Flo's sketchbook

[Flo]

Hey guys,

happy new year everybody. I hope you had a great time with your friends and families and are as excited as I am about the new year.

I will start a new painting course tomorrow, where I hopefully learn to better use my watercolors and acrylics. So I will post stuff from that in here. Until then some sketches and caricatures.

Cheerio!

[Flo]

Hey guys,

some more pages from my sketchbook and some watercolor sketches as well.

I hope you like or you give me some advice on how to get better at it :)

[Flo]

hey guys,

here are some caricature sketches for the last assignment for Jason Seilers class. I will post everything I do for that here and I would appreciate any comment or crit.

The 2 master studys are done for Nathan Fowkes' class on Designing concept art with light and color. The one with the many figures was really tough

Also there is a portrait I did in charcoal for a friend of my mother and a caricature for a personal fried who had birthday.

The last thing was a concept for a vampire I did just for fun. I found a picture of a really skinny woman and used it as a reference for the muscles and the pose.

If you guys are interested: when shading a drawing I usually define my darkest darks first. They are the easiest to guess and you cant overdo them. After that I have an easier time figuring out the other values.

Cheers,
Flo

[Flo]

Hey guys,

I hope you have been good, the last week. I didn't post in a while, because I was really busy AND I started to play Dark Souls 2. I really enjoy the game and it took up one evening or the other. ;)

But apart from that I also decided to post less frequent, but with more information in the single post. It feels like I sometimes had the urge to post something in order to stay in the "buzz" and have the feeling to be relevant to the art-community. You hear a lot of the "getting your art in front of people"-argument, that I can develop quite a strong power. There were occasions were I lost interest in a study and just wanted to finish it, because I wanted to show it to someone, without actually having gotten any information from it. So from now on, I will post my studies at the end of the week, with the things I learned and personal thoughts. That way I can work, learn and study without interruptions and hopefully have something worth reading and looking at by the end of the week. I can't promise it, but I think with getting my priorities more on art-making and less on PR I can accumulate more interesting stuff over the week.

So this is my first attempt at doing exactly this.

First thing: my 2 Schoolism courses kept me busy this week, here are compiled all of the copies I did for Nathan Fowkesthe and the caricature-sketches I did for Jason Seiler . I kept the copies under 60 min and tried to keep them simple. I already got video feedback by Nathan. In short, I have an issue keeping the contrast close to the original.

What that means is that in my copies, the viewer's eye is lead to other spots than in the original. By extension it means that I didn't fully understand, what the creator of the original intended to say and do with her color joices. By using to much contrast, the groups (light, midvalue, darks) are getting broken up too much. This results in confusing and unrelated splotches of color in the painting instead of harmonious gradients and transitions.

All except the last 2 of the studies (one is from Anders Zorn, the other one by Kekai Kotaki) were taken out of James Gurney's book called "Color and light", so if you want to see the originals, you have to look there. I tried scanning them in, but it washes out a lot of the values, so the copies seemed even more off-contrast than they already are. If you do art, I recommend the book anyway. It is really great and has a ton of important information in it.



















For the caricatures I didn't get any feedback yet, but I am sure it will come next week.The topic will be an illustration about Kim Jing Un and Barack Obama. We have to do sketches of both, then decide on a composition and do sketches of it and lastly paint it. This will happen over the next 3 weeks.

While doing them I stumbled upon this video on Ctrl+Paint which helped me a lot in doing faster sketches that I like to look at way more than before. The big improvement for me was using big brushes in the beginning stages and getting progressively smaller and smaller for the later stages. It was something I heard a lot of times but only really started doing now and I love it. It makes for cleaner, more tydied-up sketches, which I like doing more than having a lot of stray lines, that distract and confuse. So after doing 50% of the studies, I did the rest with the new technique. I think the difference is pretty obvious in the pictures below.





Here are some studies I did for pictures for Hanman Media Production*. It is really pleasant to work with Hannes who is the CEO of Hanman Media Productions.







I hope I can deliver the pictures before my daughter is born, they are the last big thing, I want to get done before the February 1st, which is the calculated day she will be born.

I try to keep up the at-least-1-study-per-day-habit, so this one is from today. After doing it I tried to paint a sketch with the things I learned from the study. Looking at it now, I see that the study works better because one of the lights is more important than the other. In the study the cool light dominates aroung 50% of the picture, while black color is in around 40% and the warm light gets the last 10%. In my sketch both lights get roughly the same importance, so in the result it isn't clear what the mood-statement is.
Also a thing I learned is that there is a local color, which is independent of the dominant light-sources. I guess that it is colored in the color of the object and the sorrounding objects? But I am not sure there, I will have to do more studies concerning this.





This is a study of a painting by Manfred Schatz. What I really love about it, is that way he managed edges to show movement, the big brush-strokes in the areas that are of no big interest like the corners of the image and how the brushmarks get smaller towards the face and lastly the color-variation in the shadow-areas. He also paints details mostly in the light-side of the lynx, so you always get drawn to it. Another thing is the cool, desaturated colors everywhere, except the animal, which makes for a nice color contrast.




This study is from James Gurney's Color and Light, which I mentioned above. It is from the first chapter, which is called "Direct sunlight". He writes that it is important to always subordinate the secondary and tertiary light-sources to the primary. In this picture the primary light-source is the sun, the secondary is the cool-blue sky-light and the tertiary is the bounced light. You can see the blue light in the planes that face toward us, because they don't get a lot of the tertiary warm bounced light. Because it is the light from the sky-dome, the colors tend to get cooler. The tertiary light can be seen on the downward facing planes, which get a lot of bounced light, coming up from the wall and the ground.




Lastly I want to say, that I don't try to sound super-smart or anything when I post all those findings. Mainly I try to understand the paint-techniques better by vocalizing and writing down what jumps out at me. It helps me to not only do the studies, but then make notes and write it here so I can jump back to re-read what I found out. If it helps you, I am glad. If you read this, I am thankful anyway.

[Flo]

Hey guys,

I am working on the assignment for the caricature class and I would love some opinions from you guys. Are the colors and values okay so far? Do you get what is happening or would you need some explaning text? Are the likenesses good? etc. anything really would help.

I didn't post in a because my daughter Ida was born and things have changed a bit as you can imagine. So if anyone helps me a bit on the assignment I would be very happy.

Oh and this is Ida :)

[Flo]

Hey guys,

I am uploading a bunch of the assignments for the Schoolism class under Nathan Fowkes at once, so you get a good overview of what I was doing the last weeks.

Week 2

We got a 3D render-image and we were supposed to add a cool and a warm light contrasting each other. I did a Rembrandt-study before starting out, to get an idea of some of the materials a soldier/knight would wear.


So this was my final assignment:


Mr Fowkes mentioned that I did render every material the same way, as you can see on the cloth of the arm and for instance the leather and the metal. They all have the same value range, so they don't look different enough to really read as different materials. Also my local colors are all quite greyish and desaturated and they don't react correctly to the color of light. Another problem was, that I didn't show enough of subsurface scattering in the skin to really make it look like being alive.

So here is the overpaint by Mr Fowkes.



Week 3

This week we were supposed to create a scene with a warm/cool color contrast and paint it 5 times at least with different warm/cool contrasts. After doing 4 or 5, I watched the critique-sessions of other students and I realized that I only shifted the hues and not the values, saturation and so on. Hue is only one aspect of color, so I did 5 more.

Before starting out I designed a forest creature that I put in the scene later.






These are the final 6 versions (+1 value version and a ref / study-sheet) of my scene.


The main critique-point was that I didn't use local colors enough. In every image the local color (the color of the object in neutral light) is more or less grey. So actually a bit like in the assignment of week 2, so for the next time I really didn't want to make the same mistake again.

Week 4

This time the goal was to create a scene and change the colors to get different emotional reactions from the image. To get a bit into the mood I did some small color roughs. The idea is to take 2 complementary colors and make an image only with those 2 colors. The main trick is to mix the 2 colors in most of the places because complementary colors desaturate one another so you can leave only a few saturated areas in your image. That way the image doesn't look garish.

Since Ida was born during this weeks assignment, I tried to keep it simple and get back to my family fast.


This was this week's assignment:


This time Mr Fowkes said, that he missed contrasts of cool and warm at some places. He also did a quick demo of choosing appropriate colors for clouds since in my "friendly" picture, the clouds only go from white to blue. So I missed the opportunity to add a nice warm / cool contrast. So next time I wanted to focus more on those.

Week 5

This is the latest piece


and the overpaint.



He pushed the feeling of size and largeness (is that a word?) in the picture. I think the overpaint says enough this time.

Cheers,
Flo

[Flo]

Hey guys,

I wanted to share some of the studies I did over the last weeks. They are all from James Gurney's book "Color and Light". You should buy it, if you don't already own it, it is pure gold and I always grab for it while painting something to remember myself of all those principles and things.

The first one is of Overcast Light

- this happens when the sky is full with clouds
- the light gets diffuses by the clouds and mostly colorless
- the light gets in most of the shadows so they are diffused too
- it is good for complex scenes, because you don't have to think a lot about shadow shapes
- also the color of the objects is mostly local-color

In "Light - for visual artists" by Richard Yot, it says three more important things:

- light on overcast days becomes bluer as the sun sets
- reflections on surfaces are coming from the whole sky so they too are softer than on sunny days
- the colors are quite saturated, because the are so little colors from the light mixing in




Window Light

- the natural light coming in from the window is usually cool, because it comes either from the sky (blueish) or from clouds (of course, if there is an artificial source, it can be every color)
- the underplanes are often hit by the surfaces outside (dirt, grass, concrete, etc.) so it is important to consider this
- the light from inside the room depends on the source but it is usually warm (lightbulb, fire), so it gives a nice contrast to the cool from the outside




Candlelight / Firelight

- it is warm
- it falls off really fast. James Gurney even quotes a calculation for the falloff, called the "inverse square law" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law.
- around the flame is often times smoke that gets illuminated and forms a halo




some watercolors of the same page. My scanner is not the best, so this will have to do right now.




this is from the book's cover




I will keep up the Gurney-studies, because they really help me to understand the content of the book better. Check back soon for more. :)

Cheers,
Flo

[Flo]

Hey guys.

here a creature illustration. :)

Any critique?

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this forum seems to have deleted the last post, so here it is again (only better)

[Flo]

hey guys,

this is a WIP for the last assignment for nathan fowkes' course over at Schoolism. The goal is to make a finished portfolio piece. We did thumbnails, tonal roughs, color roughs and are now taking it to the finish. If you have any suggestions (color, comp, light, design) please leave me a crit. It is much appreciated.

Cheers,
Flo

[Flo]

the next stage of the last assignment. What do you think?

[Flo]

well, the last stage of the painting, before I go around and implement all the feedback I got from Nathan Fowkes.

another thing: this thread seems kinda dead to me. I don't know if people come here anymore and it is probably my fault by not having cool enough stuff, not posting regularly (although I didn't feel like that helped in the past) and not being very activ myself in the forum. so if anybody drops by and reads this, please let me know that you are out there. and if you are a returning person, I would love to know what I can do to make you return more often. let me know.

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1h study

those colors D:

[JavierP]

Hi Flo,
I check your sketchbook often, because you produce quality work quite consistently. Many times there is no reason to offer critique, so I don't say anything. I think you should keep up the good work; for your own fulfillment, not for pageviews or to generate comments from other people. Ultimately your artistic journey ends up also being one of self discovery. Keep posting good work and I'm sure many people will keep checking in on this sketchbook as well. Hope this helps.

J

[Flo]

Hey Javier,

you are right in saying that this whole journey is not done for anybody else but me. But it is just way more fun to have contact with other people and do it together. I probably have some self-esteem issues, but doesn't every artist has them? I totally get not writing stuff in other peoples sketchbooks, I usually don't do it. Still it feels super-nice to hear that you check in here regularly. <3

I will post more soon, I just recently had a breakthrough, for a first time after a long time now.

[Flo]

Hey guys,

I finished two caricatures I did for my girlfriend's grandparents, so I took the opportunity to scan and photograph a lot of other sketches I did in the last days and weeks too. Hope you like it, I usually don't post EVERYTHING, I am just too lazy for that. To be honest I never considered photographing, only scanning which takes ages and produces crappy images. So maybe in the future I will share more of this. Maybe.

The watercolors were done mostly at night after I changed the Ida's diaper and while Sarah was nursing her. It was always very peaceful and I loved those moments. But I did them on the changing-table and had to be slumped over a bit, which killed my back after some time.

The sketches are from walks through the park with the baby, or just from imagination. I feel like I am learning to draw with a fineliner right now, my friend Milan gave me a great one for birthday and I am using it ever since.

The last one is a portrait I did in charcoal as a private commision. I never mirrored it but I feel like I would be shocked, if I did haha

Cheers

[Flo]

some color studies 25 min - 1h :)

[Flo]

I recently got nominated for a challange over at Facebook. I had to post everyday 1 picture and nominate a new person for the challange. It was a lot of fun, because I didn't want to spend ages on a painting but didn't want to post crap. So I had to find a good balance. I was kinda happy with the lava-creature until my girlfriend dissed it lol she meant it didn't have any details. Well, if you like it let me know, took around 1h to make







and some traditional stuffs





I still have problems with bringing the information from my studies to my imagionation stuff. For instance today I painted those and it still looks weird to me.





I don't seem to know how to mix a color that is hit by sunlight. Is it by adding yellow or red or increasing the saturation (if the color isn't cold), did I just answer my own question?

[Flo]

hey guys,

this is still a WIP, it is the final for the light-and-color-course I took

The theme was "Hunger"

[Flo]

nr 1
cleaning up my upload folder

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nr 2

still cleaning

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studies and sketchbookpages :D

[eru]

Hey Dude your amazing I wish you were my teacher lol, but your work is awesome to see. From Environments to People to character design and Caricatures. Its like you can draw anything without know anything about it.

[Flo]

Hey man, great to hear that. I don't think I am ready to be anyone's teacher and there is plenty of resources out there to help you. but if you have a question, just write it down. hehe I know, I don't know anything about most topics, but hey, who really does?

here is the current WIP feel free to comment and crit