Trying to get away from line art...

[shatteredhalo]

Okay, since I'm going to try to get drawing again, I'd like some critique on my last 2 pieces, done way back in september. Yeah, I'm lazy I'm trying desperately to get away from lineart, so I'm trying to use color to define shapes, which is rather new territory for me. Any help would be flippin sweet, thanks!

anyway, here's the first one:



and the last one I've done (attached for thumbnail purposes):

[Mute]

The "colorito" style of painting (the technique of using no line, but rather filling in shapes with color) relies heavily on plane changes and value contrast to illustrate form. This means ideally you want a larger contrast between the value of colors you use to indicate the edges of these planes so that you don't need the line to clearly describe the silhouette shapes or the detail shapes.

Using the figure in your first picture as an example. Because the values of the colors in his skin are so similar, it is hard to tell what forms overlap what forms, and you lose a lot of the details of his anatomy (his face, his neck and the musculature of his torso).

The key is putting contrasting values next to each other to achieve definition. Because you don't have the line to do it for you, you must achieve this through your colors value choices.

Check out Caravaggio and Diego Velasquez. They are great examples of this style of painting.
Rock on!

[shatteredhalo]

Ohhhh, okay so this is what people have been talking about, where I need to work on lighter lights and darker darks. Thank you for clearing that up!! I'm definitely going to try to work on that, working on a couple pieces now for the EOW and ChOW so we'll see how they come out.

Thanks again!!