hey guys, so here is my first ever still life since I was in high school!
I am learning a lot with this picture!!! About saturation, light, etc. Anyway, It's nearly done (mostly because I don't know how much longer my patience will last. haha). I've worked on it for maybe 5 hours so far. Leaves are very difficult!!!
With the lightbulb, I might have to use the pen tool to make the curves round.
Something I didn't expect: When doing a still life of a plant, make sure to keep the plant well-watered! The little plant got a bit dehydrated and changed color/position between friday and today, so that was a challenge to keep up with.
So, any comments? Not sure how easy it is to critique a still life but if anyone has any critiques for me I'd love to incorporate the changes when I next work on this.
Alright so the thing about still life paintings is that you can take your time with them. Now given that, if you have issues with control, do a line drawing. Looking at your study, I can't really see any well defined forms or edges, this means you're going to spend a bunch of time messing around, trying to get the correct values and colors in but in the end, your underlying drawing is messed up.
There is no rule that you have to make a line drawing first but in your case it is something I'd highly recommend. Then to define everything with its base color so you can try and make it less muddy before trying to render it. Muddy values and colors are what I'd say is the main issue with this. Nothing is really solid and everything changes in value at random. So starting with a line drawing, defining forms and mapping out form shadows and cast shadows so you have an easier time when it comes to painting.
You might also want to consider starting off with something a bit easier. Cast studies are great to start from because of their unified base value, and their limited range of depth. The downside is that they're a bit expensive. Try and find simple things and start with them, try and make everything look solid and well defined as early as you can so the rendering process can be focused on rendering, not fixing mistakes.
Anyway. I hope some of that helps out. If you have any questions, feel free to message me.
The huge issue I had with this painting was that I started it on a Friday, and then didn't have a chance to be alone in a dark room with the plant and lightbulb (HAHA that sounds so dirty) until the following Tuesday, because I have roommates.
By that time, the plant had become dehydrated and changed colors!!!! So it was really difficult for me to re-start and because the leaves had changed colors, positions, oyyy.
Also, you;re right. It was challenging to figure out which colors should be saturated and which should be saturated, so as a result the thing looks a bit odd and muddy. And I didn't do a sketch beforehand, I just threw "paint" onto the digital canvas.
Thanks again, I am going to abandon this because now the plant has changed even more. I will try doing a base sketch, and draw a still life that is simpler and will not start to die on me LOL
(08-13-2014, 06:49 PM)Tristan Berndt Wrote: Alright so the thing about still life paintings is that you can take your time with them. Now given that, if you have issues with control, do a line drawing. Looking at your study, I can't really see any well defined forms or edges, this means you're going to spend a bunch of time messing around, trying to get the correct values and colors in but in the end, your underlying drawing is messed up.
There is no rule that you have to make a line drawing first but in your case it is something I'd highly recommend. Then to define everything with its base color so you can try and make it less muddy before trying to render it. Muddy values and colors are what I'd say is the main issue with this. Nothing is really solid and everything changes in value at random. So starting with a line drawing, defining forms and mapping out form shadows and cast shadows so you have an easier time when it comes to painting.
You might also want to consider starting off with something a bit easier. Cast studies are great to start from because of their unified base value, and their limited range of depth. The downside is that they're a bit expensive. Try and find simple things and start with them, try and make everything look solid and well defined as early as you can so the rendering process can be focused on rendering, not fixing mistakes.
Anyway. I hope some of that helps out. If you have any questions, feel free to message me.
"And I didn't do a sketch beforehand, I just threw "paint" onto the digital canvas." If you're making a study instead of a painting or illustration that's not as big a problem. However it's better to get into the habit of making preliminary sketches.
Plants changing while you paint is an occupational hazard and you just deal with it. At least it's not a prancing horse you're studying for some knights painting, right? You can also take a photo of it at the beginning to reference later on when some leaves fall off or something.
I suggest for you, next time if you're calling this one done, to block out the main mass of this plant with 1 dull base hue first, painting it as if it's a shadow on a wall. On top of that you can start to add layers of more saturated and brighter shapes of hues. Use contrast of hue and value to create edges that separate one leaf from another. Slowly separating out layers of leaves that way is less confusing.
Here's a kind of paint over trying to demonstrate what I meant. I filled in the plant with a dark green, then added brighter and brighter green over it:
WOAH!!!! MEAT FRIEND!!! YOU MADE IT LOOK SO COOL!! AAAHGHSGHDFDH Thank you so much for the advice. :D Invaluable! I appreciate it!! And for the time you took to help. ^.^!!!
(08-18-2014, 11:14 AM)meat Wrote: "And I didn't do a sketch beforehand, I just threw "paint" onto the digital canvas." If you're making a study instead of a painting or illustration that's not as big a problem. However it's better to get into the habit of making preliminary sketches.
Plants changing while you paint is an occupational hazard and you just deal with it. At least it's not a prancing horse you're studying for some knights painting, right? You can also take a photo of it at the beginning to reference later on when some leaves fall off or something.
I suggest for you, next time if you're calling this one done, to block out the main mass of this plant with 1 dull base hue first, painting it as if it's a shadow on a wall. On top of that you can start to add layers of more saturated and brighter shapes of hues. Use contrast of hue and value to create edges that separate one leaf from another. Slowly separating out layers of leaves that way is less confusing.
Here's a kind of paint over trying to demonstrate what I meant. I filled in the plant with a dark green, then added brighter and brighter green over it:
