Painting 101: Week 4. And some extra experiments in photography.

This has been quite a week. I feel very tired. But I think I’ve done well. I think I may have even learned a bit about how I work. I’ve certainly been able to work for longer periods than I was last week. I think for the first time in ages I might even be on time for once (fingers crossed)

This is pretty surprising considering my slow start.

 

On Monday I was finishing off my photography journal and that was a pain. But I did it. And I think it will have long term consequences.

On Tuesday I didn’t come in. I had to get some Christmas presents from town and sort out some personal stuff. I know that sounds very unprofessional but sometimes life outside uni takes presence.

 

On Wednesday I did not feel great. I had not felt so behind in a long time. I had turn four blank cardboard canvases into paintings that could be turned into cutouts and a few days. It sounded impossible. But unbelievably, something clicked. I started working hard and fast and I wasn’t even thinking about stopping.

I started with a stick figure

Then I made a shape woman

And I decided I’d go the opposite route to watch I did making the coloured pencil drawings. I’d do a complete drawing for the new Eve and paint over it. But only make a shape man for the new Adam and paint over that. In coloured pencils I’d gotten almost equal (if different) results, with the Adam one being better (Though that might just be because it was a better drawing). Would history repeat itself here? We’d find out.

So I made an actial drawing over the shape woman. Putting the leg on the right in a different angle to see if it would look better and have more gravity. it didn’t. And I think the anatomy is broken. But it doesn’t look too bad unless you’re looking for it.

I liked the drawing so much is photographed it four times, to see which setting would give me the best results (Something I’ve been struggling with for a while).

Taken with the Portrait setting

Taken with the Smart Portrait setting.

Taken with Auto mode

Taken with Auto Selector.

There isn’t much difference between the four of them. But I do think the Portrait one is the best one. I I think it has the best lighting and does the linework the best.

In the scene from Perlandra this piece is inspired by the Un-Man gives the new Eve clothes made of leaves. This does not cause her to fall from grace (That can only happen if she walks on the fixed land) But it does help her to discover vanity. I feel this image really gets over that feeling of discovering pleasure in one’s self for the first time. Vain, sexual, but still very innocent. And the expression I did here captured that idea better than any of my other attempts so far. It’s also the best attempt at her hair I’ve done.

I like it so much that I photographed it in close up just so this rare good face and expression would still exist even after I’d finished painting over it.

I went over the pencils with gentle washes of paint.

And the face still looked good.

Thankfully when I showed it to James he said it was fit for purpose as a cutout. Meaning I could leave it as it was. I got to work on cutting it out.

 

I then got to work paintinf the full background. It’s fine I guess. I’m trying to come to terms with this whole undercoat idea. I gave the sky an orange undercoat and the land a brown undercoat but painted them the same yellow. Does it work? you tell me.

Her it is take with different focuses and lightings.

It’s not great.

 

 

I then started work on the new Adam.  I had trouble translating this won to the cardboard and keeping it small. In the end I just ran with it and let him take up the whole canvas. Even going over the canvas and putting his knees on a small, extra piece of canvas. Part of being experience is knowing when to give up and go with the flow.

I made a very boxy shape man

But the picture wasn’t very clear no matter what I did. So It tried something new and fiddled with the light settings on my camera to see if making the pick darker would make it clearer.

Not really?…. So it tried a third time. This time at half darkness.

Maybe this helps a little?

I think zooming in a bit so their was less border helped more.

 

I was able to get the undercoat of colours done

I think it looks goofy as all hell. And the background is more orange than I wanted it to be.  But James seemed to like it. He suggested I could add in the fine details with pastels. I was reluctant at first. But knowing I was short on time I accepted. James gave me the pastels the next day.

 

Bare in mind this was all in one day. A crazy amount of work for me. But the craziest part was when I got round to drawing the great wave I did the drawing in 20 minutes! With no redraws! Normally this would take me an hour

And it’s better than any of the other versions I did too.

I even wrote “How the hell did this happen!?” in the margins.

I also tried darkening the camera image again. A little

I think it can kinda help.

 

unable to believe my progress I started drawing the fixed land. And again in came out as I wanted it on a first try. Even if it took a little longer.

Yes. Zooming in does help.

 

Thursday was an even bigger challenge.

I started off doing  the painting for the great wave.

I know it doesn’t look like much. But this feels like the most accomplished painting I’ve ever done. Everything just fell into place. The colours are right. The line work is right. The textures are right. And that grey-yellow sky is perfect. It’s not that it’s a good painting. It’s not. But it looks like what I wanted it to look like. And that feels strange.

Here are some other photos of it.

Nice warm colours.

 

I went back to the new Adam. First adding some extra layers and shading to his trident, which I do think looks better for it. I then used the remaining orange to alter his posture so he didn’t look so hunched over.

I then realised I still hadn’t given him his maleness. I whipped up some green (Sidenote. I’ve been trying to do all this the proper way. Just using Blue, red yellow and black and white. Mixing them together as needed) and painted in a penis and testicals. I think they look good for not having lines to trace around. Possibly better for it. But they are slightly in thee wrong place. Maybe I  should include the genitalia in the prime drawing in the future.

I had enough green left over to add in most of the fine details. Just look at the difference between the two.

Pecs, abs, knees, fingers, lighting, shading, better hair, and even some facial features. All using the extra green.

I then added in eyes, a nose, a mouth, eyebrows, and some ear bits using the pastels. not only did it look better than I thought it would. But again i got a good expression out of it. The dependability of which I’ve been doing that is starting to scare me.

Again both the full drawing and the working over a shape person have given me interesting results with possible strengths. But I think this one is the stronger painting

Here it is in extra detail,

 

—-

 

With that done I got to work on cutting the things out as best I could. Like I said, these were probably meant to be miniatures to put in front of the painting. But between my main painting being portrait-style and my having trouble scaling these  down that wasn’t really an option. I’d have to put my “Cutouts” to the side or slightly behind or in front like some kind of polyptych or shrine. But I could still cut out all the empty space that had noting in it  and make them cutout like. Maybe that makes colouring the entire sky pointless? I don’t mind. It was good for experimenting with undercoats and for adding variation to make the skies look real, for lack of a better word.

Here’s the Wave as a cutout

Looks good to me.

And here’s how the new Adam painting looks as a cut out.

Probably looks a little better as a cut out.

The New Eve in her leaf clothes was the only one I’d been able to make small.  So it would probably look good as a cut out.

It’s fine. It also looks like a head when viewed from the back.

After that my Camera died (I took these photos later). And I decided to go home for the evening. Feeling that I was on time for the first time since…. I first came to Cardiff Met probably, I decided to celebrate with a large Domino’s pizza with all my favorite toppings. That, was a big mistake.

I have a rule against ordering pizzas like that for a reason. Something I’d forgotten about.

I arrived in on Friday feeling ill. I did not feel able to do anything. So I let myself go to the computer and started writing this journal. Yes. This has taken four days to write. But that’s because I’ve been altinating it with doing small bits of work. Even while typing on Friday I did some drawing. Remer how I had drawing of the fixed land but no coloured version?

Nor did i paint the cardboard version?

Well what had happened was on the day I was going to do the coloured pencil version I forgot to bring them in. D’oh! So I made the painted versions instead. In truth it was probably a godsend. It made me push forward and tries my best. I could have just painted the pencil version raw with no coloured pencil version to work off of. But that didn’t feel right either. So I finished the cutouts instead. It was tempting to just move forwards and make the final piece. But it should be clear I don’t like to walk away from things. And I didn’t feel ready for the big challenge yet. So I doodled in my sketchbook. Slowly adding colour to the final drawing.

 

The purple clouds were nice opportunity to start experimenting with different colour mixes and techniques. I know I’m tempting fate. But I feel I really have improved in the past few months. Here’s were I was in September

And here are two scans and a photograph of the central purple cloud.

The detail. The tonal variation. It’s getting close to professional level.

 

Having not come in on Tuesday I decided I’d do something I’d never done before, and come in on Saturday. Yes. They let you do that.

On Saturday. I was feeling terrible. I wasn’t unwell anymore. I just felt trapped in my head. All the time away from the net was making me aware of somethings I was suppressing. Still. It’s best I come to terms with mty issues. Hopefully this will help.

But taking it easy, planning ahead. And letting myself stop to read every now and then, I finished the Coloured pencil version

It. Looks. Good.

Not professional level. But it looks like an actual drawing. Like I think I might be good at this some day.

Even if I don’t finish the final piece, I’m not sad. My painting and drawing skills have advanced since this module started. It was only just the start of November. It’s crazy. It’s been years since one course had made me learn like this. I salute you James. For giving me a real challenge.

I chose this module because I hoped it would help me with my drawing. And these coloured pencil drawings and painting experiments, they’re my real final piece. The real works I poured my heart and soul into. The ones I tried to make as good as possible. And in that regard at least I’ve well and become better.

 

Don’t think I gave in though. I went straight ahead and started making the painted version (After cutting out the the extraneous bits). I even got half of it done.

I may have even discovered a new sgraffito technique (That’s when you scratch into wet paint to remove it and make lines and shapes with the negative space). I was trying to erase some pencil lines that had wet paint on them. The result was this soft, organic looking sgraffito

I think this could be used to some interesting effect by someone who knows what they’re doing. I showed it to James who was interested by it.

Sadly it turns out on Saturdays they kick us out at 5:00. If I’d know I would have worked harder.

Here’s where I was.

Not to be deterred, I did another thing I’d never done before. I took my work home with me.

I was too numb to do much. But on Sunday I went out to the winter fair and had a great time. Even if I was totally soaked in cold rain.

Getting home I did to a little. Not much. But I added in some texture to the sky and ocean. I made a dent in that mental barrier.

I also tried writing a bit of journal at home. Something I haven’t done in a long time. My Laptop is too slow. But maybe it’s time I fixed that So I can do both types of work at home and can spend less time on the internet here. Given that’s what the laptop is for seems kinda important.

 

I came in today wishing i could just skip the whole thing. Just give up. Or just curl up in a ball. But I did anyway.

I alternated between painting, writing this journal, and taking care of some important Constellation stuff that I had to take care of. It was a bit of a chore. Jumping between these three things made it hard to get into a groove. But in time the final cutout painting was almost done

 

Quite the improvement from Saturday wouldn’t you agree?

But I wanted to make some final additions. I wanted to add an extra layer to the fixed land itself. Go over it with a wash. Then paint the the fine details again in brighter colours.

Here’s how it looked at first.

And here’s how it looks now

I think it kinda looks better this way. But James felt the original was better. And that’s fair.

Here’s how the final version of it looks.

I painted in some waves (as best I could). But they were too bright. So I went over them with a white wash to dull the colours. It’d tried white on one side and grey on the other to dull the colours to give a sense of depth. (Seen above ^) I can’t say which I feel is better. Bet James said he like the white better so I went with that here.

And here’s how it looks now.

Taken without flash

Taken with flash

 

And now all that was left to do was arrange the cutouts and wax paintings around the main painting so I had all of them for easy reference when I make my final piece. I did so, and it really does look like a shrine of some sort.

Why can’t this just be my final piece!?

 

I’ve put all my materials and tools in order. There’s nothing left to do. No other jobs that need to be finished. I have two days to make my final painting.

 

I’m scared

 

God help me.