First time I start a sketchbook, so will just start from my study and go from there.
Did a master study of Thomas Moran Waterfall in Yosemite. I really would like some help/tips with recognizing colors and painting overall, all feels so uncontrolled and I keep guessing colors instead of understanding. Thanks in advance!
Hey, welcome to the forum. Your piece is quite nice, but your problem lies (as usually for everyone) with values. I'd advise to do some value studies in grayscale, it should help you to understand color better as value is the primary aspect of color (then there are hue and saturation).
It would be great if you joined the Materials and Effects study group in this forum.
Another masterstudy. Started placing values in black and white and tried to switch to color when I thought I placed most of the values, but ended up in black and white.
I'm getting rather confused on what to do and what not. I try to stick with a round brush but for some reason it does not feel comfortable. Also when it comes to detailing I get stuck. Should I zoom in more to get every detail in? I keep getting the idea that I'm not ''painting'' the right way when it comes to placing brush strokes. When I paint it feels more like I'm filling up a coloringbook for kids or just copying, I end up painting with a very small brush (3 pixels or so) to get in the details and I'm pretty sure that's not the way.
Any advice how I should approach ''painting'' stuff?
(03-06-2016, 06:58 AM)BrushNoir Wrote: Another masterstudy. Started placing values in black and white and tried to switch to color when I thought I placed most of the values, but ended up in black and white.
I'm getting rather confused on what to do and what not. I try to stick with a round brush but for some reason it does not feel comfortable. Also when it comes to detailing I get stuck. Should I zoom in more to get every detail in? I keep getting the idea that I'm not ''painting'' the right way when it comes to placing brush strokes. When I paint it feels more like I'm filling up a coloringbook for kids or just copying, I end up painting with a very small brush (3 pixels or so) to get in the details and I'm pretty sure that's not the way.
Any advice how I should approach ''painting'' stuff?
If you don't find round brush comfortable-change it. Personally, i like to use pens,markers and pen-brush. In photoshop I created brushes that mimic traditional tools so that i can feel comfortable using them. If you are painting, I would advise you to google textured brushes.Check them out and stick to the brush(or several brushes!) you will love the most.
In terms of painting details..Look at it that way: zoom out your reference image so you can see only a big shapes.Paint them.And when you feel like there is no space to add more,precise details, you need to zoom in a bit.And paint. That's the basic strategy of painting things. Check out Sycra video about painting complicated things ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5n02cADcSk ) It will help you!
Oh! And one more important thing before painting is to always make your image size bigger! Comfortable size for painting is 16x9 inches.
(03-06-2016, 06:58 AM)BrushNoir Wrote: Another masterstudy. Started placing values in black and white and tried to switch to color when I thought I placed most of the values, but ended up in black and white.
I'm getting rather confused on what to do and what not. I try to stick with a round brush but for some reason it does not feel comfortable. Also when it comes to detailing I get stuck. Should I zoom in more to get every detail in? I keep getting the idea that I'm not ''painting'' the right way when it comes to placing brush strokes. When I paint it feels more like I'm filling up a coloringbook for kids or just copying, I end up painting with a very small brush (3 pixels or so) to get in the details and I'm pretty sure that's not the way.
Any advice how I should approach ''painting'' stuff?
If you don't find round brush comfortable-change it. Personally, i like to use pens,markers and pen-brush. In photoshop I created brushes that mimic traditional tools so that i can feel comfortable using them. If you are painting, I would advise you to google textured brushes.Check them out and stick to the brush(or several brushes!) you will love the most.
In terms of painting details..Look at it that way: zoom out your reference image so you can see only a big shapes.Paint them.And when you feel like there is no space to add more,precise details, you need to zoom in a bit.And paint. That's the basic strategy of painting things. Check out Sycra video about painting complicated things ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5n02cADcSk ) It will help you!
Oh! And one more important thing before painting is to always make your image size bigger! Comfortable size for painting is 16x9 inches.
Good luck to you!
Thanks! That really solved alot of questions I had!
Your last Master study - Hans Fredrik Gude reads a lot better than your former studies! I turned it into a gray-scale to check and yup, it's a lot better! I see you working on the detailing part. I can't say much about it,as i'm struggling with it too, but as S4murai_cat said, zoom in more and more once you feel it's to small to make accurate details. That's how i do it too.
(03-08-2016, 05:04 AM)BlackDelphin Wrote: Your last Master study - Hans Fredrik Gude reads a lot better than your former studies! I turned it into a gray-scale to check and yup, it's a lot better! I see you working on the detailing part. I can't say much about it,as i'm struggling with it too, but as S4murai_cat said, zoom in more and more once you feel it's to small to make accurate details. That's how i do it too.
Cheers!
Thanks alot! I think I'm sort off starting to understand values/colors or at least recognizing them. Detailing is still hard but the zooming tip really helps alot though.
Awesome job with the Masterstudy Bierstadt! I'm loving it! It has a powerful value structure.
And i'm loving how that color scheme turned out! Did you add color on top of the values?
The 30min sketch doesn't read as well. But i think it's mostly a composition issue. Try turning it into
a thumbnail and adjust it after that. I mean, in the mastersutdy you have your foreground really
dark valued trees, a river that leads to the mountain, and the mountain, both being a light value.
It reads well and it has good composition too.
Or you could adjust the values more.
I turned your original in a grayscale, and my eyes went everywhere, i don't have a path to go on.
I tried adjusting that to explain better, i hope this helps.
(03-09-2016, 12:18 PM)BlackDelphin Wrote: Awesome job with the Masterstudy Bierstadt! I'm loving it! It has a powerful value structure.
And i'm loving how that color scheme turned out! Did you add color on top of the values?
The 30min sketch doesn't read as well. But i think it's mostly a composition issue. Try turning it into
a thumbnail and adjust it after that. I mean, in the mastersutdy you have your foreground really
dark valued trees, a river that leads to the mountain, and the mountain, both being a light value.
It reads well and it has good composition too.
Or you could adjust the values more.
I turned your original in a grayscale, and my eyes went everywhere, i don't have a path to go on.
I tried adjusting that to explain better, i hope this helps.
Yeah you're right, looks alot better. I start in color and and check values in between with a b/w layer. When it comes to composition and stuff from imagination I'm still really behind.
I find it hard to do foliage and trees, I keep going in and wanting to paint all the small things instead of the big picture. Need to keep an eye on that.
Because of work today I could not spend more time on it.
Oh man, nice masterstudies going on! Such a great way to improve ones art.
If you're having trouble with focusing on small details too early on (maybe this has been said before, but whatever heh) Try painting really zoomed out at first.
Then the initial image will just be color blotches and big shapes, and then zoom in a bit more to render away at the focal points before anything else. Once the focal points are rendered you know how much detail the other stuff will need to have since they can't be as detailed as your focal areas. Hope it makes some sense and helps a bit :)
But you're doing great! Keep at it with those studies and don't forget to do something from imagination in between to apply what you've learned from them.
@Adzerak, yeah that's what I'm practising but once zoomed in I have trouble painting for example all those little leaves and branches. As for applying what I've learned I try to do a piece afterwards from imagination but for the last piece I was lacking time :(. Thanks alot for the advice!
Welcome to the community! Good start in your SB. Master studies are always a great idea and you inspire me to do them as well :)
About the over-detailing; everyone loves to get lost in details I used to do that as well. What helped me to overcome this was to compare two of my works. One was overdetailed and my eyes (and the viewer's) look at everywhere, and the other one was very simple but effective. I used detailes just to emphasise the focal point. I promise once you most focus on the focal point your works will immediately level up!
Hope to see more of your works.
Quicksketch from imagination to try and apply things
Trying to figure out 'base colors', I find it hard when I'm doing a masterstudy to figure out what the base color is of an object. So need some practise on that. Phew... so much to learn still haha.
Hey! These are looking good and I think this time you nailed the focal point :) I might be wrong but the base color is the mid color of an object. It can't be the same color neither with the shadows nor the highlights. It's like a foundation. I hope that makes sense.
