Andrew Sonea -22/5/2013

[Andrew Sonea]

Aksel: Thanks Those are 20 and 30 minute poses. A couple say on them how long they are, the others have the time cropped off or I forgot to write it on.


A really quick tree photostudy. I need to figure out how to paint foliage better...

EDIT: Shoot, didn't realize this was the start of a new page or I would have waited to post something better than a shittily painted tree haha!

[Andrew Sonea]

Another boring painting on a brand new page...This study took up a good few hours of my day today (not sure how long). I learnt a fair bit about subtlety--the value changes here are so slight and soft.

In other news I wrote up a big fan letter to Steve Huston last night but when I tried to email it I got a big error message and apparently the email on his site isn't working or something

[Choob]

The life drawing work is awesome man, very strong work on the forms, I really like the chalk highlights. Digital stuff is improving fast too, that last study's looking great. I love studying statues, especially the ones which have a mix between subtle and solid forms; like a smooth and gentle body and then a strong, solid face. A mix between the rough and the polished. Keep it up.

[kimozabbi]

that last painting of yours is freaking awesome.

[Shadow Stalker]

Your studies are amazing, man. Excellent job!

[HarbingerofIllRepute]

Wowzers!

[Andrew Sonea]

Choob: Thanks man! Sculpture is SUPER fun to study It has all the decisions of an artist in it, with the perfect lighting of nature

kimozabbi: Thanks!

Shadow Stalker: Now I need to do something good other than studies!

HarbingerofIllRepute: Thank you!






Well this is yet another not so great update. I've been struggling with this stupid thing for an hour or two now--and it looks basically identical to the thumbnail I did in like two minutes! Lot of painting and repainting and selecting and moving and cropping and recropping and painting and trying to have colour and changing it and now it's just greyscale. Phew! Maybe somebody can pipe up and tell me where I'm going wrong...

[Alex Eh]

Can't see anything wrong with composition right now. Just keep working on it 2 hours is not much time lol. I think you need to make a lot of images before the process is more smooth.

[lancer_idenoure]

did a quick paintover of that last one. i think your problem wasn't so much placement as it was just defining edges and accentuating focal points. i think you wanted to have a tension between the rider and the man he is shooting, so i just used elements already in the composition to emphasize those two main areas. main thing i did was to silhouette the rider and darken the sky to keep the viewer's attention on the action on the ground. and depending on how much focus you want on the man getting shot, you could sharpen/add contrast to him accordingly.

your compositions as far as placement of shapes is really good, just don't be afraid to break up the planes and use sharper edges. hope this helps



*edit: the levels adjustment probably wasn't necessary, just realized i didn't have my monitor at full brightness

[Andrew Sonea]

Alex: Thanks...you're right that I should be more patient. I remember reading Jaime Jones says he struggles with a piece the whole time, and even 20 hours in has "aha!" moments.


Lancer: Ohhh! Thanks so much! That was really helpful. I have to see about getting back in to that piece. I was afraid to touch it haha






Okay, so I spent a chunk of today working on a long pose life drawing. I don't have any pictures of it yet though. I'll post it when I'm done. I have another few sessions--maybe another 10 hours or so.

The only downside to the long pose is I found my wrist pretty sore afterwards. So I panicked, did a bunch of stretches I found online for wrists, and it is a bit better now (although typing this isn't helping). I should really do more wrist exercises.

In the meantime ANOTHER boring study. I kinda hate myself for doing just studies. It's such a cop out from doing stuff of my own...anyways, I realized I only know how to paint matte surfaces, so I tried to choose something that was more glossy. Not sure how much I learned from this though, felt like I was monkeycopying again I think I have turned into a human photocopy machine.

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

That's one glossy beetle. Awesome study!

You should try splitting your time into study followed my imagination or so, because you really need to draw more from imagination. Your technical ability is amazing, but you lack style. Swag.

[Aragah]

im a fan, just saying.

[Andrew Sonea]

Aksel: Blargh. Yeah.

Aragah: Thanks!





Sooo...I was pretty unproductive today. I've been feeling really discouraged when it comes to art the last few days. Guess I'm in another one of those art slumps where I feel like I don't know how to paint, or that all I know how to do is blindly (and crappily) copy what's in front of me. I tried scribbling out some stuff, but deleted it all basically.

All I have to show is a few little change on the previous greyscale horse thingy. Just playing around and kinda failing. And a couple WIP's on a painting Aksel made me not delete. I kind of like some things in the first WIP more than the second one...



EDIT: Just noticed that the two paintings have the exact same composition hahaha! I guess I only have a couple tricks in my bag...

[Shadow Stalker]

Nah, you gotta get over that, man. Take a break if you have to, but don't sweat the little things. I put the same pressure on myself: every time you sit down to draw, you HAVE to create a masterpiece. And it just isn't true, man. If you don't like the way something's coming out, delete it and start over.

You're studies are so epic. That stuff is bound to show up in your art. Just gotta keep going.

[walnut]

I like this thread man, you have some ragingly fine studies. I don't see any problem with the imagination stuff either btw. As for your question:

Damn I really love this latest update! How do you generate such good compositions and ideas? All your designs are also really fresh looking...do you have a general process or way of coming up with it? Do you study anything in particular?

Not sure what to say about that, i don't find my stuff that original. One thing though, it pays to visit and revisit an idea several times and to not stop at the first couple variations. Also, i don't know what your influences are, but it never hurts to go looking in as many places as you can. And some good research can also do wonders. I've been looking up historical dress for work and you know, there's some funky stuff in there if you start digging.

Plus what Shadow stalker said: sometimes it's better to walk away and start fresh on something else. But you're doing allright man, don't let the little dips worry you

[lancer_idenoure]

well no wonder you're having trouble, you did a study of a bug and now you're trying to paint a forest. study stuff like this:

and then paint a forest!

silly andrew ;P

(btw the forest is looking awesome so far. very frazetta-y)

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

The forest painting was basically me forcing him to do something from imagination because all he ever does is studies. The silly git.

[Eightball_]

nice forest painting man! i think the foreground figure could be separated a bit more from the midground though. maybe add a shaft of light coming in from the left or some volumetric fog to pop her. you kinda had it going on in the thumbnail sketch. either way, it's progressing quite nicely. and i know how you feel about the slumps man. don't let it get you down, roll with the punches, get pumped!

[Andrew Sonea]

Shadow Stalker: Yeah, I really shouldn't take it as seriously as I do. I mean, I think being serious helps one improve faster, but also leads to these sort of slumps which can be harmful.

walnut: Thanks for the tips! I'm also glad to hear you don't see problems in my imagination work. I really should do more research though.

lancer: That's right on the money! Thanks a ton for reminding me of this. It's so simple and obvious, but I never really apply my studies, or do proper research for my paintings. I looked at some refs to get a better feel for things and I think it helped a lot with this piece.

Aksel: Yeah, you force me to do paintings then try to get me hooked on videogames

Eightball: Thanks man! I tried to pop out the figure a bit more like you said, and tried to get a contrast between smooth skin and textured forest.




Thanks again everyone for the support!


So I turned 19 a couple days ago. I feel kind of behind where I should be at this stage. I also got some part time work...some unskilled labor. I was working like up to 14 hours a day so couldn't do art. It's over for now, but I might get a bit more later in the summer. It left me completely exhausted and sore (my back still hurts), but it's nice to get a bit of money.

...and today I sat down and finished up that forest painting. I wanted to get it finished for my portfolio so hopefully I can get some work. I discovered I'd much rather be paid for art than physical labor.

[xinranliu]

Hey Andrew! Keep up the nice work, hope you'll enjoy this summer vacation.
And belated happy 19th birthday. Don't dwell too long on the matter of your age and skill, not everyone has to become a teenage CA.org five-star-thread master before the age of 18 You're far from complacent anyway, it will take however long it needs to.

[Aaron_]

Hey happy 19th! No need to feel behind right now, come on, if anything, you're a lot further along than I was a year ago, and with the progress you're making, you're gonna be real scary in a few years >______>

The horse thingie's looking real good BTW, and the forest too. I feel you need too add more elements to the picture, especially around the woman. Why is she naked? What is she doing? Maybe she's waving to the birds, maybe she has a pet beside her. Or maybe she's just looking at something. But now, it doesn't feel like she's doing anything.

[Caspia]

Don't worry about doing studies, I think they're good for training fundamentals, even if they don't employ a lot of creativity. It sometimes just takes some muscle memory to improve.
It really shows in the latest piece as well, the subtlety of her skintone on her back is really very good.
Happy bornday as well btw.

[Andrew Sonea]

Xin: Thanks bro! I know I shouldn't expect too much of myself...but I mean, who doesn't want a 5-star sketchbook here

Aaron: Thanks! You make some good points about the forest painting. I didn't really put much thought into it, other than "I need a placeholder/figure here. Naked chick works." But yeah, it is kind of silly. I don't really feel like going back to it, but I'll keep that sort of thing in mind in the future.

Caspia: The problem is just like I feel as though I'm not learning very fast from my studies. And then I try to paint from my head and struggle so I think to myself I need more studies and just end up doing studies forever haha




Thanks again folks! Your comments keep me going and stop me from giving up. Sometimes I guess you just need to hear some encouragement, even if it is from people you've never met.



So I found out about this cool contest: http://dracopediaproject.blogspot.ca...challenge.html

Basically I get to paint a dragon and can win a prize as well as get some masters looking at my art. Oh, and there is an age limit which helps out my chances So I tried a few sketches. I deleted like a dozen of them lol. This is all that's left...The first one here I like a fair bit, but feel it is very generic. They are looking for originality, so I tried to do something different and ended up with the really rough crustacean/bird inspired dragon in the second painting here. It's an interesting idea (or at least I think it is), but very awkward looking and can use a lot of work design-wise. So I guess I should do some studies of crustacean thingies and then go back to it.

The last painting is a little photo study of a gharial (it was surprisingly quick and straightforward, probably took like 2-3 hours?). I wanted to do a study which can have some application to dragons so chose this since it has a head shape resembling my first sketch. I started out all "I'm gonna be painterly and textural and all Jaime Jones-esque" (I think I've been idolizing Jaime a little too much lately). So I didn't touch my usual basic round brush and pulled out some textured brushes. Then I got really into how easy it was to make it realistic, and completely forgot about being painterly haha! Oh well, one day I'll figure out this whole art thing.

Sorry for all the rambling about stuff, but it is nice to type out some of my thoughts.

[lancer_idenoure]

great to see you back with some direction looks like you're just realizing something i went through.

i have tons of unfinished paintings from imagination i haven't brought to finish because i thought i wasn't good enough to get them to the level i wanted and things just weren't working....and then went back to drawing heads or something. practically two years of basically-wasted studies and hardly any finished work to show for it. it took me all that time to realize: if you're having problems with a painting, instead of throwing it out and moping about it, find out what things you're having trouble painting and do a study or two on exactly that, and you'll both get something done for once and will have learned that much more from doing so.

i feel like we have many of the same problems and i know i would've loved to have someone tip me off, so heres to that. looking forward to see what you do

(and i might have to join in on that dragon contest!)

[shockowaffel]

Nice sketches, I really like them.
The beetle, the forest and the croc, too.
They're all very nice.
I understand your feelings about too much studying. I wished I had one of these matrix needles to inject the knowledge into my brain. ^^

[Andrew Sonea]

Lance: Yeah, studies need to be applied or else you forget a lot of it :/ And you should totally enter the dragon contest! Would be fun to compete against you

shockowaffel: Thanks! And yeah I wish too...I'll just download all of Bouguereau's, Sargent's, Alma-Tadema's etc skills.





So remember how I was doing a long pose drawing? Well here it is. The total time was around 20 hours, although I think it's actually a fair bit less as we took a lot of breaks and only did it in 30 minute chunks. It's not finished technically, but the model was being unprofessional and argumentative and was kicked out by the guy whose studio it was. So yeah, got cut short...I probably could have worked on it another 5-10 hours easily). It unfortunately didn't photograph very well either as the camera picked up a lot more texture than is really there (it's pretty smooth and soft looking in real life), and a few of the darks aren't as dark as I did them. Bah, enough excuses already

[Marian Rowling]

Well done Andrew looks good, very solid feeling. Shame you didn't get to finish, but maybe after 20 hours you might have had enough to! The longest pose I've drawn is just over 3 hours, I just can't imagine what it is like to do one of these long ones. Hopefully I'll get a chance one day.

Also think you croc study rocks, and how cool is it that you found it so easy. Great progress as always, even if you can't always see it yourself, we can.

[Andrew Sonea]

Marian: Thanks I was surprised actually at how quickly those 20 hours went by. I was afraid I'd be done in like 4 hours, but building it up slowly and carefully meant the time flew!




Not much to show. I played (and beat) Bastion, which was cool since I never play video games. Took up a good evening or two though.

I did a bit of drawing at the War Museum with Hunchback and Trisquel...not gonna bother posting what I drew though haha. So here is a bit more work on that dragon.

[Andrew Sonea]

A couple more hours work...I have to say I am quite pleased with how it's turning out

[Aaron_]

Fucking hell, so much work has been done since I last came here. You made me feel lazy! I'm enjoying all these paintings a lot. I love the way you use brushes with those studies.

It took me a bit to realize what's going on with the last painting because the dragon's head is somewhat awkward. I don't think even dragons' necks can be that flat, as the mid section of the neck looks really flat right now. I think you probably accidentally change the triangular shape of the neck into a really think box. And the foreground shape is leading my eye out of the picture a bit. Otherwise the painting looks really good. I really like your color choice and design on the dragon.