First post finally! [updated 10/14] New Piece

[rseward]

Looking for any and all critique! There is a ton of talent on this site so pleaseeee tear these up with feedback! Been lurking forever, but finally have some work to share. Hope you enjoy.

If you want to see more of my work, visit my website

www.rogersewardart.com

"Beneath our Fathers' Eyes" Inspired by Iliad and Aeneid ideas of lineage, acrylic on canvas board.


"Amazon Short Short" Acrylic on multiple canvases. Exploring sequential paintings while thinking about the power of the short short literary form.
Process discussed on my blog!


"Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner" Thinking about the conflicts of interest in a zoo. Hungry komodo. Oil on canvas!
Process shots on my blog.


"Which Way to Roll" Acrylic on multiple canvases.


"Work Before Play" Acrylic on Canvas.

[rseward]

Thread got trapped in moderation! Please crit! Any and all comments are welcome! Thanks!

[arenhaus]

Get the textbooks by Andrew Loomis (the link is in my signature, you can also buy "Figure Drawing" from Amazon now) and learn to work structurally. Start with "Successful Drawing", then read "Creative Illustration".

Do exercises in: formal perspective; human anatomy; lighting and tonal painting.

[rseward]

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check them out!

[Giacomo]

I love these pieces...they're really funny, "Amazon Short Shorts" especially. It sort of sucks that certain people have a humorless, rigidly academic approach to art and see everything through those blinders.

That said: your technique could use some refinement. The drawings on your website are quite nice and it says on your blog you're using photo reference, but the actual paintings seem incredibly clumsy in comparison to your preliminary work. I suspect you're just eyeballing it when you're transferring your sketches to canvas. I'd suggest you get an opaque projector or use the "grid" method--in any case, slow down and be a lot more careful in the early stages of the painting.

[rseward]

Thanks for checking them out glad you like! You're right there is a bit of a disconnect between the drawings and the paintings. I struggle with retaining the energy and accuracy of the drawing when I transition to painting. I'll have to keep practicing!

[Lightship69]

I would just say, yes these are very nice and that I agree with Arenhaus and also you must add these to your must buy lists:-

James Gurney "colour and light" and "imaginative realism" they were recommended to me in this forum by Jeffx99 and he was right on the money, they are worth their weight in gold !! brilliant and very very helpful, I cant recommend them enough.

all the best and thanks for posting.

[rseward]

Gurney is amazing! I've been eyeing those books for a while I may have to break down and get them. Thanks for the words and advice!

[Lithriel]

From what I am seeing your colors and execution need work. I would focus on execution first in gray scale. Try and render with a clear light source in mind and this will help with better understanding of value. From what I am seeing, you aren't showing light sources clearly. The figures and surroundings are all shaded similarly no matter where they are located in correlation to the light source or shaded incorrectly.

For example- in your first image the figure has different lighting than the castle in the background. They should be the same. It looks like you used reference for the figure and not the background which creates a lack of cohesion overall.

In the second set of illustrations there are clear overhead rays of light which means there ought to be more contrast throughout and darker areas the farther you get from the light but everything looks the same.

I know it's not perfect, but here is an example of my work which shows what I mean:



Don't be afraid to render spacial planes with a clear shadow area versus areas in light. Right now your transitions from light to dark are just blurry and not committed- or they have the "gumby" effect as I like to call it. Everything looks cylindrical as if they are made of rounded play dough like the TV character instead of showing subtle variations in value to depict the musculature and bony systems of the body. Also, don't be afraid to render hard cast shadows.

In the third image, everything is so muddy it's hard to tell if the light source is consistent throughout or not. I would look at this image in gray scale to get a good idea of the contrast changes you need to make. Usually your focal point should be the area of highest contrast.

The image of the girl in shorts on the field is another one that has the gumby effect as I talked about. Also, the side of the sky where the sun should be, ought to be lighter. Judging by the light sourcing on the figure, that would be to the top right. Look at pictures of skies for better understanding of this.

The last image has the best contrast and better light sourcing.

And all of them are looking orange and yellow overall which could be the effect of the camera used to take the picture- I am not sure. At any rate, you want to think of color as interacting.

Don't just paint a leaf green or the sky blue because you think it ought to be blue. Think about subtle colors interacting. For instance, the trunks of trees are rarely ever truly brown. Most of them are gray. Skies themselves tend to have subtle horizontal gradients to them as I discussed, and often subtle shades of other colors depending on the time of day. And if it happens to be at sunset, everything in the scene ought to have an overlying color of the sky. That's known as atmospheric lighting. My advice to you would be first, get your construction down. Then move to value and light sourcing, and then color.

I know I have given you a lot to think about, but I hope it helps.

[rseward]

Wow thanks so much for all the feedback I really appreciate it! I've finally started working in oils and am trying to use the grisaille approach so i'll keep that structure, value, then color approach as I move forward. Thanks for commenting you do great work!

[rseward]

Here is the latest off the press. First serious attempt at mixed media! Please crit! Let me know what yall think.

Progress shots on my blog !



CONCEPTUALLY: "Game Over" is inspired by the old video game Centipede/Millipede. This was the first video game I ever played with my ancient, clunky Game Boy. Good times... In the game, bugs fell out of the sky as the player tried desperately to shoot them. Points were earned. Lives were lost. Eventually you found yourself panting with exhaustion and glaring at the game over screen.
On a deeper level this piece was an opportunity to explore that disconnect between the civilian and the realities of war. I think it's easy for us to forget or trivialize war due to the media saturation of wartime imagery and games. In "Game Over" I incorporated imagery from the most famous wartime photographs throughout American history in order to illustrate this point. Look for these! D-day, the flag over Iwojima, WWII propaganda poster girl, the Vietnam war execution photo, the black hawk down, 9/11, and IED's. The result hopefully draws you into the pivotal moment when that innocence and naivety is broken and the former illusions of war are broken down and forced to flee.

[Nezumi Works]

It doesn't draw me in because there's not very far to get drawn in to. Basically you've set up a box shape in the middle, with few other depth cues, so it kills the sense of scale and prevents me from getting in. There's no sense that this environment exists any deeper than that set of gray boxes.

What are those, anyway? They don't read as buildings, so the scale is wonky. If they are supposed to be buildings, I suggest you spend more time on your environments with an eye towards depth and variety of shape and size, to give a much greater feeling of depth.

[rseward]

Nezumi Works: Thanks a ton for the feedback! Just to clarify, you're saying that the buildings are much too small?? I did try to use the fore and mid-ground elements that lead in from off the page to draw the eye in to the focal point, but I can definitely understand what you're saying about then getting trapped in a box. The buildings were squished down more to get that horizontal hourglass shape that pinches in from the sides of the piece. I was hoping that the sky would have enough depth to create closure regarding the rest of the environment but I guess notttt. Anyway thanks a ton for the crit! Lots to think about!

[Pezz]

In your Amazon Short Shorts series you have some bad crops going on that make them look boxed in... elbows don't like to be randomly cropped

[rseward]

Pezzle: Wow! Can't believe I didn't notice that! Thanks for pointing it out. I can see now how losing the elbow completely confuses the form of the arm! Thanks

[Nezumi Works]

Not so much that they're too small so much as they're all very similar to each other, just big white rectangles that as I said, don't really read as buildings so there's no sense of scale and they all look the same distance from the viewer. There's little showing that there's anything beyond them, and the dark walls on either side really boxes things in, making the white cubes at the back more of a wall than anything. More variety of shapes, the "sides" being different heights with more variety to silhouette, more attention to making the buildings look like buildings, all that would help a lot.

What might work better here is a greater upward angle, which means less ground shown and more emphasis on the things coming downward. Essentially three-point perspective, but with one point waaaaay off to the side, effectively making the horizontal lines parallel to each other. Different colours for the tall buildings, more atmospheric perspective, more overlap between elements, it'll give the image way more space and the three-point arrangement would allow you to put more emphasis on the things coming from the sky.

[rseward]

Gotya! Yea the buildings are really uniform and a bit too dumbed down now that I'm thinking about it. Thanks a ton for the crit!