Session #021, Work #019

Some painting nights are a huge disappointment. Tonight was one of them…

Terrible
Terrible

Overview

The setup
The setup
Photoshop Artistic Underpainting filter to show a nice generalization of the subject.
Photoshop Artistic Underpainting filter to show a nice generalization of the subject.

I need to stop futzing around and work on drawing with a brush exclusively for a while. Seriously, I’m not going to say much about this painting because it is obvious how bad it is, and it all starts with the drawing.

This was my attempt at going slow with minimal prep of the painting… basically minimal drawing and measuring. I was a failure. I was influenced by Richard Schmid talking about his painting process and totally forgot that he has been painting forever, and there is no way that I can whip out a painting like his at my current skill level. Nor can I have the same process as him at the moment. I need to have most of my time in drawing and prepping the painting for value, edges and color.

I’m going to commit to do nothing but drawings with paint for the next 5 or so paintings. Maybe a Rubens drawing style where I put on a thin wash of paint, the draw into it with the brush adding outlines and shadows, then pulling lights into it by whipping away the wash in areas. I had that kinda going in the previous painting and it was working well. Not only that, the drawing was great and applying the paint was great also.

It is decided.

My hierarchy of painting importance

  1. Drawing
  2. Value
  3. Edges
  4. Composition
  5. Color

Drawing

Drawing comparison
Drawing comparison

How can I improve the drawing

Just bad, I’m pretty disgusted with it. Not going to say much, just going to do better next time.

Value

value comparison
value comparison

How can I improve the values?

Values were way off also, I didn’t even need to do a close comparison to notice.

Edges

Photoshop Artistic paint daubs filter to show an comparison on edges.
Photoshop Artistic paint daubs filter to show an comparison on edges.

Here I was playing with Photoshop and found a good filter to help me see the edges on the subject. I will have to use this in the future to compare my future painting edges.

Session Details