I did these drawings recently for a 12 thumbnails project and to practise my digi paints and colour theory...the last two images were done without photo colour reference/colour picking and they turned out much more blue/washed out. I don't mind it though, I think they look ok. Just used large brushes and didn't go crazy with the details, as they are just thumbnails.

time management

Since I never made a time diary when we were supposed to this term, I made by own simple 3-day diary of how I spent my time.

11 - get up, eat breakfast
11:30 - browsed internet for 15 mins and started work
13:18 - lunch
14:00 - break
16:30 work again
18:24 - break
19:30 - modelling for personal project
23:45 - stop working
2:30 - bed

sat -

11:30 - get up
12:00 - browse the internet,eat breakfast
13:00 - work on personal project
14:00 - blogger
14:30 - visual design
15:00 - browse internet
17:00 - went out

sun -

12:30 - got up
13:00 - had lunch, chatted online/browsed internet
14:00 - started digi paint
16:20 - break
16:50 - resume work
17:40 - finished paint
18:00 - watched star trek with parents/dinner
21:30 - chatted online
22:45 - worked on personal project
02:00 - bed

My working habits this week haven't been as good, mainly cos of social commitments in seeing my friends at home where I'm out for the whole day due to travelling and such. I still managed to find time to work though. Yesterday I didn't do anything cos I had a migraine, and the day before I went out, etc etc. Its easy for your days to just disappear and you can't be in control all the time. I learned that when you have free time, you have to make the most out of it and get as much done as possible because 'working every day' in small amounts, isn't possible. So as long as I work hard on the days where I do have free time, I'll be ok I think.

The pic is something I did recently, tried to develop different silhouettes..the drawings are full of errors though!

new Master's piece

Here's a study of an Alphonse Mucha oil painting. I thought he was an interesting artist to look at, because he's most famous for his stylised commercial works rather than his fine art/painters work. I really liked this piece because of the symmetry and focal point of the composition, as well as the vivid skin tones. Mine is full of errors compared to the original, [small face] but the main thing I learned from this piece was the importance of measuring, and that in my paintings I tend to overly highlight and shade things which makes my work look flat because there's no sense of background and foreground. So doing this helped me to recap on really basic things like that, and the piece in itself is very simple.
I suppose digital painting comes the closest to oils, because of how easy it is to blend colours and create a smooth transition between shades enabling you to render things more realistically. When I did oils in high school I painted on this huge wooden door and the smell of it really makes you light headed after working with them all day. I wouldn't mind trying to find a class that devotes an afternoon or so to oil painting, I've decided I mostly hate acrylics.

adventures in perspective

Yesterday I worked on the ideal interior spaces project for Chris. I've been looking at a lot of rococo architecture lately and wanted to make a tea-room lounge style place. I've never actually drawn something like that without either drawing from life or using photo reference, so I made a rough model of the layout in max and drew in some perspective lines over the top.

In the chart of my progress, the biggest changes happened between image 3 and 4, when the problems in scale were pointed out to me between the chairs and the staircase. It really hurt my head trying to figure out why it didn't look right, felt a bit like a child who didn't understand anything. So I lowered the horizon line which made the room a lot bigger, so the staircase could look more plausible. Redrew a few things so that they matched the new perspective lines and added in details. I'm still not sure its completely convincing, but I learnt a lot from this project, that scale is really important for the believability of images, and to always follow perspective lines when making things up or it will look wrong. Also, that colours desaturate when they go into the background. I knew all these things in theory, but sometimes I struggle with applying them to my own work.

Drawing life, day 3

Ok, here's my last set of drawings from the short course! Some ok and some really bad, a mixed day but it was nice to do some curled poses. Stayed away from colour today and just concentrated on measuring and line...The two measured drawings I did I like the most! It is a technique that really works sometimes if you prepare accurately. The last one I did in 10 minutes before end of class and its my favourite for some reason even though its not that good. We were looking at gestural life drawings today and none of them were rendered or anything, but they were really nicely drawn lines. I like it when you can see movement in the shape of the figure. Anyway for the charcoal/chalk piece in the middle I tried to copy Aby's flesh rendering technique because I'm a fan...though mine still needs more work.
Now I really want to make extra life drawing at home a regular thing over summer! Oops, its really late again. I'm going to get up before 12 of course and carry on with my work for Chris. Goodnight~