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Digital painting fom the sketchbook reference. This was done a few weeks ago - I’m just catching up on the digital paintings I’ve missed uploading.

So here we go - taking two drawings I did into GIMP - line, gratscale, and finally color.

The left drawing is at the Levin Skate Park, the right is of the Levin Rose Gardens.

Line added. No detail has been lost - I always try to capture all my pencil lines with the line process.

Next up is gray scale tone. You can see along the top of the scene I’ve layered out all the colors and tone I’ll use in this painting. This helps me keep my colors minimal and keep unity between the series of works. Comparing the tone to the line I notice that I do lose details in areas but the image has a more complete, and fleshy feel.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. It feels empty, especially compard to the line verstion. Maybe there needs to be more happening in the background? Trees and objects scaling down into the distance. This is flat, but it’s how I’ve always liked to work. Getting some depth may help rid me of the empty feeling I get. Or maybe it’s fine as it is.

Here’s the video:

Spent the morning organizing files and posts. Working on getting a large Borderlands 2 painting post together - it’s been a fun side project.

For now though - here’s a Lily Allen figure and portrait I painted recently in GIMP. I’ve drawn this image several times before - it’s always interesting going back to these old reference photos and taking a new approach with the work.

Line work. Still keeping with the red. I kept this quick and loose - knowing I’d be covering it over with tone and color. I kept the color very minimal - keeping with just yellow for the dress and blue for the negative space. In other recent works I’ve used yellow on the skin and red for the clothes - this I decided to keep the clothes grayscale.

And the video of the painting process.

Have a great weekend.

I haven’t been happy with the latest digital paintings I’ve been doing. It’s been a struggle. Oh well. I got Dads scanner working on my laptop so I can go back to scanning my sketchbooks in.

I did one street pencil drawing today - but spent the evening working from photo reference in my sketchbook. I’ll get these images uploaded over the next few days. For now, a mash up of my drawings in a attempt to turn it into a scene..

This is the reference  I started with. I just imported the drawings into GIMP - scaled down - and decreased the opacity. The opacity is around 60%. In the background is a mid gray tone texture that I will use for the tone stage.. For now - line.

Line. Still sticking with the red. I prefer it over the black. It’s interesting mixing these drawings together - it’s allowing me to work with drawings that are lacking detail. I’m not sure where I will go from here - but I feel I’m progressing with creating more complex and interesting scenes.

Gray tone. I recorded the painting up to here but forgot to torn the screen recorder on for the color. I was frustrated with myself - normally I’m really good about recording all my digital painting.

Like I said earlier  I struggled with this painting. And this is the stage I had problems with - more so than the line stage. It feels empty and lacking depth. My favorite area is the clock tower in the center. There is something about the tones working together - other areas lack the detail. I thought taking it into color could help fix this emptiness I felt - it only made it worse at first - but towards the end I started to get somewhere.

Color. It certainly helps create a base. I still feel it’s lacking.

Watercolor below here

I didn’t do a concept art environmental work yesterday so wanted to make sure I did one today. I haven’t been getting out and drawing on the street. I have been drawing everyday, but it’s been at Mothers rather than public. I need to start getting back out in public and drawing again.

Anyway, here’s a painting I did today.

For the reference I opened a bunch of drawings up and used them as reference to create a new composition. I could mashed these works together into GIMP and traced over, but just decided to just use it as reference.

The drawings are various areas in Levin - including a Church that I went with family for a party. It’s very rare that you will find me in a Church - but when you do, I’ll likely be drawing.

Line work. Size 7 pixels works best for me. The default 20px seems too large. Again, no black - just a lovely red.

Tone added I worked over the trees several times with a range of textures as I was not happy with them. My favorite area is the letterbox - the range of tone works well. The image may need more detail on left, especially behind the figure.

Color. Keeping with the same palette of colors - though this time I decided to use multiply and overlay brushes (like the portrait I painted yesterday . I used the  I’ll keep working with the multiply and overlay settings as it gives the image a gutsy feel.

Finally, the video of the process:

Awake early this morning - 5am. Wanted to get straight into the digital painting. I first checked Reddit SketchDaily - Free Draw Friday. Fantastic - can just do a street scene.

I mashed together three drawings I did in Levin. This system of mashing drawings together is working out well - it’s allowing me to cover more ground and use the drawings that I may not have used otherwise.

The inking. I choose to use a brown over the black. It gives a more natural look over cartoonish. That’s what I want. Having the lines in the first place is wrong, but it’s been helpful for me to develop my work into more detail.  Gray-scale tone added. I used three brushes - two custom made flat brushes for the objects/sky and a vegetation texture brush for the vegetation (leafs). I should have added dark and texture to the sky.  And color added. Same colors as the previous works like this.Not much happening in the foreground - focused on the background further by using a dark red in the clock tower in order to push it back. My favorite areas are the left and the clock tower.

Check out this artists work

And finally, the video of this paintings process:

Here are a bunch of portrait paintings I did at the end of October. I kept with similar colors though the pieces - like the scape works - certainly helps the harmony of the overall look.

The cat was expecially nice to draw. More people need to upload portraits with their cats. I like this portrait. She looks similar to an old friend - Sky. With all these portraits I started with the line - then grayscale tone, then finally color. It’s a process that works for me. Sadly I didn’t preserve the line or grayscale layers - something I’ve been doing regularly with the digital street works. I think it’s importrant to keep these underlayers because it may be helpful to go back to the line work and re do the tone and color in future. Who knows what will happen with them?

Work mates. Comment I got for the work:

thanks! it is pretty fun! We all had a nice laugh at the essence of each of us that you caught, got a nice convict-y feel ;)

Thanks so much!

It’s great when people point out things I don’t notice - such as the prison look. Those oranges and yellows do it. Bad ass.

Top of the image is damaged - GIMP does a strange glitch with switching between brushes/colors when I’m working on the edge area. I just try to avoid the edge - can always just crop it down.

Video of the painting process.

Remind me when I was drawing at Matchbox Gallery and had 6 people in one drawing. More people is easier - makes the measuring easy!

No reds in this. They may help in the face?

Continued taking the drawings from Wellington into GIMP and turn them into Concept Artwork.

This was one of my favorite drawings I did well in Wellington - Waterfront on Sunday morning. When I lived in Wellington I would often make it into the Te Papa market to buy fruit and veges - and get some sketching done. It was lovely to do this again.

Here’s the painting process:

I started with mashing the two photographs together. I worked the same size as the previous work - 6000px by 200px. It’s a great long format that works well for these ladscape type works.Line added. I kept with the black line but I should explore different colors - browns might be good. Using something that’s not black will help remove the cartoon feel I get. Tone added. I used a light and mid gray for the objects and a dark gray for areas of the water and the figure in the foreground

And finally color - same color as previous works. I want to create several of these works everyday - using the same colors (though I leave room for more colors to happen - especially lights and darks of current colors). I kept the figure in black as it helped give the sense of perspective. Looking at this now - more reds could of been using on the right side. Maybe even capture the figure with some reds. Would highlights of light on the figure help?

Photopgraphy