Natalie’s challenge to remake an illustration

[Nat]

The challenge is to make a reiteration of this illustration I painted earlier in the year.

During the making of it I was frequently frustrated by my technical limits. Things to work on:

• The figures: gesture, proportion, anatomy, clothing/drapery
• The head: more careful form modelling, value control and facial expression
• Perspective: creating depth, applying atmospeheric perspective
• Lighting: develop a consistent light source
• Landscape: compose a more cohesive landscape with dynamic shapes and value patterns
• Colour relationship(if it get that far)
• watercolour and goauche studies to get a betters sense of the medium

There are a lot of elements here. I won’t master them all by the end of this, but hopefully gain enough understanding

to come out of it with an improved version. (im thinking this may not be in colour) That’s the goal.

 

 

 

[Nat]

Day 1

Been watching Steve Huston’s head contruction lectures. Today I looked at hair, sketched out the assignments

[Nat]

Day 2 Today was a plein air study of a park scene. It’s a bit vague… The foreground was straightforward enough but then all the many textures and values of the tress in the top

half of the painting became very confusing. There was so much  going on in the middle gound: a fence, a gate, a bamboo patch, scraggly bushes, things which i didnt want over-define too much so they wouldnt compete with the foreground but i think i went a little far the other way. It’s something to work once the paint dries a little

[Nat]

Day 3

I had another session in the park. it was much sunnier, and the cast shadows were very strong. i tried to give the trees more stucture, but the overhaning branch on the right is still an amorphous blob

[Nat]

Day 4 Assignment from Steve Huston’s lesson on showing age

[theokatzman45]

Hey, this sounds like a really cool challenge! I like the illustration, the tree idea looks like something out of a book, very cool, looking forward to seeing version 2! Also like the heads on day one, especially the bottom two, I can see the structure. 👍 it looks like you got some good objectives going, looking forward to seeing the progress! 🙌

[Nat]

Thank you Mattias, I appreciate it!

Day 5

My mark making has been getting a little messy for my purpose, so i tried to hold back a bit this time, and make more deliberate choices. It’s tricky to show age of the skin without overdoing it.  I’m going to spend a little while consolidating what i’ve learnt so far in Steve Huston’s lessons before moving on to the next topic which is expressions of the face.

[Nat]

Day 6

Another   plein air landscape study. The image is super washed out, i’ll need to figure out how to take better photos.

My thinking behind these landscape studies is to observe how differenet elements fit together under the same lighting conditions and also what to do with the negativ/background spaces, the parts

of the composition which aren’t focal but can easily get filled with noise.  Kind of like in a novel where you have the smaller linking scenes which connect to and lead you through to the major events of a story.

[Nat]

Day 7

 

[Nat]

Day 8 

[Nat]

Day 9

Working after Vilpu and Huston lessons I was feeling unmotivated and frustrated with my attempts using photo reference, so I decided to look at some artists and use their work as reference.

[Nat]

Day 10

Looking at Vilpu’s lesson on box forms. These are from the times assignments. Corrections are definitely needed and more practice. Too often I try to ignore this tool in figure construction

[Nat]

Day 11

Combining some of the different stages of Vilpu’s analytical construction approach. This will be very useful when it comes to drawing the figures for my illustration. Drawing all the cross sections of the ellipses you start to think about where the eyeline/horizon line actually is and at what point in a composition does it become necessary to work out? i havent come across anything about it yet but i’ll keep the qn in mind

[Nat]

Day 12 Starting to think about gestures for poses from imagination and looking for a pose that will work for the composition and narrative.

[Nat]

Day 13

This is  from a daily drawing  session. I try to do these consistently, but having done all of  the videos, i dont feel i have improved very much. I think i rush into them and make too many marks in order to finish the whole pose. I might try slowing down next time, make more correct marks, even if its just focusing one part of the body.

[Author]

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