Painting quicker~

[Aphelps]

I did a search for these two questions and it didn't really help, so sorry if these have been asked before. I did look, but maybe I am searching for the wrong keywords.

First, I am really slow at digital painting. It seems like I 1.5x-2x longer than anyone else does on a painting for similar sized/quality work. Where might I find some guidance on getting faster? I have seen people make reference to practicing to become faster, but... how do you do this?

Second, one thing I know is that it is faster to paint darks->mids->lights. I do mids->darks->lights. I am at an intermediate level of digital painting. Is it worth the time investment at this point to try and relearn painting in this method? I have made a couple attempts, and is a lot harder for me to wrap my brain around for some reason.

Anyway, thanks for your time and advice. I really appreciate it.

[Cola73]

Second, one thing I know is that it is faster to paint darks->mids->lights. I do mids->darks->lights.

I think you're missing the point here...these two methods are unrelated to speed, but determine the ultimate effect of the piece.
So, painting "out of the black" is usually used for doing indoor portraits or bizarre (surreal?) compositions, due the specific nature of light in such systems.
Caravaggio and most of the mid-high Renaissance would be a good example of that.
On the other hand, beginning with mid-tone (I suppose you meant a local tone) is a good (and quicker) way to setup more complex compositions, like landscapes.
Examples can be found in most modernistic painters beginning with Manet.
So, these two ways aren't mutually exclusive.

Hope this helps, regards

[Birkeley]

What kind of process do you have? I used to be really slow because my workflow was pretty horrible, lots of skipping around, putting detail in too early, making mistakes I later had to fix and so on.

Some good general advice about this is to work from large, simple shapes to small ones, no detail until the end, and if you work in Photoshop one method I like for keeping an eye on your composition, values, colour and so on is to keep the navigation panel open with a thumbnail-size view of your painting. Glance at it a lot to see how your painting reads. Also flip your image a lot, this is a good way of getting a fresh view, which helps you pick out when something is incorrectly proportioned or not working. If you watch WIP videos of good digital artists on youtube you will notice a lot of them flip their images very frequently. If you find you need to revise things a lot your workflow isn't working very well. You could also experiment with painting in greyscale then adding colour using layer effects. I don't do that myself but it looks like a fast technique and is very effective in the hands of the right artists.

It might help others to help you if you elaborate on how you currently work, the steps you go through and what you spend the most time doing.

[[email protected]]

Learn to paint traditionally: the cost of inefficiency is much higher, and especially in acrylics it is virtually impossible to keep messing around indefinitely...

[tobbA]

If you're worried about speed, that tells me that you shouldn't really worry about it. Speed comes through experience. There's no short cut to get faster. And perhaps you're a slow painter. That's ok. There's no universal law that says you should paint at a certain speed. Take your time. In stead of worrying about how quick you're painting, worry about if you're being careful enough. Do whatever it takes to reach the end goal you're after in a piece.

[Amara91]

Try doing small, quick, studies. Do value studies and color studies. Do a lot of gesture sketches in your sketchbook. I'm notorious for never finishing anything but people always remark at how quick I am when it comes to drawing or painting and these things are what has helped me. Value studies are really simple..just choose 4-7 values and make a painting out of those 4 or 7 values. You could copy a masterpainting, paint something from life..anything. Just make a painting with only those values..no blending. Just squint your eyes and paint the big value shapes. You could do this on paper or digitally and it'll take you 5-10 minutes. If you really want to challenge yourself, keep your value studies under 7 shapes. Not mandatory but pretty nifty. Same thing with color studies..make a painting with broad color shapes..you don't have to go into detail or rendering, just squint for values, open your eyes for hue and saturation and paint small color studies. keep the shapes under 7. The thing with doing these is that you get used to simplifying things. I find that when you simplify things, you paint much quicker. Same with drawing...do quick gesture drawings and go for the movement..the essence..the gesture of the pose or whatever it is that you're drawing. Draw people in real life..at the cafe or park where people are moving around. This is a great exercise to get your drawing speed up. If you have a plen air easel, step outside and do some painting. That'll get your speed up lol. changing light is a beast.

a value or color study could fit in the palm of your hand. they can be bigger but then you'd spend more time on them..which aint whatcha want. Keep em small so you can paint them quicker. This speed will transfer over to your longer, larger, and more serious paintings.

then you start to see that your drawing and painting becomes more expressive. you don't even have to think about it. same with painting. Speed makes your paintings and drawings more expressive. What they lack in detail they make up for with liveliness. Just keep in mind: simplify. Worked magic for me. And my paintings sucked ass..now they suck less ass.