Sooo geez painting these sunflowers is hard, trying to get non high school level edges on this is challenging. I need to go in and make a darker more fierce shadow on the floewers but if i mix black it makes a horrible greenish hue since it sends to colors into greys. Umber works better since its naturally warmer with the straight orange, but balancing all the strong colors is very difficult!
Finally drew some heads from imagination im actually satisfied with :). I look at them over and over and i say, yes these have emotion, they have variety, they seem to even have narrative (like they could be related in a story), and i couldnt ask for more, even if im aping someone elses style. I spent about 2 or 3 hrs today after these heads to start a figure drawing from imagination but nothing was working with the gesture so i never ended up saving anything and just busting out the anatomy book and learning plenty of things.
Gonna try to do the last touches on the flowers and life drawing tomorrow, who knows whattl happen <3
Hey Fedo, those invented heads in post #1,661 are really nice. Very believable.
Your sunflowers are coming along as well. Mixing paint traditionally is a slow process isn't it?
Maybe next go in with a fine brush and add detail to the areas you want the viewer to focus on? Unless you're following some Atelier class and they have prescribed what to do.
Keep going mate!
“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Artloader: many thanks my man, as im sure many are aware, im always trying to move away from the downey look ;)
And im done with those sunnies, moving on to a still life im setting up myself with some spider lillies and these little white flowers. Ill try to get a picture tomorrow of it.
Worked more today than i feel like i have. Memory drawings makin me feel like i suck so bad, which is great, coming to terms with flaws quicker gets them out of the way. Im surprised, like with this digital figure sketch was one i did from memory study yesterday and i got it quite close to the original almost 90%. The little sketches I do from memory are often just a painful reminder that my drawing skills need a lot of developing. Maybe in 10 years ill feel confident enough to put a porfolio together to get some FFG work ;)
Super cool live study! I really like your dynamic line drawings! I love the delicate rendering on the cup !
To be constructive, I think the background is too dark and muddy , compared to the photo the wall seem much brighter and clearer. The metal might have more contrasted value change (hard to tell, I wasn't there, but this is what I feel by comparing with the reference).
baldgate, thanks for the reply, i intentionlly made the background dark because didnt have a dark cloth to hang up, will type more later, keybord messed up :< prolly till monday
Good looking figure (and head) studies, as always...
I want to see you take your painting(s) to the next level, though.
I know you're done with the sunflowers for now, but I feel like it's lacking that final layer of crispness/focus in the details that would really make it sing. Try to hit that with your new still life study -- while things can be loose and painterly over all, the eye needs to be directed a bit with values and details so that it has places to focus. Everything in the sunflower piece is rendered to about the same level, but if you were to add just a few sharper highlights or details in a spot or two, I think it would bump the quality of the piece up. See if you can create that selective detail/focus in your new piece.
I like the darker background for the new still life -- I think it'll pop the flowers forward more and create a nice contrast with the bright teacup in the foreground. I feel like the flowers towards the top of the piece need to maybe fade out into darkness as they move upward because they're so close to the edge of the canvas. I would darken them down and have them visually disappear into that background a bit to help bring the attention downward in the composition -- I think it'll give things the feeling of a bit more breathing room.
Riley: yes, i had literally had all those thoughts about my last one. Its tough transitioning to oil, because like i can see colors and i know what they are but i cant figure out how to mix an equivelant of say the very teal colored wall, i cant find a pigment strong like that, so i just mixed the blacker colors, and i should have pushed that more to pop everything else out. Totally agree tho, and ill do better next time for sure but itll be a while before theres a next time on another painting.
Im hanging these in my friends store as a decoration so i dont have them at the house anymore. I have a big figure show coming up november 9th so this month im going to be hardcore preparing for that. Today i only have these vanderpoel studies that really rocked me. Doing the memory things really made me appreciate all the subtelty and variety in his choice of edges and volume. Its really incredible how a human can come up with such an abstract beautiful representation of an eye that is more beautiful than a real eye.
Im gonna go through a lot more of his stuff because its really awesome and i wont be doing any painting till after the show. Im just going to do some very nice charcoal drawings of figures, 4 finished pieces that i will be very delicate and take my time with to ensure very high quality. I spent a lot of time today watching videos from watts, maybe 4 or so hours so i didnt get around to a lot of drawing, so ill try to get back to that tomorrow and bang out another 8 pages of figure studies since they are so helpful.
Hello Fedodika, really nice figure studies ! Very pleasant, the face gives a warm feeling.
By the way, I just started still life in digital painting and hard some trouble setting up a perspective, didn't know how hight to put the vanishing point, and how much at the left or right put the object. Do you have any method for this kind of things?
Good luck with your show, I'm eager to see your charcoal figure if you post them here !
I give you credit for even just attempting to paint traditionally, Fedodika... I can’t even imagine how difficult mixing correct paint colors and attempting accurate values has to be. It’s hard enough to choose those things digitally sometimes, never mind replicating them with actual oil paint!
Nice eyes, btw. (Not hitting on you, I just like your recent studies. lol)
Baldgate: Thx my dude <3 and I did my best to give you my wal mart perspective tips in your SB
Riley: I just need more practice... copying more and other still lives to build up my mixing skills. Its so simple in digital, but truly understanding color relativity is a whole nuva level!
These are soul crushingly tough, just the amount of suck im coming to terms with is tough, very helpful though, wish i could do more but they are stressful because the amount of problem solving involved
You have some really nice studies here. It's evident you are delving into many different areas of study. I think having a broad range of studies is very good. I like your mix of fine art figure studies and more stylizing ones. I like your still life of the flowers, but I think you could have pushed the range of values and colors. It seemed to me like you played it a little safe, but I still like what you achieved. Nice stuff!
Shink: Thanks bruv, it was my first attempt at setting up an oil painting still life, could been way worse i think. I really wanna study some daniel keyes before i move back into it, and the rest of jeffs stuff of course. But yea gotta just move on really
Meat:it all comedown to paying attention to the right things.
Got a quick comission to draw a couple, the girl is cute but the guy isnt great looking. gonn have to do some editing and beautifying with the ol charcoal pencil. Gonna try to get that done by saturday. Also a study after Erik Gist, been also looking at some expressive figure work from Stefen Molyneux (not the youtuber.) hes got some really cool shit for life drawing!
First one is a commission, learned a few things about how you gotta make sure your lay in lines arent too heavy, and how the pencil strokes should follow an intelligent design, preferably the same direction, or at least in a way that follows the form. Im really gonna buckle down for this gallery show, yes im gonna be drawing the same subject matter alot for a while of just trying to refine my figure drawings/portraits.
The two studies in here are after erik gist, the female portrait looks better in person because it was night when i finished it and the flash kills the tones. Need to watch jeff render ears again, i was struggling with those in getting those nice form shadows and the changes in value in the shadows. The subtelty in the jawline just killed me, i cannot comprehend how to get edges to transition that soft. I think i have a semblence though of an idea. All comes down to that well sharpened pencil, ey.
More goin crazy tomorrow, stay tuned. Gonna put caricature on hold for a while, hopefully forever, and see what i can do this winter.
