[PAINTING] Learning How to Design

[gregorkari]

Oooh wow! That's impressive! Especially the last post! How do you paint these amazing textures?
Also really like the 2 value sketches in #101. Is that on purpose that the edges burn out?
Keep it up -- rad sauce!

[Artloader]

Wow dude, you're fighting hard and winning! Those notans read really clearly and your thumbs look good too.

Keep it going mate!

[VoodooMama]

heey!

Wow amazing stuff! I really like your environments.
The textures and compositions are incredible
I would love to see your finished pieces too!
Your preview looks really cool atm

Cant' wait to see more!

[miracoly]

Hey Hey all!!

@gregorkari Thanks dude!! I'm not exactly sure what you mean with "burning out" but I think it may be due to the instagram filter

@Artloader Thanks man!! Just checked your SB, you're doing great as well! Nice to see you picking up the tradtional painting too

@VoodooMama Thanks Voodoo!! The finished pieces have to wait a while I guess, I have to get my fundamentals in place first.

I’m super hyped to share with you a little workflow I established for myself the last 2 weeks. As you may have noticed from my last few posts I really want to learn and master value as well as painting. I struggled a lot to get into a nice learning workflow and I tried a lot of approaches/resources to get there. The last thing I tried was taking Nathan Fowkes Schoolism class „Landscape Painting in Watercolor/Gouache“. And MAN, ITS PERFECT. He really starts with the basics like finding simple statements, getting the basic value structure, explaining how all the stuff works, explaining how color works etc etc. I’m currently in week 3 which is the first week to introduce color. So apart from all the stuff thats happening in class (which is a lot) I’m basically running through the same feedback loop every day. I will share the stuff I did today.

Basically the first step is to paint - in traditional media - a study. In this case those are plein-air’ish landscape studies in color (but works for value the same way). And this is the first eye-opener for me: I want to do this digitally eventually, but I constantly asking myself: which brush? how to do significant strokes? which color? which value? By learning this traditionally I’m getting a really good feel for what a brush must do to get what I want for example. I also get forced by the color mixing to think a lot more about color and value. So that process is great in itself.






After I done my studies I photograph them and go digital. I compile them next to my reference and start looking at the values as well as the colors. Basically I’m doing an overpaint-feedback session for myself and correcting all the mistakes I did by myself (as good as I can). Digital is super convenient. By doing the overpaints I really get to know what I want from my brushes and basically how I transfer to digital. Another great benefit. Then I take notes to implement them in my next paintings. 










Its a really nice process thats actually super rewarding. I dont know why that is but doing things traditionally first helps me so much to pick up new knowledge. My experience for getting into value painting is really starting with traditional landscape painting. I’m still having 6 1/2 weeks left of the schoolism program and I cant wait to get back to painting tomorrow. Have a nice day folks! 

[Artloader]

Wow dude - this process looks awesome - bringing your traditional paintings into digital and studying the values should really help your paint mixing skills! Is that gouache you're using? Looks cool! I love what you're doing here - keep it going man!

[VoodooMama]

hey! that is awesome! I heard good things about that course!
I really like the rock study
Thanks for sharing

[miracoly]

@Artloader Thanks man! Its watercolor + white gouache :)

@VoodooMama Thanks you :)

So, still doing the painting course but also dabbling more into digital to apply what I've learned so far :) And I'm quite surprised, all the fundamentals come together way better than I anticipated. I'm really liking the super stylized bold style a la Alberto Mielgo, so I'm experimenting with that a lot. Heres one of my recent paintings. I also included the process. Currently I really need to stick dogmatic to the linework - value - lighting - color process. Otherwise nothing is coming along really :D But it works so far and I'm learning so much by each painting I'm doing, so thats great. 

Anyway, feedback always appreciated, cheers guys!

[Joe]

maaaan, your stuff is so classy, I love it

[miracoly]

Thanks a lot Joe! :)

Long story short, I got myself a Ipad and been painting on it for the last week :) Here is some of the stuff I did come up with. Still focusing on how to approach painting.
















This on I did in PS, messing around with textured brushes.

[NoodleInBox]

Your simplification of shapes is great *.* I cant get enough of your last ipad paintings please post more haha

[alexdanila]

Really nice environment practices!

[The Aether Technician]

I'm seeing a ton of progress here! Keep up the awesome work!

I would focus on level of detail. The trolley painting works really well because everything is rendered to a similar degree. The smoking dude doesn't work quite as well because certain parts of the image are textured and have a lot of brush strokes, while others don't. This can work as long as you are really careful to put that extra detail on the focal point (right now the detail is on the foliage at the edges of the image).
Hope that makes sense?

[miracoly]

Thank you for your comments guys!

Hit on some good points The Aether Technician! Thank you for that, it definitely makes sense.

Some master studies from the recent days for the Nathan Fowkes Environment Design Class Wk1. 1 Hour studies - PS/IPad/Watercolor, No Color Picking/Tracing.

[Abnormal]

Really great stuff!!! O.O Thats really color and shape juice ^^.

[miracoly]

Thanks Abnormal!!

A quick compilation of daily study paintings from the last two weeks. Each 1 - 1 1/2h each morning. Also got a bunch of traditionals as well. Been doing two warmup paintings every day, one digital and one traditional. Great practice. Will post a more elaborated post on some of the project stuff later this day.

[neopatogen]

Nice studies, and lol I saw this tank image yesterday :) Looking forward to see your personal project!

How's your schoolism gouache going btw? You don't upload much of your your traditional stuff. I wanted to ask if sketching with gouache outside is convenient. I am goint to take some paints on a trip, not a fan of watercolors but gouache/acrylics seem to bee too bulky, and I won't have an easel so will probably have to use watercolors.