Mentor me this

[Jack the R]

I'm working on revamping my painting process, after reading through Briggsy's Dimensions of Color write-up.

The big eye opener for me was being able to use black to shade, after being told adamantly that you can not use black to shade. According to shortcut 3, the "glazing" technique can be done in a technically accurate way. I've disliked the results I've gotten with the glazing technique in the past, but I was doing it wrong, using overlay or color. After reading through Briggsy's explanation, I hope to get better results.

(I still need to test what multiply does with relative brightness at 255 and varying levels of saturation - is the relative brightness of the final color equal to that of the grayscale tone, or is it decreased/darkened? I think the final color will have the same relative brightness, and take on the hue/saturation of the multiplied color layer, but I'm not sure yet.)

I usually start out with a loose line sketch. I've got no idea whether it is better to start out this way, or with a tonal sketch. I may prefer sketching because I'm more comfortable with line art, but it also feels faster. I also like to build around abstract "lines of motion." There's bound to be a terminology for this which I do not know.



Next I started working out the tonal pattern. I got this far -



and then decided to "preview" the glazing -



I'm happy with the direction the tonal painting is moving in, but not sold on the glazing technique. I'm sure it will look better over a finished tonal painting, but not sure it will look as good as it would painted straight in color. I'll think about it more tomorrow. I look forward to any comments any mentor types want to leave

[Sepulverture]

I think you're posting in the wrong section, friend. This type of request seems to be more suited for the critique forums, or the sketches/works in progress. You could always post in the mentor sign-up thread stickied to the top of the page and ask for a mentor to help you with this coloring technique, but I think most people who post regularly on these forums subscribe to the "don't use black as shading" camp.

I could be wrong, and I know that Rembrandt used black for his shading in his paintings, and achieved a very dramatic effect with a lot of them so it is possible, just not plausable to find a many members here who are down with that sort of thing.

Good luck.

[Jack the R]

Hmm, I was thinking the tonal painting could be used as a mask to shift the shadow color. I've left a question in Briggsy's thread asking how to determine the exact amount of hue shift in shadows, based on light color. No response yet.

If a mod feels this is better off elsewhere, feel free to move it. Just drop me a PM to let me know where it went.