gina's sketchbook

[berrybloogenes]

so for the past few days i've been throwing myself into 1 hour background/painting studies, having never drawn a background in my LIFE and being horrible at painting. and it hasn't been pretty, but i'm still feeling my way around. alright... so... what you're about to see may be... frightening. but we all start somewhere, right?

[chubbycat]

Hey, berrybloogenes!

Firstly I want to commend you for taking the dive and exploring a side of art you find intimidating. It's something we should all do more often :P

My main bit of advice is to be aware of your angles and perspective. Stuff like the ceiling beam, triangular roof, round table next to the bed, etc. are slightly out of perspective and end up throwing the whole image off. Doing perspective studies will help with these issues :)

Best of luck and keep up the good work!

[berrybloogenes]

Hey, berrybloogenes!

Firstly I want to commend you for taking the dive and exploring a side of art you find intimidating. It's something we should all do more often :P

My main bit of advice is to be aware of your angles and perspective. Stuff like the ceiling beam, triangular roof, round table next to the bed, etc. are slightly out of perspective and end up throwing the whole image off. Doing perspective studies will help with these issues :)    

Best of luck and keep up the good work!

thanks so much for the feedback! yeah, now that you mention it those things do look off. i guess i get more distracted by my lack of painting skills and bad sense of color and neglect perspective... when i look at them, i can tell they're off which i think is a good sign? i'll definitely work on it. thanks again!

[berrybloogenes]

here are a few 30 minute studies i did yesterday. i was mainly focusing on getting the right colors without using the picker... they're super rough, haha. i'm basically a complete beginner in this area.

[Pinshivic]

Whats up berry, what I'm seeing as your main issue are values and cool/warm relationships, try to see more of colors for what they truly are, you are putting a lot of saturation on colors that should be grey, putting warms where there should be colds and vice-versa and you seem to not be taking into consideration color relativity overall, which is one of the most hard things to do accurately. I would recommend reading about the topic of color relativity. Also keep painting on diffused white light situations to get good at playing with local color and value, don't do roughs try to get them as finished as possible then transition in different types of light and light color. Keep going!

[AlexShi]

Hi!
You're doing good, keep it up! I would pay extra attention to the shadows, they seem to be missing in your sketches. Also, I'm not sure which program you are using but if Photoshop then do take advantage of the layers and the lasso tool for better control of your shapes. Start from big shapes and then gradually go into detail, that way you will save time and avoid making a mess ;).

[berrybloogenes]

Whats up berry, what I'm seeing as your main issue are values and cool/warm relationships, try to see more of colors for what they truly are, you are putting a lot of saturation on colors that should be grey, putting warms where there should be colds and vice-versa and you seem to not be taking into consideration color relativity overall, which is one of the most hard things to do accurately. I would recommend reading about the topic of color relativity. Also keep painting on diffused white light situations to get good at playing with local color and value, don't do roughs try to get them as finished as possible then transition in different types of light and light color. Keep going!

thanks for your response! i've always struggled a lot with colors, and despite having read lots on the subject, i'm terrible with executing it. that comes with more practice, i suppose! i read somewhere that you should try to limit yourself to a certain amount of time when studying, but i'm not sure what the rationale behind it is besides getting you to do more, quantitatively and not overworking yourself. do you think there's more value in trying to get things more finished? i'm afraid i'll be trying to fight too many battles at once... i will read up on color relativity for sure! for now my main goal is to see values and hues more accurately, which is something that will hopefully develop the more studies i do.

[berrybloogenes]

Hi!
You're doing good, keep it up! I would pay extra attention to the shadows, they seem to be missing in your sketches. Also, I'm not sure which program you are using but if Photoshop then do take advantage of the layers and the lasso tool for better control of your shapes. Start from big shapes and then gradually go into detail, that way you will save time and avoid making a mess ;).

thanks for taking the time to respond! :) i'm working in sai! do you mean blocking in shapes and shadows with the lasso tool? that sounds like an interesting approach. i'm just terrible at lighting and shadows, so for now i'm just trying to see colors and values better, but i'll try my best...!

[Pinshivic]

Whats up berry, what I'm seeing as your main issue are values and cool/warm relationships, try to see more of colors for what they truly are, you are putting a lot of saturation on colors that should be grey, putting warms where there should be colds and vice-versa and you seem to not be taking into consideration color relativity overall, which is one of the most hard things to do accurately. I would recommend reading about the topic of color relativity. Also keep painting on diffused white light situations to get good at playing with local color and value, don't do roughs try to get them as finished as possible then transition in different types of light and light color. Keep going!

thanks for your response! i've always struggled a lot with colors, and despite having read lots on the subject, i'm terrible with executing it. that comes with more practice, i suppose! i read somewhere that you should try to limit yourself to a certain amount of time when studying, but i'm not sure what the rationale behind it is besides getting you to do more, quantitatively and not overworking yourself. do you think there's more value in trying to get things more finished? i'm afraid i'll be trying to fight too many battles at once... i will read up on color relativity for sure! for now my main goal is to see values and hues more accurately, which is something that will hopefully develop the more studies i do.

That's exactly what the diffused white light is for, it's the most simple way to see color for what it really is, do some still lifes in that setting of simple objects, but try to get the form and shadows as close as possible, limiting yourself to some time to study it's good to get to the point of what you want to achieve and not mess around doing anatomy when you're studying color to put an example, depends on the person also, seems that you are a beginner with lighting and colour and it takes a lot of observation, that you are not getting when you are doing rough stuff, so my point is doing more by doing less, but being sure you're making it right. Again diffused white light is the perfect setup to start, then adding ambient light and main light with color. Hope it makes sense. Good Luck!

[berrybloogenes]

been super busy with midterm stuff lately, but now that i'm free i can devote all my time to study! here's a 40 minute still life. i was mainly trying to get better at picking colors by eye, buuut i kinda failed at that. as a result the perspective on the bowl is off and so is the placement of the fruit/leaves... also, i REALLY really suck at painting. it's super out of my comfort zone. oh well. onwards!

[berrybloogenes]

30 minute still life study from today! i think this one is much more successful in terms of color. i tried a different brush because i really wasn't feeling the other one.

[berrybloogenes]

40 min. another still life! i'm very tired so i'm not banging out as many of these as i'd like to. i ran out of time for the grapes, so... they are what they are, i guess. the multiple light sources are kind of challenging for this image, but i think the colors came out okay?!

[berrybloogenes]

last one of the day.

[Jackeloop]

It's great that you're tackling a subject that's difficult for you head-on. I'm definitely seeing improvement in your digital paintings. The shine on those apples are looking good. Keep going! :D

[berrybloogenes]

i'm trying to apply what i've learned to my normal drawings, but it's still tough! here's taako and magnus from the adventure zone-- i'm stumped on the color scheme :/-- and an original character of mine. i'm trying to get better at character design.

[berrybloogenes]

did some really rough bust studies. i'm definitely getting better at seeing things in terms of light/shadow shapes, but i need to work on refining my paintings.

[berrybloogenes]

did a portrait study of this lovely lady. i know that the values and everything aren't 100% correct, and i need to learn how to blend better, and the likeness isn't exact, but overall i'm fairly pleased with it. i'm not as intimidated by doing painted portrait studies as i used to be. and i managed to do this in under an hour, which is progress!

[Hozure]

I'd mix in some longer studies to go with your quick roughs. Maybe go for an exact one for one copy. It's easy to say "close enough" but there are a lot of details you might skimp over when doing it quickly. Would definitely suggest to tone down the amount of objects you're painting (ie. worry about the slice of that squash(?) and notice the subsurface scattering, the slight hint of reflected green on the table, or the occlusion shadows between the slice and the table).

Glad to hear you're getting more confident. -thumbs up-

[berrybloogenes]

I'd mix in some longer studies to go with your quick roughs. Maybe go for an exact one for one copy. It's easy to say "close enough" but there are a lot of details you might skimp over when doing it quickly. Would definitely suggest to tone down the amount of objects you're painting (ie. worry about the slice of that squash(?) and notice the subsurface scattering, the slight hint of reflected green on the table, or the occlusion shadows between the slice and the table).

Glad to hear you're getting more confident. -thumbs up-

thanks for the great feedback! that makes a lot of sense. slowing down and focusing on a few objects sounds like just what the doctor ordered. painting is incredibly out of my comfort zone and i'd feel so overwhelmed if it weren't for the wonderful people on these forums guiding me along. so thanks again!

[berrybloogenes]

hey. so i decided to slow down and really try to observe the objects i was  painting. i used the blending tool to give them a more "realistic" look, but it makes things look a little mushy! i should have added more yellows in the apples, too. i did figure out a cool trick in the course of these studies for checking values, which is zooming way out of both images and then comparing them. i think there's a noticeable improvement between these and my first still life attempts. still not good, but better, and i'm okay with that. i'm not gonna stop pursuing my goals, no matter how crappy my paintings are at first