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Messing about
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Message
Posted
I've been messing around with my gallery folders. Completely unnecessary of course, I doubt many people spend that much time looking through galleries, especially big ones like mine. However, not feeling much like drawing I needed to do something. I'd imagined it would take ages, but it didn't doing a little bit at a time. Now it resembles the way I have my pics filed on my computer.
It threw a few things into perspective, I like Art Nouveau and Art Deco and thought I'd done quite a few of these. I haven't and that surprised me. What people like always surprises me, the only way I have of judging this is by how often it's been viewed. Among my cartoons (now all together), the one that got the most views was this....
...873 views, and it's not even drawn very well. Stuff I like gets far less. But I suppose it's bad practice to attempt to draw what other people MIGHT like, you can only do what you like (at the time).
Elsewhere, I tried doing something I was going to paint using digital, something I haven't done for a while. It was going to be part of a mock advert I had in mind. This is the drawing...
I scanned it onto my computer and began to paint it using the digital brushes. You have things in transparent layers, one on top of the other. Here's how far I got....
...the pen drawing was the top layer, the middle pic is what I painted underneath. I didn't see it like the middle pic as I painted, I saw it like the third pic...the middle pic is the painting with my drawing turned off. I had to use my mouse for this, it took an age (or seemed to).
I soon got fed up with this, and painted my original drawing with watercolour. Then I started to compile the ad in photoshop. This is as far as I got...
...on the left pen & watercolour, on the right the digitally painted version. Not a lot different, and the watercolour version took far less time. Lesson...digital has been put to bed for me, my old hands/eyes can't manage it anymore.
At this point I'd had enough and gave up the whole idea. I've kept the pics because I MIGHT want to have another go.
None of it a waste of time because it keeps me doing things.
...873 views, and it's not even drawn very well. Stuff I like gets far less. But I suppose it's bad practice to attempt to draw what other people MIGHT like, you can only do what you like (at the time).
Elsewhere, I tried doing something I was going to paint using digital, something I haven't done for a while. It was going to be part of a mock advert I had in mind. This is the drawing...
I scanned it onto my computer and began to paint it using the digital brushes. You have things in transparent layers, one on top of the other. Here's how far I got....
...the pen drawing was the top layer, the middle pic is what I painted underneath. I didn't see it like the middle pic as I painted, I saw it like the third pic...the middle pic is the painting with my drawing turned off. I had to use my mouse for this, it took an age (or seemed to).
I soon got fed up with this, and painted my original drawing with watercolour. Then I started to compile the ad in photoshop. This is as far as I got...
...on the left pen & watercolour, on the right the digitally painted version. Not a lot different, and the watercolour version took far less time. Lesson...digital has been put to bed for me, my old hands/eyes can't manage it anymore.
At this point I'd had enough and gave up the whole idea. I've kept the pics because I MIGHT want to have another go.
None of it a waste of time because it keeps me doing things.
Posted
I prefer the watercolour version too: and when looking at any digital work (so far, anyway) invariably find I prefer the same artists' sketches and ideas accomplished in pencil or paint. Which is just as well, because I don't think I could manage Paintshop or the other applications: I've played about a bit with one of them, but the very phrase "raster layer" gives me a headache....
I know Eric Marioneaux is unlikely to agree - entirely, at least - but the whole painting experience coming together as a finished piece as a result of what I'm able to do with charcoal, paint and brushes is absolutely inseparable from the creative process: he I expect would say the same of his work on the computer - I can quite see there's creativity in that, but what matters is whether one's happy with the medium: I'm happy splashing about with paint, others with transferring their images to a screen and developing them that way. Those of us not born into the era of computing, to whom it's always likely to be a somewhat unnatural learning process (and a slow one so far as I'm concerned). or are just less technically competent (that'll be me again) are probably always going to be happier away from a screen.
Whopping gurt generalizations there, I know!
Posted
Yes, I prefer pencils, paint and brushes, in my case out of necessity now. Maybe ten years ago I was able to manage digital, at least in the way that I was using it. All I can manage now is assembling individual drawings in Photoshop, I've seen work done this way and admired it, chiefly because I can understand how it was done. I attempted to do this a short while back and made a mess of it. It was to be a circus picture and would require lots of small figures in the background, which I struggle with these days.
This is how the circus picture went...
The figure on the left, a pen, watercolour and pencil drawing, (a snake-oil salesman), gave me the idea for the picture. It would contain lots of figures drawn/painted in a similar way.
They'd be arranged in photoshop, scaled up or down as necessary, I would produce the ground, sky, circus tents in the same way. Having done some figures I thought I'd assemble them in a quick mock-up in photoshop...that's the middle picture. It would work, but I simply didn't like it enough to do the work. Nothing unusual there. Having painted the figures I assembled them completely differently in the third picture. OK-ish, but not what I set out to do. I may try this again with more pre-planning. But it's not really digital art, it's just using a digital program to assemble conventional art into one image.
If I were thirty years younger I think I'd be a digital artist now, at least most of the time. Digital artists draw and paint conventionally too.
If I could convert all the ifs and maybes in my life to cash, I'd be rich and sunning myself in Tahiti by now.
The figure on the left, a pen, watercolour and pencil drawing, (a snake-oil salesman), gave me the idea for the picture. It would contain lots of figures drawn/painted in a similar way.
They'd be arranged in photoshop, scaled up or down as necessary, I would produce the ground, sky, circus tents in the same way. Having done some figures I thought I'd assemble them in a quick mock-up in photoshop...that's the middle picture. It would work, but I simply didn't like it enough to do the work. Nothing unusual there. Having painted the figures I assembled them completely differently in the third picture. OK-ish, but not what I set out to do. I may try this again with more pre-planning. But it's not really digital art, it's just using a digital program to assemble conventional art into one image.
If I were thirty years younger I think I'd be a digital artist now, at least most of the time. Digital artists draw and paint conventionally too.
If I could convert all the ifs and maybes in my life to cash, I'd be rich and sunning myself in Tahiti by now.Edited
by Lewis Cooper
Posted
Thank you Sandra.
Reorganising my gallery showed me I'd posted a few 6 x 4 miniature pictures. I used to like doing them at one time. Mostly they are just faces, I can draw a face on a 6 x 4 area, that's not far removed from drawings on a larger scale. For me, landscapes, or full figures become difficult because my old hands can't do it...I get a touch of the wobblies. I'd bought a large post card album to hold these pics. Good quality with archive standard plastic pockets. Each page holds six 6 x 4 pictures, you put two pics in each slot back to back, so that they show on both sides of the page. Thirty pages, so 360 spaces for these miniature paintings/drawings.
I'd hoped to fill it, but have been neglecting the miniatures lately. At one time I'd use them to try ideas for larger pictures, and thought I'd do that again. I want to do a landscape format Art Deco style painting, so I tried a 6 x 4 version. This is it...
...it's not quite right, but I only need to make a few changes. The girl's face will be semi-realistic, so I'll need to find a suitable ref pic rather than making it up, as here.
Looking at my miniatures album reminded me that I'd done a group picture of them for my son. He's a part-time musician, he plays in two bands and does gigs in local pubs. He wanted to turn a spare bedroom into a music room. Two walls were 'papered' with old LP album covers (found at car boots), a tailor's dummy is dressed as a punk, shelves hold odd things he likes, he seen some of my multi-frames holding mini-pics and asked if I could do one for him of people of different nations. I'd already done a few so I did. Pretty sure I haven't posted this because I had to hunt for the photo....
He supplied the frame.
So, messing about that started with me re-organising my gallery has given me a list of things I want to do. Art Deco and Art Nouveau paintings, plus lots of mini-pics to fill my album.
...it's not quite right, but I only need to make a few changes. The girl's face will be semi-realistic, so I'll need to find a suitable ref pic rather than making it up, as here.
Looking at my miniatures album reminded me that I'd done a group picture of them for my son. He's a part-time musician, he plays in two bands and does gigs in local pubs. He wanted to turn a spare bedroom into a music room. Two walls were 'papered' with old LP album covers (found at car boots), a tailor's dummy is dressed as a punk, shelves hold odd things he likes, he seen some of my multi-frames holding mini-pics and asked if I could do one for him of people of different nations. I'd already done a few so I did. Pretty sure I haven't posted this because I had to hunt for the photo....
He supplied the frame.
So, messing about that started with me re-organising my gallery has given me a list of things I want to do. Art Deco and Art Nouveau paintings, plus lots of mini-pics to fill my album.
For one awful moment I thought of someone who has a coronation coming up shortly….!