ArtCtrl

On Thursdays I am taking Marc Hills painting class. In the past when I’ve taken his classes I haven’t painted. Drawing… and hearing what he has to save. This terms going to be different. I want to paint and get plenty done.

Landscapes are what Marc specializes in. I may as well give them a go. I’ve enjoyed using landscapes in GIMP for SketchDaily. Chance to develop my art in a different style then just people. Conceptart.org is a favorite for me - Environment of the Week. I’ve told a bunch of people about it. If I haven’t told you, check it out! I haven’t posted anything I’m very inspired by the artwork posted. I am also inspired by the PC games – The Elder Scrolls : Skyrim (must invest more time) and Minecraft (I just brought it after watching my brother play it over Xmas). I’d be interested in transferring ideas from these games into my painting.

Here’s what I did on Thursday -

I took this photo at the end of last year. Lyall Bay is one of my favorite spot. I’m further away now that I have moved to Mount Cook. Kilburne is close the Lyall Bay. I don’t miss my old flat. Next weekend I’ll be in Island Bay so I’ll be sure to take the camera and get a few shots for future reference. For both of the paintings I started I started with this reference then switched to imagination. Thinking about buying a set of gouache. Could be helpful for traveling round Wellington and painting.

Reeves Artist Acrylic paint. It’s cheap. Does the job. I started with the horizon. Flat large brush – size 24.

I focused on creating depth and perspective in the piece. It’s only operating on two levels currently – the foreground surface and the background surface. The water effects and scale help create a distance between these objects.

The feedback I got back from Marc about this was to watch the clearatiy – basically that I didn’t lose objects or a sense of whats happening.

I went in with some colour – only a yellow for now. I’ll mix in other colours later – but wanted to take it slow. All my paint – oils and acrylic are opaque so I’ll keep exploring the properties of opacity. My digital painting has used this recently – working on 70% opacity over a low 30%. Marc works with opaite paints so he will be able to give feedback directly related to working with opaqueness.  I like the gaps that I created in the

foreground. Giving a sense that there is more complexity to the piece then just blocks.  It creates paths – and walkways. WHere would I like to take this next? Colour. Detail. I’d like to leave areas blank or underdeveloped – partially areas that are working. Areas that are not working – cover in paint – go in with detail. That’s the basic way I’m working with these paintings.

The second painting I started. Very much along the same idea as the first. I have 9 of these boards so would like to complete 9 landscape paintings – but see how they go and develop! Rachel said she liked this more the first wonderful! They should improve as I progress.  Marc gave some helpful feedback at the end of the day on this – watch the line. This is an interesting point – I would like to have crisp edges.  Stencils look like a option.

Back to Minecraft… taking a break from SketchDaily as I’m not enjoying the current theme. I have some digital landscapes that I will upload later – done on the train when traveling to Levin.