Landscape Study (video)

The photos were taken from just outside Dinosaur National Park on the border of Colorado and Utah.  Most of the park itself was closed and/or under construction and/or  excavating when I passed through, but the landscape was absolutely astounding.

Let me know what you think and if this was at all helpful and I might do more videos

Here's the final for anyone who didn't get a good look in the crappy video.

Study Dump

I'd thought I'd put up a few more pairings of the landscapes studies I've been doing with the photos they're referencing.

Wyoming Sky (2):

Montana (6):

Banff:

With these I'm mostly just trying to focus on technique and forcing myself to use the lasso tool.  Also paying special attention to how the combination of shadow and atmospheric perspective can be conveyed with large solid blocks of dark blue.  The idea is that whatever I learn doing here, I'll hopefully be able to translate into what I'm working on later with full illustrations.

Montana 5 Study

Hey folks!  Apologies for the long hiatus -it's been a fairly exciting two months.  I quit my job, bought a car, renewed my lease, and visited some friends all on top of a mass of deadlines and holidays.  But now it's 2012 and time to get back to that grindstone!

I did take some time off officially for Xmas and New Years (mostly spent playing Skyrim), so opening Photoshop for the first time in two weeks left quite a few turds on screen.  This was an attempt at getting back to the basics and putting my brain in the right place in order accomplish anything:

It was pretty closely based on some photos I took at sunrise of St. Mary's Lake in Glacier National Park (Montana USA).  Here was my reference:

At a glance the thumbnails look pretty identical, (and if I hadn't taken the photo myself I'd probably never exhibit the art), but that doesn't mean I wasn't faced with any artistic decisions.  FOr one, there's an additional mountain peak and the compositional is slightly different.  My colors are more saturated and the darks darker. 

That might not sound like much and I'm not trying to sound defensive, but I feel that drawing from life (or photos) is much more than copying what's in front of you.  It's about knowing what to include, what not to include, and what to add in a way that isn't blatant. The impressionists had it right (at least the way I see them) in that art isn't about mimicking the world around us, but in reproducing it in a way that's better than the original.  It trims the fat while preserving the heart and soul, and that (when done right) makes a person or place feel more real than any photograph could ever convey.

Anyways, more to come (soon!?..!) and happy 2012!

Cascade step 10

Step 10: Finished!

Sorry for the long absence.  Life has been crazy with waves of work and preparations for IlluXCon.  I had my first real booth at any convention there this year and it was an absolute blast!  After a year's worth of work I was finally able to unveil the finished painting :)

I did mean to post more WiPs as I progressed with oils... but... well...

Doing the acrylic underpainting as detailed as I had was probably unnecessary, as I ended up covering up most of what was there pretty entirely by the end.  Especially in the sky, which, as you can imagine, did not turn the color I needed through simple glazings.  Lessons for next time... leave the sky alone until oils if the color difference is so stark or use ultramarine instead of umber for those portions.

Glazing was much more successful in the lower, warmer areas of the background although the only parts where the acrylic really shows through now is in the rocks, island masses, and highlighted portions of the waterfalls.

Between scumbling, glazing, and varying amounts of opaque paint there are dozens and dozens of layers over the whole thing.  I'm a big fan of Winsor Newton's fast-drying oils, generally using just linseed oil to thin them out when needed.  They're dry (or at least enough to work over) within a few hours.  For me that's more valuable than painting wet into wet, but it does mean repainting anything that doesn't come out right.  This made doing the clouds especially difficult, but considering they are my favorite subject matter to paint I was okay doing it again and again.

In all this was a HUGE learning experience.  It gave me the opportunity to try a lot of new things and I feel a lot more confident in approaching future paintings.  It's become a pretty personal piece as a result and I'm quite pleased with the finish.  Enough so that it's hanging over my TV :)


Thanks to everyone who helped along the way offering criticisms, suggestions, compliments, and encouragements.  There are too many to name, but I truly appreciate your continued support!

Cascade step 09

Step 09: Acrylics complete

It's been awhile...  After a fairly lazy summer work came back in full-swing with September.  Anyways, here's an update!

Above is the finished underpainting.  It's not perfect, but it's close enough that I feel confident moving into oils (and color) at this point.  In general I tend to get dark really fast when painting, so a big challenge with this was keep everything light enough for glazing over the top later.  That bottom-right corner came out darker than I would have liked though.  Also, please forgive the distorted photo, it's pretty wonky in places.

Cascade step 08

Step 08:  Acrylics WIP

Not a whole lot to say here...  The plan is to lay out the values in raw umber and white acrylics and finish primarily through oil glazes.  The benefit to acrylics here (for me anyways) is that they dry so fast.  I can keep repainting areas until they look the way I want and since there are only two colors at this point all I need to worry about is value.

Cascade step 07

Step 07:  Drawing

It's finally time to take it to the canvas!  Or in this case... gessoed masonite.

Being the extraordinarily inefficient mess that I am, I decided to grid off my board (36x24 inches) and redraw the entire thing by sight rather than finding a way of just tracing/transferring my digital rough.

In truth, there were some areas of the dragon and rocks that I had been planning to redraw the whole time, so for the moment that approach seemed to make sense.  Was it worth it in the end..?  Eh, probably not; but after redrawing the head and feet 80 times each I did manage to end up with a drawing I was pleased with.

Please forgive the crappy photo: