These are some development sketches for the school diary assignment.
Medium: A3 Detail paper, pencil, PITT artist pen, Pentel brush pen
Archive for the 'process' Category
Here’s the finished Mother and Child painting. For varnish I first put a coat of acrylic sealer (water based, non-removable) and then two coats of gloss varnish (oil based, removable). I will let it dry for a week then take it off the frame.
Here are some progress photos of the Mother & Child painting I have been working on over the past few months. I began in May but this early attempt wasn’t working out. Out of sheer frustration I gesso’d over the top and started again.
I redrew her completely (shortened the length of her lower half, put the baby in profile and simplified the landscape). Finally it looked a little better.
Now it’s almost complete. I just need to add some leaves blowing across which will give it a better sense of movement.
Here you can see my first rough sketches.
Mother & Child, Acrylic on canvas. 24” by 48”
The latest version (above). October 2009.
This is after I redrew it. The red hair turned out to be bit over powering so she became a blonde. September 2009.
Just before I gesso’d over it and started again. June 2009.
My first effort. May 2009.
A rough sketch inspired by Jane Fonda’s classic pose from Cat Ballou.
Having co-illustrated the Fighting Fantasy book “Caverns of the Snow Witch” way back in 1984, Dave from fightingfantasygamebooks.com kindly contacted me for an interview. Check it out here
Here’s a few drawings of Princess Leia from my sketchbook. I usually begin by roughing out the figure with blue Col-erase blue pencil . I do this very lightly. Erasing heavy Col-erase marks leaves a waxy residue on the paper that’s hard to draw over.
Once I am happy with the lines I go over them with an HB pencil. Most of the drawings here have been inked with a sable brush. The one of her standing with arms folded was sort of inspired by the inking style of Darwyn Cooke.
This one was sketched out with a Faber Castell Tri-grip colour pencil which gives a nice deep black. Scanned it in at 24 bit colour RGB, 600 ppi. In Photoshop I adjusted levels, cleaned it up and placed the line work on transparent layer. Then reduced it to 300ppi.
I usually add colour with adjustments layers and masks but this time I painted directly on transparent layers. I was inspired by some Photoshop painting tutorials by illustrator Chris Oatley. I also used a set of his brushes that can be downloaded from his site. You can get them here.
Once I added the colour I couldn’t resist turning into a Little Red Riding Hood, albeit a heavily armed one. I usually scan the drawing at 600 dpi convert to bitmap mode and do all my clean up. Once thats done I re-sample it down to 300 dpi at A4 size. When I colour in Photoshop I focus on one area at a time, making adjustment layers for the base colour, shadows and highlights.
I have been doing some inking practice with a sable brush. The trick is to hold the brush as you would a pencil. Place your fingers around the ferrule (which is the metal bit between the hairs and the wooden handle). This makes the brush much easier to control and you can draw thin to thick and curving lines with one smooth movement of the hand. I also was constantly moving the paper around at different angles as i inked.
I learnt much of this from a great little video on inking by the comic artists Mark Rudolph and Jerzy Drozd on their site Art and Story. It’s an extraordinary resource for anyone interested in making comics http://www.cvcomics.com/artandstory/
Check out their inking video here
Once the Illustrator artwork is complete it’s exported as a .psd file and opened up in Photoshop where each layer is converted to an adjustment layer (a solid colour with a mask).
I use texture brushes that have a nice serrated line to soften the edges of the shadows. This contrasts nicely with the smooth edges elsewhere. The sky texture is a scan of some ink sprayed with a toothbrush.
Here it’s has been redrawn in Illustrator with the pen tool (with each element on a separate layer). I then work out the values using various percentages of grey (10%, 20% etc). This gives me an idea of the darkest and lightest parts of the illustration. The values might change once i start applying the colour but it gives me a general direction.
Then I begin thinking in terms of colour. To test out various colour schemes I sometimes create a simplified version of the artwork. In this case its reduced to four basic shapes: sky, space suit, boots and landscape. I fill these with colour and use Illustrator’s Live Color feature and try out different combinations. I eventually settled on a complementary scheme (blue and orange).
The sketch was scanned and printed out at A5 size. Placing a sheet of detail paper ( a type of soft tracing paper) over the top i redrew it refining the lines and adjusting the size. As you can see the sketch (pictured right) is pretty loose and could of been tightened up a lot more.
This is the stage where all the creative heavy lifting is done and the best time to work out any problems. Keep an eye out for tangents and awkward shapes in your design. Sometimes it’s easier to redraw elements on separate bits of detail paper and assemble together.
Get your character design as perfect as possible so once you have it in Illustrator it’s just a matter of following the lines with the pen tool. This drawing was scanned at 100 dpi and placed into CMYK Illustrator file.
My idea was to show a spaceman who has just stepped foot on another world with a look of smug self-satisfaction on his face.
First, I started doodling some ideas in my sketchbook. I knew i wanted the stylised retro look so i kept the shapes as simple as possible. I tried out various poses and at one point he became floating repair man holding a toolbox. This changed to a more traditional heroic pose with hands on hips. I liked the quick sketch at top right. It had a strong silhouette and gave a good sense of the character.
Here’s a few progress photos of the “Mother and Child” painting.
This is a shop bought canvas so it was already stretched and gessoed. I wanted a textured surface to work on so i applied a layer of modelling compound and worked it with an old metal comb giving it the appearance of heavy brush strokes.
This canvas will be rolled up and posted overseas so it was important that texture would not crack. I can highly recommend Atelier’s modelling compound . It’s flexible and can be used before or during painting.
Once i finalised the design i squared it up and transferred to the canvas. I usually use carbon paper or tracing paper to transfer designs but this is quite a large painting so the grid method worked fine. Now that the design is on the canvas i am all ready to paint.
Firstly, the canvas gets a wash of Burnt umber. Using my value roughs as a guide i block in the dark, mid and light values with a mix of Burnt umber and Payne’s grey. Then the main colours are sketched in. At this early stage i keep things very rough and don’t worry about losing the drawing underneath. I am also open about changing aspects of the design since you want to give the painting a chance to have a life of its own.
You can see some early sketches for this painting here.
For the past few months i have been wanting to buy some new acrylic paints. I fell in love with Golden heavy body acrylics when i bought a tube of Burnt Umber. They are arguably the best acrylics on the market and have a lovely rich buttery feel. Unfortunately they are pricey. I needed to chose my paints carefully so i would get the most out of a small selection of colours.
Another great advantage of having a few colours is that you learn so much by mixing them. For instance a huge range of greens can be mixed that are far more subtle and interesting than a green straight from the tube.
After some research on forums sites like Wet canvas and reading Stephen Quiller’s essential “The painter’s guide to color” I narrowed my selection to five colours.
My three primaries are: Quinacridone Red, Cadmium Yellow light, Phthalo blue Green Shade.
My secondary colours are: Phthalo Green Yellow Shade and Dioxazine Purple.
I didn’t bother with an orange since i can make a clean orange with Quinacridone Red and Cadmium Yellow light.
Out of these five colours I was able to mix the twelve colours of the wheel. It’s amazing how much you learn after doing a simple exercise like this. No amount of reading can substitute for actual practice with the paints. I now have a palette that allows me to mix a huge range of colours.
I don’t think the Golden brand is widely available in Australia but fortunately Melbourne Artist Supplies have the full range.
