Artloader - Sketchbook

[HorseSaysQuack]

I wanted to learn how to paint basalt so I'm doing a basalt island study using this photo from Getty Images as a reference.

I am deliberately not using the eye dropper tool to sample colours from the photo reference but instead I'm practicing guessing the colours myself.

Using the trick of starting out on a small canvas (quicker to paint and less resource intensive on my machine), first I painted the sky.

Then I blocked-in the water.

Then the basalt island:


At this point I viewed the image in grayscale to check the values (brightness) of the various components:


This looked OK to me so I scaled the image up by 300% and started painting in more detail:





Your art is really great! I'm not sure what your limitations are hardware-wise but I wouldn't wish gimp upon my worst enemy. If the only thing stopping you is cash then I would absolutely move over to something like Krita which is totally free to use and nears the quality of photoshop.

here's the link: https://krita.org/en/

:D keep making awesome stuff and keep on improving!