End of 2020 and revisiting fundamentals

 

Digital Painting with Bobby Chiu: Lesson 1 

Brush Basics and getting familiar with digital painting.

This assignment was a great test of my confidence in my brush strokes and using only the hard round brush to blend without the aid of soft or smudge brushes. The biggest challenge in this assignment was that we could only use the swatches of values provided in the pdf and optimize flow and direction to achieve a nice blend of tones. This exercise also taught me the value of of just using hard round brush to maintain crisp solid edges before developing any further minor details or strokes with the transitions of values.

Further more i found this exercise to be a great warm up before getting to my painting for the day and great for exercising those muscles as well as to just experiment with brush control. Personally i discovered that I'm more confident painting diagonally or horizontally than vertically using big strokes at the beginning and slowly adding tighter transitions of detail. Broad strokes then cut into with either eraser or another value of paint to make more confident marks without worrying about edge control. Optimizing the flow of paint has really changed the way I control and move the paint around the canvas. I found that I like to stick within the 10%-20% flow range as I feel most comfortable when blending paint together also avoiding extreme value changes has helped with blending values. This has also taught me that everyone has a different level of sensitivity they are atoned to or comfortable with when painting. This assignment was very insightful and quite challenging, however I look forward to taking everything I learned from this lesson and applying it to my future work as I start to hone in my process.

I applied this technique of using one hard round brush with optimizing flow and opacity on my own studies to build my own confidents in the strokes and develop my brushwork and brush control. I learned a great deal but also found it super challenging to achieve the results I was looking for. 

Sorrolla Study: Painting Colour Comps

 

For this study I mainly wanted to focus on the colour and light composition and capturing how the artist has grouped the values. I particularly struggled applying the transition of values working straight in colour and conveying the hue shifts that's convincing and aesthetically pleasing.

Joaquín Sorolla study and exploring colours and value range

 

This Sorolla painting proved to be honestly very challenging for me to replicate his use of colour and painterly brush textures. This study gave me the opportunity to dive in and experiment a bit with the brush properties that was both enjoyable and eye opening to achieve a range of interesting effects and and quality to the surface. The dynamic colour option I particularly had fun playing with. 

Another study of Joaquin Sorrolla work.

 

Been picking away at this piece for the last 2 weeks or so. The goal with this study was to the capture and copy as much as I possibly could without relying on too many digital tricks. Experimenting with the brushes to get quality and feel of real paint. I particularly struggled with capturing the saturation around the face but overall I am pleased what I have managed to accomplish with the piece.

Getting back to greyscale painting

 

In continuing studying from Sorolla paintings, this week I committed to just painting one of his works in greyscale with the three value approach method and gradually building on top. This non destructive process allowed me to more experiment with the mixer brush without loosing the over form and structure of the piece as I was intent of where I put my first two values focusing on the light and dark shapes. I really like this process as it helps me to commit early on not get bog down trying to figure out the lighting and composition halfway through a painting. It really gets you to build a good foundation first to paint on top of and gradually build up. Next week my intention is too continue building on greyscale painting. 

October Artist Study_ Joaquín Sorolla

Recently had the urge to get back into studying master's of the past, so I decided  for the remainder of this month I would look and analyse the works of Joaquín Sorolla and his masterful paintings, in attempt to learn his approach to colour and composition and his methods of grouping values when composing a pleasing image. I feel as though I have learnt a great deal from this experience and still have a lot more to learn about the theory behind light and colour. 

What was most notable about this painting is about how the artist effectively made use of subtle hue and temperature shifts and in the wide range of colour particularly in the figures jacket as well as other surrounding areas in the piece. I also really like how he has made the distribution of his shapes with in a square image canvas which I often find difficult to work with. 

Overall I am pleased how much I was able to accomplish in the week and what I got out from this  artist. I would say the area I most struggled with was identifying the form of the subjects hands and keeping transition of values subtle yet recognisable. The other area would be sleeves where I could pick out subtle greenish grey tones and yet not make it too jarring or prominent to the viewer.

In the coming in weeks I plan to look at more of Sorolla paintings and try to see what more I can pick out from this great master. Perhaps maybe look into how he construct his values, by producing a series of black and white or greyscale studies of his painting.

Process and Approaches to painting

 

This assignment got me to explore a range of techniques and approaches to painting digitally. This was the first lesson of Sam Nielsen's lighting for story class. I fully enjoyed this exercise and experimented each process by combining a variety of steps and mixing them together to develop new approaches of painting that is both efficient and flexible leaving enough freedom for creativity. 

Hatching Light and shadow

This assignments was a review on indicating shadow and light by a method of directional hatching and building forms by following the contours of the figure, each study was roughly 45min. The biggest challenge was getting the strokes to describe the direction of the structure of the plane and hatching with consistency as well as with confidence and intent without loosing any of the underlying foundation. I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment and would definitely come back to doing these exercises again in the future as a warm up. It has been a different experience as this method of building form and light has been new to me and something that i wish to continue perhaps implementing in future pieces. Further more continue to develop and build on as i experiment more with this kind of technique and approach.

Hatching Gradients

Practising hatching gradients on these figure silhouette was a great exercise that i would recommend both beginner and seasoned artist try and attempt. It requires paying great attention to how you control the lines and thickness of your strokes whilst attempting to achieve a soft and calm transition of values from dark to light or vice versa. The biggest challenge for me was achieving a smooth gradient with no overlapping dark lines or indecisive stokes without having rough edges. If I was to tackle this assignment again in the future, I would possibly tell myself to be more conscious about the way I apply my strokes and take into account of the direction of the strokes and the density of the lines. I particularly noticed that i struggle doing these digitally and that pencil would be a much easier tool to get the lightness i wanted. 

Hatching_Figures

This exercise was from a class on schoolism on deconstructing figures and anatomy. The aim and goal of the task is to practice hatching strokes to build form and volume with certain directional mark making to describe shapes and simplify the figure to its simplest and clear silhouette. I found it fairly challenging and difficult on what direction of the marks should chosen as intention of what should be defined and essential to communicate. Next is to practice building values through hatching and building form with density of strokes, which something i have never tried tackling before and is out of my comfort zone. The best thing i took away from these assignments was the importance of observation and the skill to visualise any subject to its most basic forms.

Mark making and setting new goals in Art

Mark making with pen and pencil has always been an interesting exercise and worth exploring. The act of making certain decisions when describing form and texture holds its very own challenges even without getting to thought of shadow and rendering light.These six 45 minuet studies are the result of an in depth analysis of old masters and observation of various hatching techniques. They were great fun however sufficiently challenging in order to help me develop my hand eye co-ordination and create marks across the page with intent and confidence.

Drawing from the same reference image six times each with time limit of 45min was a great way to study the structure of the face and where the planes of the faces are. The main things we discovered  was that  observation and the way you interpenetrate certain subject matter can aid the development of a personal style. Direct hatching from the get go has proven to be a great exercise in building confidence for visualising shapes and silhouettes. Portraits were a great way to experiment with shapes and mark making and making varied strokes with alternating direction to build and describe form and value. Certain marks can convey certain material and textures with very decisive strokes ranging from thin to broad with also a rang of overlapping lines to make unique qualities in the surfaces of an object. Personally i find describing the material of fabrics and cloth easier than metal something more hard surface or subtle like jelly or bubble. I feel that practising these digitally are equally important to maintain a sufficient muscle memory when transferring to tablet and a cintiq.

Lock Down

Hello everyone

The last time I made a post was the 16th March 2020. A lot has happened since then, we currently undergoing and facing a unexpected pandemic and have been put down on a lock down for sometime now no way of knowing when it might be lifted. Anyway my hopes right now is to get back on the roller coaster and get back to documenting my art and my artistic development. I've been considering getting back to the basics and the fundamentals of colour and light through traditional painting.
Here is a image of that study with the use of a limited colour pallet. I've tried my best to capture the subtleties of the blue tints in the cast shadows and contrast with warm saturated light with a strong emphasis on the values to show clarity and that is appeasing to the viewers eye.
I tend to find Gouache a challenging medium to paint with but very enjoyable especially when using the alla prima techniques inspired by many of the master artists and Richard Schmit. Which reminds me i still have yet to read through. Another book that I want to read again would be Andrew Loomis Creative illustration and get to grips about the mindset of creating an illustration with a sufficient and yet creative process, being able to tackle new problems with the right mindset is something I've been striving to get better at recently and improve effectively.

Traditional painting is something I've been wanting to get back to doing again properly and now is a great opportunity to do so with the current ongoing situation. Learning again to paint with a physical brush with limited strokes has been a very useful learning experience and eye opening to me because of the restriction. I've realised to get most out of these studies I should set my self a goal of what I really want to achieve from them and really try to apply them to my personal work as much as possible. I noticed the main benefits of working with traditional media is the fact that I now often try to limit the number of layers I make down to at least 3-5 when working digitally and try to be more efficient with every decision I make. I have decided to implement this study as part of my uni work and too use the maximum amount of time more sensibly, and prioritise the work so its the thing i can get out the way so I can start learning new things that will help benefit me in the long run. 

Tonko House and observing realism

This week I have been trying to get back into observing the complexities of colour and light from life. The big challenge of painting objects in diffused light is being able to accurately separate each value structure with its own distinct local value. Limiting to roughly 3-5 values has been a thought process and way of thinking for many acclaimed illustrators and seasoned painters throughout history in order to achieve clarity and to communicate a message in their pieces.

Reflectivity and the start of studying Old Masters.

For this post I wanted to share my studies of leyendecker portraits and the challenge of rendering reflectivity of materials and objects. I feel i learned a lot doing both of these exercises and feel i'm making gradual progress. The next month i will be studying more environments from masters and compositions.

Working on those Edges and Values

The past two weeks I have been grinding through a few exercise mainly honing my understanding the fundamental of values and edges. A mixture of assignments from Schoolism and Ctrl+paint. I have definitely learnt a lot of things from these assignments not only did i find them challenging but has helped me to find ways of painting with a more efficient painting process and a better mindset.  

The discovery of the pen tool in the toolkit has changed the way i paint and has helped me greatly to form a variety of soft and hard edges within my work.  

Another area that i would definitely would like to put more attention to is the local colour and contrast of objects at different distances. I currently find distribution of details and textures quite a challenge to balance to a degree that i am satisfied with.

My goal for the upcoming weeks are to work on getting better at relighting scenes and studying different lighting scenarios and source.

Rendering Complex forms_KidsToyScooter

Hi everyone was unfortunately unable to post last weeks blog post but will update everything i have been working on the past 2 weeks. I have mainly been working on how to render basic and complex forms and material with little more confidence and with efficiency. I have learned that when it comes to rendering any subject patience is key and attention to edges are also key to describing the form as much as the internal contours of the subject and the definition of textures. It looks like based on the feedback i received based on my recent concept that i need to rework on my construction of basic forms in order for me to move on to more complex forms.

Therefore the key focus for next week would be to get better at value distribution of planes. Perhaps take a class from brainstorm and lighting with Sam Neilson. 

Crossbow and form rendering

The premise and focus of this week was to practice rendering and get my crossbow concept to a satisfactory finish. I struggled quite a bit with rendering material and its something im looking to practice for next week's challenge from the foundation patreon group and Sam Neilsons Classes.

The main thing i learnt this week about rendering is that it's best to have a clear idea of the material you are painting and reference of what you are trying to render and do prior 30-45 min warm up studies and break each part into segments before applying a soft ambient gradient to each plane and any details. Patience is key, the crucial part is also the underlying structure underneath its good to get a solid structure and try to work on getting a solid line design before tackling a materials and rendering it. I also had a go at using the pen tool with selections and try a more clean strategy to paint with the fewest paint strokes as possible, practicing how to implement the gradient tool in my work flow has been a major eye opener and help figure out strategies of working more efficient and smarter in general.

My Challenge next week is to learn to paint different materials in black and white and render then to the best of my ability.

Creating the Crossbow for a first person shooter was great fun. I found this assignment a great challenge and there are alot of areas for improvement in terms of functionality and practicality in design. Which made me realise i should have done a bit more research on which ill definitely remember for future assignments. Overall im satisfied with what i learnt about rendering from this piece, however bit displeased with the overall outcome of the design, the continuity and the process of creating from 2D to 3D and back to 2D disrupted a bit of the the flow of my original intent and lost some of the initial forms. Main studies these coming weeks will be to get better at identifying basic forms and rendering them and to paint with careful attention how the values are changing between transitions of forms

Form and Rendering (Crossbow)

My main focus for this week was to practice rendering geoforms and begin to learn how to plot and depict convincing shadows on matte surface planes. I managed to produce a rough block out for my crossbow but will need to work on next week implementing a 3D block out using possibly blender to draw over. Aside from that, this week was a fairly busy week went to a few guest speakers discussing the future of UK entertainment industry and its ties with the education. 

I feel i could have made more progress with my crossbow design and feel i should spend next week honing it into more of a portfolio piece. However so far I am satisfied what i managed to produce in a span of three hours rendering the piece and do my best to get as much done for the coming Sunday.

My focus next week will be on values and rendering more basic forms from foundation patreon course and Ctrl+paint.

These rendering exercises have been challenging but a great learning experience and has helped me realise the importance of the underlying structure of the drawing.