Best get at it

[David_a_ray]

I’m starting a sketchbook again. This time I have a goal. I want to do a minimum of one painting a day. I feel like my progress as an artist has been very slow due to a lack of focus. I want to speed things along. I’d eventually like to paint cooler things than household objects, but I’m not quite there yet. My art is mediocre at best. I would welcome any critiques that anyone would care to give as I discipline myself as an artist.
Here are three paintings I’ve done today and a sketch.

[kevin_]

nice start to your sb! need to see more before i give you any crits so hope you keep posting!

[David_a_ray]

Thanks kevin_ , I plan to keep posting.

Here are some more food paintings, and a sea monster.
It’s weird. I’ve never done this many paintings back to back, and instead of feeling tired, I just want to do more. One day at a time though.

[SophieW]

The life paintings are looking good and it’s great to see you’re really trying to stick to your goal You could attempt to do numerous objects in one picture in order to look more at how colour and light effects different materials. Keep going! Your work will pay off.

[David_a_ray]

Thanks SophieW
I took your advice to put more objects in one painting. I think the result was pretty cool.

Don’t have a lot of paintings today; just two, but they were a little more time consuming than the regular fruit pieces. I was glad that I had previously spent time studying how reflections in spheres work.

[David_a_ray]

I’ve been working on this sword painting all day. I think I’m going to spend the rest of the day doing figure/ anatomy studies. I really need to get comfortable drawing people.

[David_a_ray]

Ugh, I’ve been exhausted with a headache all day. I’ve done a few sketches, and this one crappy painting here (keeping with my goal). However, aside from the fact that this hasn’t been that great of a day, I have learned something that I think is rather profound. Painting from life actually tricks you into being able to paint from your mind. I started this skull and finished it in about three minutes, and it was all from imagination. The cool thing was that when I went to paint it, my mind was looking for edges, planes, and values in the same way it would if I were observing on object on my desk. It was a really cool experience.

[David_a_ray]

For some reason I really haven’t felt like painting today at all, but I do have a goal to keep. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel better.

[Etchpea]

I'm loving all your practice still lifes, they've come along since the first post already, which is really cool to see. Keep at it!

[David_a_ray]

Thanks Etchpea, I noticed some improvement as well. Of course, if the last couple of days are any indication, I’m kind of in a slump. I'll get over it eventually, but it still sucks just the same.

This is the best of the work I’ve done today. I can’t seem to crank out anything above the level of frustrating crap today. Usually when I get to this point I don’t draw for weeks, but that’s not the case now. I’ve been frustrated with this all day, but at least I’ve been working. I suppose that’s something.

(Note that the thing in my hand is a flashlight... It's used for seeing in the dark; nothing else.)

[David_a_ray]

Today I’ve been drawing images that I saw before falling asleep last night. It has resulted in some really weird things. The one I painted is not actually supposed to be Santa Clause. It’s just a floating head in the balcony of an old theater.

[David_a_ray]

Today I had an idea for a painting. I’ve done a few (highly unintelligible to anyone but me)thumbnails, but I still need to do more to flesh out the idea. Basically what I want to do is comment on life and death. I want to have a skeleton lying on the ground, and a flower growing between its fingers (or near it) to symbolize how your life is transferred to new life after your death. The skeleton symbolizes your death, and the flower symbolizes how life goes on. It’s a nicer picture than having your life transferred to worms I think.

Anyway, my painting for the day is: what happens when a Jawa finds a lightsaber.

[BlackDelphin]

Those still life look really good. They have a nice balance between hard and soft edges.
I'd suggest applying that to the human figure now.

[David_a_ray]

Thanks BlackPelphin. I’m working on being able to draw the human form. It’s not easy.

I have to focus more of my time on my college finals this week and less on art. My drawing time has consisted mostly of human proportional studies, shadow casting, and color mixing. Anyway, I was driving down the road at night and I saw a police car that had pulled someone over. Interestingly, the red and blue lights created a very nice purple color. I tried to replicate this in photoshop, but it’s weird because when I mix red and blue they do create a purple color, but it’s really muddy. On a whim, I decided to add the transitional color (purple) to the mixture and then blend it. This gave me the color transition that I was looking for. I don’t know what the deal is with this, and I’m not sure if Photoshop is messed up somehow or what the deal is, but I’ve done an example page for anyone who is interested in this. Of course, I’m sure I’m not the first to figure this out. Any advanced artists who want to explain why photoshop doesn’t blend colors this way would be welcome to inform me.

[Syle]

I would love to know that as well! Cool experiment, and good job to you for making such a good observation.

You've got a great start to a SB on your hands here. Your rendering skills are already showing much promise (that sword!!!). I would just recommend to keep your nose to the grindstone on your fundamentals, and without a doubt, in a few years you'll be well on your way

Take care.

[idenzel]

your texture rendering looks good, especially on the fruit skins

[David_a_ray]

Thanks Denzel! I feel like I'm really week with textures, so I'm glad they're reading.

I finally got done with those college projects. I did learn all about the life cycle of stars, and picked up a lot of interesting information. So, note to those of you who paint space scenes: best avoid green stars if you want to keep the scientists happy.

In other news, I found a funky apple that was just begging to be immortalized. I need a lamp or something for my desk so I can try different lighting positions.

[I-Bomb]

Great studies you have in your sketchbook just try to add some more textures to your still life also try posting a few traditional sketches I like to see them to

[David_a_ray]

Thanks for the feedback udonhead. I’ll definitely keep it in mind! I’ve actually got a few sketches compiled onto a sheet today.

My phrase for the day has been “Holy Crap!” I’ve had some very productive sketching… though you probably can’t tell just by looking. The whole “inventing” concept as applied to learning how to draw new things, clicked in my head today; very cool.

Anyway, here’s my painting for the day. I saw someone else paint a spoon, and thought it would be fun to try. Plus, my mother gave me this little wooden Santa toy, in hopes that I would paint it, so he’s here too.

[David_a_ray]

I’ve always felt that my ability to develop interesting compositions is lacking. Today I just started coming up with a couple of compositions by laying in some values and looking for images in them.

The first one is the last image of a dying soldier on a battlefield. His soul is being taken by a reaper.

The next one is just some kind of jungle teleport pad.

The last one is an archer sneaking up on a shaman who just killed a man.

[David_a_ray]

Last week was insanely busy for me, but things have slowed down and I'm getting back on my schedule of painting everyday now. This was an attempt to paint some kind of sunset today.

[IsaacEs]

I really dig your paintings, specially the ones with fabric, although you should practice some edge control I notice some of your paintings are.a bit fuzzy