painting with acrylic on top of the gel and ... yeah. But not all hope is lost! I was very curious to see how glazing on top would bring back the shapes that got lost underneath.

It looks cool, but there is a lot going on, especially for such a small surface area. I am hoping to further define the scene once this layer has dried. I don't think I would consider taking this approach again unless it seemed appropriate. I do love the jewel-like depth offered by the gel gloss. There is an overwhelming amount of different acrylic mediums to try out and I'm trying to stay calm before I end up with 20 different gels and pastes.

General reflections

I am relying on the glazing stage way too much. I couldn’t help but get excited about the possibilities! But now I realize this should be saved for final touches on the topmost layers. If you only rely on glazing, the subjects don’t look as solid. When laying down colors they should be as close to the final color as possible. Glazing is for sfumato and other subtle shading techniques.

Another lesson: carve textures into the gel gloss, sparingly. It was a fun experiment. It works in certain contexts, like rough tree bark. I would save the toothpick for the painting stage. I liked carving out lines on the ruins painting. I like seeing the layer underneath. With the gel gloss it adds extra depth.

Lavender garden

I kept starting over on this picture because coloring it was so tricky. Eventually I settled for coloring under the lines instead of on top. The sketch was very detailed and wasn't meant to be colored over, in my opinion. But I am happy to have finally found a result that works for me.

Lavender garden work in progress

Pictured is a neighborhood garden somewhere in Chicago. I'm getting better at the sketching process by making it fun. I love making swirly lines and exploring all the hidden relationships. Using colored pencils makes it easier to differentiate the details.

I've only just gotten started with this painting but I would like to take it seriously and devote the proper time it deserves. I would love to make it look like an Erin Hanson painting.

My practice with markers is already changing how I approach my art. I started with three main colors (the blue, lime green and fuchsia on the right). The goal is to cover as much as possible. From there I can move to the in-between colors.

The goal isn't to make a realistic photograph (this would go in a completely direction) but rather it is a fun color exercise. It's very therapeutic. I suspect the next progress update will look quite different. The fun part is not knowing where it is headed!

Hawaii studies

 
Some mixed media and gouache studies from Hawaii. I took so many photos on that trip I'll never run out of reference material.

Experimenting with color

Since going down the hex code rabbit hole I have become increasingly fascinated with how color works. The other day I pondered: What if I split my colors into their individual RGB components? I have been doing more drawing for the sake of drawing, which means I have plenty of pre-made pictures to color if I feel like it. 

I tried to keep the process simple as possible. Split up the colors and layer them up until it reaches its "true" color. Unfortunately this got complicated way too quickly. It is a cool trick for sure, but it seems more geared towards touchups and other small details. Next time, I will apply the colors normally and add the "color breakdown" only where it matters. 

In the above image, I sampled four colors from an artwork by Bob Peak. The colors were split using the RGB color sliders in SAI2, then layered using Lighten. It was very cool seeing the original color reproduced this way.

Next, I wanted to experiment with the opposite. I took the colors and subtracted their value from 255 and layered them using Subtract. This will be useful for traditional art.

I need more time to think about this and how I would use it. But it was promising to realize I could isolate the components of any color. Understanding why hex codes work the way they do has helped me understand color theory better. I can't wait to see where this takes me next!

Hawaii photo studies

Colored versions of these photo studies with varying degrees of success. By far my favorite is the tree. I'm not so happy with the other two as they have been overworked to death. But that taught me a valuable lesson for next time: Know when to call it a day!

Hawaii value studies

 

In the process of coloring these three paintings. Now if only I had the time!!!

NYC photo studies

 

Based off photos from my NYC trip in 2011. I never really took the time to appreciate the photos I took while I was there. 

The headlands

 

Colored all three of these value studies

Journey to the headlands