02-20-2015, 12:05 PM
Hey jane! I have some advice for you if you're interested
First of all, definitely give yourself a good balance between study and personal work. It's a bit of a cliche at this point but studying really is the best way to get better. I'm a bit of outlier when it comes to how you go about it; most people would recommened just doing 100s and 100s of studies in as short a period of time as possible, but for me that didn't work. I found more value in sticking with something for a while and learning to correct my mistakes than to keep making the same ones over and over again, in some sense reinforcing the errors rather than really learning anything. Definitely intersperse it with quicker studies to see your improvement and to see if you can make fewer mistakes, but find the balance between long and short.
Second, avoid using blending modes and photoshop effects if at all possible. I think there's more value in learning how to paint from scratch and really understanding how colours work rather than using too many blending modes. They're very useful once you understand light and colour better and once you understand how they work themselves, but they aren't a substitute for good painting knowledge if that makes sense. Making slight value shifts with levels or with something is fine but to add colour and try build up colours that way isn't. That's true both in studies and your own work
If colour is still too much at the moment, do some greyscale studies. The one you have here looks pretty solid! You look like you have a good understanding of value generally, even in your colour work, so if you want you can really push that to the next level or you can really focus in on colour to bring it closer to where you're at with values
The last thing I can say for now, and this is personal preference to be perfectly honest, is to avoid using the round brush. A lot of people will say you should be able to do a painting using just that brush or whatever but to be honest it's a pretty crappy way to work. Literally no artist in the history of everything has ever had such a poor tool to work with and for some reason we should be masters with it? Naww, play with some brushes that are more interesting and more natural, I think you'll like it more than the round brush. The round brush is pretty hard to work with and gives pretty "meh" results unless you have very strong foundational skills (anthony jones is very skilled with it for example)
Hope that helps, and feel free to ask anyone here for help!
First of all, definitely give yourself a good balance between study and personal work. It's a bit of a cliche at this point but studying really is the best way to get better. I'm a bit of outlier when it comes to how you go about it; most people would recommened just doing 100s and 100s of studies in as short a period of time as possible, but for me that didn't work. I found more value in sticking with something for a while and learning to correct my mistakes than to keep making the same ones over and over again, in some sense reinforcing the errors rather than really learning anything. Definitely intersperse it with quicker studies to see your improvement and to see if you can make fewer mistakes, but find the balance between long and short.
Second, avoid using blending modes and photoshop effects if at all possible. I think there's more value in learning how to paint from scratch and really understanding how colours work rather than using too many blending modes. They're very useful once you understand light and colour better and once you understand how they work themselves, but they aren't a substitute for good painting knowledge if that makes sense. Making slight value shifts with levels or with something is fine but to add colour and try build up colours that way isn't. That's true both in studies and your own work
If colour is still too much at the moment, do some greyscale studies. The one you have here looks pretty solid! You look like you have a good understanding of value generally, even in your colour work, so if you want you can really push that to the next level or you can really focus in on colour to bring it closer to where you're at with values
The last thing I can say for now, and this is personal preference to be perfectly honest, is to avoid using the round brush. A lot of people will say you should be able to do a painting using just that brush or whatever but to be honest it's a pretty crappy way to work. Literally no artist in the history of everything has ever had such a poor tool to work with and for some reason we should be masters with it? Naww, play with some brushes that are more interesting and more natural, I think you'll like it more than the round brush. The round brush is pretty hard to work with and gives pretty "meh" results unless you have very strong foundational skills (anthony jones is very skilled with it for example)
Hope that helps, and feel free to ask anyone here for help!