Can't remember how many sketchbooks I've stated here but here goes another one (always like a clean start). Thought I'd try to get back into posting my work somewhere online. Sort of dropped off the face of the planet for like a year or so. I guess I'll give a quick bio for those that don't know me (should be good at it by this point since I've had multiple sketchbook threads over the years).
My name is Tristan Berndt. I am a student at The Florence Academy of Art, studying classical/academic drawing/painting. I was previously self taught, learning from books, online sources, trial and error. Did that for a while and eventually managed to get some work in illustration and some minor concept art jobs.
Anyway, one thing lead to another and I ended up deciding that I needed to get a lot better and the way I wanted to do this was through classical training. After a bunch of research, visiting ateliers, talking with students and instructors, getting all kinds of advice and so on, I felt like FAA was perfect for me (and I think I was right in that assessment) I'm on break right now, having been there for a year, just counting the days until the next trimester.
I used to work all digital but now, after having been working for some time exclusively with traditional mediums at the atelier, I've really fallen in love with it, so I'd say most of the things I do during my free time is also traditional (still do a bit of digital every now and then).
I'll be posting whatever I'm up to. Thinking of doing some landscape drawing when the weather gets better.
This image is just something I made to goof around with. Wanted to play around with keying and compressing values
Welcome back Tristan - I think I joined up after you went dormant but I was looking through the Crimson Cadavers thread the other day - that stuff looks like a great study strategy - are you still doing that kind of stuff?
“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Hey, Artloader. I sort of still do that stuff. At the atelier, we study anatomy slightly differently. What we do is that we hire a model and setup a spotlight on them to get a strong impression of the figures' form. We then go about blocking in the model, after that we start to draw the anatomy of the model from the inside out, adding layer upon layer, using books and a monitor with 3D anatomy software as reference. All of this is done while referring to the model's landmarks to guide our understanding of the anatomy beneath the skin. After we have basically a skinless figure as a drawing, we start to establish a light/dark relationship and render over the anatomy, to eventually end up with a figure drawing. Usually we just do one part of the model at a time (like torso, arms, back etc.) and do a 2 hour drawing. We do this to study not only the anatomy but also how it is appears on the figure through its forms. It's a really interesting approach and it has a very direct and practical application.
--------------------
Still feels kinda weird trying to make a drawing digitally. I can't really find a way to make it feel like pencil or charcoal :/ Maybe I just need to mess around with it some more. Did this quick drawing of a Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux sculpture. Had to do some stuff today so not too much drawing was done, but I did have a bunch of lectures saved up on my phone so I could listen to stuff while I did other stuff ;)
Welcome back man. I'd suggest if you have the time, to start up a thread which describes some of the techniques / approaches you guys get at your atelier. I know it takes time, but it's easier to do it as you go, and would be more efficient than commenting in random sketchbooks (not to dissuade you from keeping on doing that!)
I think it would help a lot of people to get that perspective of things here as self-teachers who don't have the benefit of that tradition! I figure you'll be too busy for it when term starts again, but just thought I'd plant the seed.
Hey, man.
Yeah, I'd totally be up for something like that, the problem is just that I don't know where to start ;) There's a lot to cover and so much nuance that I'd feel bad about doing a "these are the steps you follow to make a cast drawing" because it's more about the ideas involved rather than the specific process or technique.
I might be able to do short-ish posts about smaller principals and techniques. Maybe I'll do some video tutorial stuff or something. If you have any suggestions on what I might do, let me know!
I've been working on a little (well maybe not little...) e-book as a personal project that basically coverers everything I know about drawing and painting in quite considerable depth but that's a long way from being finished. I'm guessing the drawing portion of the book will be done in 6 months or so and the painting part will be done in like 2 years. Also, I'm gonna try to get the people I know in different schools to chip in and help out when it comes to the different approaches and techniques. So I'll ask someone I know at like the Repin academy to walk through what they focus on and the same for Grand Central, SARA and wherever else I know people.
The real reason why I'm doing it is to just help myself by clarifying my own understanding and to aid my own learning while in school, but I've thought of just posting it all online somewhere whenever I'm done with it.
I'll try and be around when the next term starts. I've started to manage my time a lot better and have been getting both more work and more learning done at school while also getting more free time.
This time I used a warm underpainting. It's was super nice to establish general values early so those first few blobs of "paint" didn't look super awkward by themselves.
Another quickie. I should probably start using opacity a bit more to sort of glaze areas of the image a bit. Right now I kinda get a very opaque look and while that works for a lot, I think I'd get more of an 'umph' if I gazed it a bit.
Quick pencil thing. Was kinda lazy so I used fairly hard pencils to draw this so I didn't have to sharpen them as often. Will do another pencil drawing tomorrow and keep them sharp so I draw more easily.
First off just wanted to say your work is really tight! REally impressed as you really have been looking at your anatomy and understand the surface anatomy and underlying anatomy well.
Thanks for dropping by my SB recently, you left behind a marvelous message that really got me thinking- particularly with regards to compressed tones. Is there any where i can read up more on this or does this all circulate in the atelier crowds ;) You were also saying Rembrandt uses compressed tones, i was wondering if there were any pieces he did which really pushed this to give a bolder tonal arrangement.
Hey, Kimonas! Appreciate the comment. You know, I used to really be afraid of tight drawings and paintings. When I started learning I tried to do the whole lasso tool thing to get everything super tight and I just felt as if the tightness was like putting chains around my arms because it got difficult to work with. Then one of my instructors at the atelier really helped me realise that there was a way for me to be specific with my work without making it so tight it's impossible to work with and change.
This specific way of thinking about values isn't something I've seen too much about online, at least not in-depth. Oh, and you can wait two years until I publish my book on drawing and painting, then it will be available ;P
Anyway, a lot of rembrandt paintings have this effect but the best thing is if you can see them in person, they look a little weird sometimes on photos because of the dark values. I decided to make an example for you.
In this image we have basically two ways of doing something. On the left, a high key and the right, low key. I used the same limited value scale on both examples. The difference being that on the left, I grouped together the brightest bright and bright mid-tone to give me more room in the value scale to show how the eyes are very dark and to show the dark accents in the hair and pit of the neck. On the painting on the right we have the opposite where the darkest dark and next to darkest dark have been grouped to be able to show how bright the highlights are on his forehead, noes and chin. You can also design it in a way where you say "I want the head to stand out" and adjust your values accordingly, something Rembrandt also has done a lot.
On both of these, it is not only that the value scale is shifted but also that the accompanying values have also moved closer together to give that extra bit of push to the light values. Look at some of Rembrandt's paintings and consider how dark the people's clothes are compared to the background.
You could just have lowered the contrasts until you could have gotten both of the light and dark areas but there is more than one reason why value compression is useful. It is also something we can use as an anchor in our image to orient ourselves properly. A reference point we can base our value judgments on and without a good compression, it becomes very difficult to properly place your values in your work.
Working on this Edelfelt master study. Definitely one of my favourite painters ever.
I'm gonna start painting over the line work tomorrow and really start digging into those shapes.
By the way. This band is really fucking good. Blast it through my headphones a lot when working
Heya! I hope you're enjoying your time in Florence :D How is the weather? I've seen these arteliers to great things to people so I'll hope we'll see you turn into a beautiful art butterfly, too haha.
No other complains from me here. Keep us updated on your journey!
Really nice anatomy drawings :D I'm really digging your lines!
On the small female knight, I think you could work a little on the proportions of the head and face, it's looking a little too big in comparison to the body. I made a quick paintover. I see what you're trying to do with the colour variation in the face, but be aware of; it can easily start to look more like a value shift rather than a colour shift . I would also look at some reference for the armor so you get reflectivity and texture right :)
Took a bit of a chill break for a week. Appreciate the comments everyone.
BjorkJT Hey, I appreciate the paint-over thing but I would have hoped for something more. The image is obviously stylised and in a case like that, critiquing something like the size of the head has to be done on aesthetic grounds. In yours, the proportions are still extremely off if we want to be realistic so if there should be a change in proportions, you would have to make either a consistency argument (that the approach to stylisation needs to be applied more consistently throughout the image) or an aesthetic argument for why a different stylisation would be appropriate. The same for the rendering. You've broken stylistic consistency without an argument for it. If you don't give these kinds of arguments, it all just ends up being a "this is what I would have done" and it does not seek to build upon the foundation that the original work has established.
I gave Jonas Jerde a critique in my paint-over thread that was all about stylistic aesthetics where a full argument was made for the change in his work. You can see it here http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-7832.html I'd consider this illustrative of what I'd look for in a critique or a paintover. I'd encourage you that if you are to make paintovers and critiques of people's work, you take it seriously and use it as a basis for discussion on artistic principals :)
Anyway. Working on this illustration thing. Been scribbling around with different ideas to try and find something I like. Also I've been messing a lot with different pressure sensitivity settings on my tablet. Not really sure what to go with...
PS. here's one of my pencil drawings from the first trimester. Found this image so I thought I'd post it. It was taken like a week before I finished the drawing so it's a little patchy but you get the idea ;)
