Need a fresh look on this

[Noah Bradley]

A lot of people complain about bad photographs of their work: I think I just trumped them all. This is really not a good portrayal, at all. The bright, intense orange highlights on the ripples are not, in fact, bright orange. They're really a subdued brown-orange color. Just so you know. I'll get a better photo soon.

Anyways, this is a school project (our final project, actually). Out objective was to paint water, with no background or land in sight. 22x30", in gouache (which I'm still not the biggest fan of). I'll be working on it for a few more hours in class tomorrow, and then I have another week to finish it, so critiques will probably be applied to this baby.

Don't be gentle, I'd like this to be a good painting.



I'm not working on this piece any longer, but just to post it for people to see, here's a drawing of hands. It was a very open-ended assignment so I decided to get some serious hand-practice and drew this in ink. Size is around 12x20", in ink. Haven't done a final count yet, but it's somewhere in the vicinity of 200 hands.

I'm not thrilled with how the intense black and white turned out, and I made the unfortunate accident of using non-waterproof ink, which means I can't paint over it very easily (right?). All the same:

[Infinit]

I like how the painting goes for the abstract feel a bit
are the orange/brown spots supposed to be reflections on the water?
I guess it's hard to comment on the colours yet, but the ball should have its white parts reflected too

[Blue]

I made the unfortunate accident of using non-waterproof ink, which means I can't paint over it very easily (right?).

Sure you can! Lay down 2-3 layers of spray fixative, then 3-4 layers of matte medium (water it down some) and you're ready for oils.

[Noah Bradley]

Infinit: Yeah, the orangish blobs are supposed to be light on the ripples in the water. And I was a little unsure whether to reflect the non-red portions of the ball because my hope was to get the parts to look clear--would they still reflect white in that case? Thanks.

Blue: I was wondering about something like that, actually. I don't think I've ever used matte medium--is it a clear substance like fixative? Maybe I can give that a shot when I get home (a couple weeks!). I'm also tempted to work on my non-existent digital painting skills using this. Thanks!

So I did a couple more hours of work today, though most of it was microscopic detail work. My professor seemed to think the "big picture" was fairly good and just to spend time doing small intricate work that would give more polish to the piece. It felt good, at least. I tend to skimp when it comes to finishing up a piece and sticking fun little details in there which, so often, can make an image great.

Again, a bad (but slightly better) photo. There's something about those blobs that just decide to explode with orange when photographed. They're not really that orange. I promise. I also don't have photoshop on this computer so I can't do as much color correction as I'd like. Anyways, more crits would be great. I've got a whole week before this needs to get turned in.



Thanks!

[Blue]

Blue: I was wondering about something like that, actually. I don't think I've ever used matte medium--is it a clear substance like fixative? Maybe I can give that a shot when I get home (a couple weeks!). I'm also tempted to work on my non-existent digital painting skills using this. Thanks!

Matte medium is kind of a milky white substance, but it goes on clear. Donato Giancola introduced me to this technique of painting oil on mounted paper using Matte medium. To be honest, you don't even have to lose your original drawing if you don't want to, just have a kinkos make a copy of it to the size you on on your own paper, fix it, matte it, paint it! It's an incredible technique

[Radio24]

Matte medium is kind of a milky white substance, but it goes on clear. Donato Giancola introduced me to this technique of painting oil on mounted paper using Matte medium. To be honest, you don't even have to lose your original drawing if you don't want to, just have a kinkos make a copy of it to the size you on on your own paper, fix it, matte it, paint it! It's an incredible technique

Donato taught you that? recently? say, in amherst, MA??

[Blue]

Donato taught you that? recently? say, in amherst, MA??

You bet

[Bakerman]

From a viewers point of view (haha), something about that beach ball, I just want to see some strong highlights on it, it looks kinda dulled out like the water (though that could just be how it looks when you took the picture.)

[Radio24]

o, the painting.

This looks like a pretty interesting piece. I wish I could see it in person, these photos are pretty fuzzy. It's hard to see what the texture is like, but as I see it... I might smooth out those blues on the upper left, the texture seems to be competing a bit with the rest of the comp. a little smoothing would sell it more towards the watery realism direction. It's a pretty abstract piece, so the style of rendering is your choice as an artist and therefore a decision towards the statement or tone you want to project....

sorry for the blabber, its looking good. What I'd REAlly like to see is a better photo to do your work some justice

[Infinit]

found some ref for you
http://www.egge.net/~savory/bdog/bb_...teich_Ball.jpg