Starting from scratch, journal of progression

[Jiri92]

Man you have come a long way. loved #45. Seems like you are on the rigth track so carry on and dont stop =]

Hey thanks brah! I have no idea what's so special about #45 though, but thanks anyway haha!

[Jiri92]

Man this was hard and did not come out the way I wanted it

[Jiri92]

[Jiri92]

[Jiri92]

[Jiri92]

Thought I'd try to do something from imagination

[Artful_Stool]

Hey jiri nice to see you back again, its been a long time since i posted something valuable in here. Great stuff so far, those studies are getting stronger and stronger, But always keep in mind about your light source and the shadows it depicts, the closer the light is to the object the more sharp and clean the shadow is(and vice versa). Even shadows have perspective too.
I will recommend you "Perspective Made easy - E.Norling" its a good book and will benefit you a lot in future, give it a try.

Keep going mate.

[Elias Leonard]

wow great studies, love those glasses

[Jiri92]

Hey jiri nice to see you back again, its been a long time since i posted something valuable in here. Great stuff so far, those studies are getting stronger and stronger, But always keep in mind about your light source and the shadows it depicts, the closer the light is to the object the more sharp and clean the shadow is(and vice versa). Even shadows have perspective too.
I will recommend you "Perspective Made easy - E.Norling" its a good book and will benefit you a lot in future, give it a try.

Keep going mate.

Thanks man, I'll check it out. You are right, I have never thought about how distance of light could influence the shapes. I have always wondered this and sort of 'struggled' trying to find some sort of 'perfect gradient' that would illustrate light.

wow great studies, love those glasses

Thanks for the kind words!



I think the study I did today is lacking some contrast in the banana itself. I also think that I might have gone a little overboard with de-saturating the shadows on the banana

[Jiri92]

Stay safe everybody!

[Jiri92]

[Artful_Stool]

good stuff again

[Jiri92]

Not really digging it, I think I took too small a brush size and wasn't confident enough with my strokes

[Nusku]

Still looks good! Maybe a cast shadow too? Keep it up man.

[kikindaface]

it's cool to finally see someone learning painting with the basics ( and a lot from life and not photos too ) Keep it up man, just be carreful on your edges, be aware of what looks soft, and what looks hard/sharp, and it'll lead you to better solidity in your paintings !! for brush confidence, i'd say to think rwice before putting anything on the canvas, be sure of each stroke, don't use too much opacity at the beginning of the painting ( i mean, if you use pen sensitivity, you should press to really see the brushstroke, and not pressing a lil bit and seeing the stroke in trensparency, because most of the time, you take the time to find the right color, the right value, but when you don't press on full opacity it's like you did nothing, since you don't have what you wanted it to be, so be carreful about that !! been doing this too much before being aware of this ! ) anyway, keep it up !!!

[Jiri92]

Still looks good! Maybe a cast shadow too? Keep it up man.

Thanks brah, yeah the black blurry thing on the bottom was supposed to be a cast shadow haha

it's cool to finally see someone learning painting with the basics ( and a lot from life and not photos too ) Keep it up man, just be carreful on your edges, be aware of what looks soft, and what looks hard/sharp, and it'll lead you to better solidity in your paintings !! for brush confidence, i'd say to think rwice before putting anything on the canvas, be sure of each stroke, don't use too much opacity at the beginning of the painting ( i mean, if you use pen sensitivity, you should press to really see the brushstroke, and not pressing a lil bit and seeing the stroke in trensparency, because most of the time, you take the time to find the right color, the right value, but when you don't press on full opacity it's like you did nothing, since you don't have what you wanted it to be, so be carreful about that !! been doing this too much before being aware of this ! ) anyway, keep it up !!!

Hey man, thanks for the kind advice.

Yeah I keep having this feeling (especially with circle drawing) that everything has to be some sort of gradient and rough edges can't exist. That will require more getting out of my comfort zone and experimenting on my part.

I try to use 100% opacity all of the time so I can make conscious choices of what I'm going to be using value/hue wise.

==

Today I did some experimenting with colors. And studied some color theory. I tried to see how saturation and hue would play against eachother, trying to mix warm with cool colors and keeping several rules of thumb in mind (such as how the lightest shadow should be darker than the darkest light)

[Jiri92]

[SmallPoly]

Hi Jiri92, thanks for commenting on my sketchbook. You've made a lot of good progress since the start of your SB, though a couple issues keep popping up.

1. A lot of work is washed out, which means you need some more control over your tonal range. If you were to split up a gradient from black to white into 10 steps (black = 0, white = 10), paint a scene using only 0-4, again with 3-7, and yet again with 6-10, and maybe one more using only values 0 4 6 and 10. You may have an easier time in general getting more contrast into your work if you start with your darkest dark and brightest bright on top of your mid-tone before doing anything inbetween.

2. You need better edge control. A lot of the outer edges of objects tend to be blurry, which makes things look out of focus. Practice doing hard, soft and "lost" edges. This link shows some examples.

Both of these do seem to be improving, so keep up the good work!

[Jiri92]

Hi Jiri92, thanks for commenting on my sketchbook. You've made a lot of good progress since the start of your SB, though a couple issues keep popping up.

1. A lot of work is washed out, which means you need some more control over your tonal range. If you were to split up a gradient from black to white into 10 steps (black = 0, white = 10), paint a scene using only 0-4, again with 3-7, and yet again with 6-10, and maybe one more using only values 0 4 6 and 10. You may have an easier time in general getting more contrast into your work if you start with your darkest dark and brightest bright on top of your mid-tone before doing anything inbetween.

2. You need better edge control. A lot of the outer edges of objects tend to be blurry, which makes things look out of focus. Practice doing hard, soft and "lost" edges. This link shows some examples.

Both of these do seem to be improving, so keep up the good work!

Thanks, that is great advice!

I took some sheets of paper and started to make cubes to observe (just how you did in your sketchbook)

I didn't have much time to practice today, but I want to follow your advice; is this kind of what you talk about (this being a picture of the 0-4 values)?

[SmallPoly]

Yeah, looks like you have the general idea down. You can think of it like adjusting camera exposure or tweaking the levels of an image in Photoshop. Many styles of painting emphasize using as much contrast as possible but it still requires some planning to avoid clipping lights/darks or having too little contrast in areas that need it. I find these kind of exercises useful for gaining that kind control. Especially things like nighttime scenes need a good amount of control if you want you lights to "glow".

[M.Calza]

The studies are getting better, but it would be nice to see some more drawings, maybe you could do the lineart and then render, the objects would look more solid

[prakashkc]

Great improvement since you started. There's already so much good advice that I just wanted to take some time and encourage you to keep going. I admire your determination man! Rock on!

[Jiri92]

Yeah, looks like you have the general idea down. You can think of it like adjusting camera exposure or tweaking the levels of an image in Photoshop. Many styles of painting emphasize using as much contrast as possible but it still requires some planning to avoid clipping lights/darks or having too little contrast in areas that need it. I find these kind of exercises useful for gaining that kind control. Especially things like nighttime scenes need a good amount of control if you want you lights to "glow".

Yeah I see how a limited 'value-palette' can cause an image to lose its vibrancy from doing that exercise you told me about. BTW, you didn't provide the link to the site on edge-control in your post earlier

The studies are getting better, but it would be nice to see some more drawings, maybe you could do the lineart and then render, the objects would look more solid

Hey brah, do you mean drawings as in drawing from imagination vs. still life?

Great improvement since you started. There's already so much good advice that I just wanted to take some time and encourage you to keep going. I admire your determination man! Rock on!

Thanks for the kind words brah!

Man the flu got me down a full week, but ah well; back in the game! Also the perspective in this is so bad compared to what it should look like lol

[M.Calza]

What I mean is that instead using a large brush and start painting you could try to draw the lines first, more like a drawing instead of a painting and then paint using the lines as guides, I think it would be easier for you to get the angles right for the perspective stuff for example, you could try it to see if you like it. My english is not the best, but I hope it makes sense.

[Jiri92]

What I mean is that instead using a large brush and start painting you could try to draw the lines first, more like a drawing instead of a painting and then paint using the lines as guides, I think it would be easier for you to get the angles right for the perspective stuff for example, you could try it to see if you like it. My english is not the best, but I hope it makes sense.

Ah yes I understand, makes sense! Will try so tomorrow!

[Jiri92]

[Jiri92]

[Jiri92]

[Jiri92]

[M.Calza]

Don't get to comfortable with things that you already know how to do, try harder things now, instead of bw cubes or spheres, try to set up a still life with more complex shapes.