Commentary For My Six Paintings
First Painting (Traditional) - Virgin of the Rocks
The
Virgin of the Rocks is a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The full
painting shows Madonna, Christ Child, John the Baptist and an angel. The
section I painted was of the angel’s head and neck, which I acquired a colour printout
of earlier this year during the painting studio classes. This is an acrylic
painting.
For this
painting I started out by painting it upside-down. I found it to be easier to paint
the face this way as the whole face didn’t distract me from all the little details;
however I believe it also skewed my perception a bit of the overall facial
proportions. Noticeable incorrect proportions of my painting are:
·
The nose
is a slight bit too long.
·
The eyes
are a bit too big.
·
The philtrum
length caused by the longer nose
These few
incorrections are very noticeable on a portrait, as opposed to the same amount
on a still life or landscape.
For the
colouring, I started out without covering the face with a base colour, but
instead added mid-tones to divided sections of face. I then added a tone to
each edge of sections to blend out the colours, creating a gradient. The white
has only a very thin coat of white-ish pink, so most of the white is from the
white paper itself, and the black colours are just one coat of black with the
exception of a few small spots, as it was near impossible to paint over black.
I had the
most trouble with painting the neck/clothing folds and her hair curls. I
believe I spent more time on the folds than her whole face. The folds were
challenging because of how thin the dark and light tones are, and also some had
sharp edges while others had gradients. The only way I managed to paint them in
the end was with patience and precision. The hair curls proved to be just a challenging,
mostly due to how numerous there were and the line-work required to draw each
was too time consuming (I did not manage my painting time efficiently), therefore
I only painted what I could.
Mixing
the colours were my other big challenge, mostly due to my inexperience with
traditional paint. This can be seen from the neck section of my painting. There
is this one fold of the skin with a slight hint of green in the original
painting, and I wasn’t unable to reproduce the colour successfully and turned
out more grey than I had hoped. The lighter hint of yellow on her shoulders was
troubling to reproduce as well and turned out to be a darker shade of yellow.
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| Reference |
Da Vinci, L.
(1483-1486). Virgin of the Rocks.
Retrieved from:
Second Painting (Digital) – Dark Forest
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| Final Painting |
I chose this painting partially because of the setting I wanted for another summative, but also because of the background lighting where the further the object the lighter it became I found to be very interesting.
I started out with the line-work on the top layer, with the background on the bottom layer. I painted a cyan-green radial gradient in the background to match the photograph, which was the easiest part of the painting. The line-work was with the numerous branches and leaves and the different shade of black and grey each had to represent its distance. I painted each trunk and branch, and used a large paint brush for roughly half the leaves while painted the other half individually.
The most challenging part of the painting was managing the different colour shades as they were the only indication of distance in the picture. I believe I did a good job replicating the background colour and each grey shade of the trees. Only improvement apart from adding more detail to each individual leaf (very tedious work) would to get better proportions of the forest, as the cluttering of the leaves and branches made it difficult to correctly proportion every trunk and branch.
Anthraxdeathrider.
(2012). Foggy Dark Forest. Retrieved from:
Third Painting (Traditional) – Chick and Egg
I decided
to draw a chick with an egg because it proved a challenge at representing two
opposite textures in one painting: a smooth surface of an egg verses the
feathering fluff that is the chicken, and also because the photo was so cute. This
is an acrylic painting.
Proportion-wise
I think it was much less difficult than my other paintings to draw correctly,
though the one noticeable mistake is shorter length of a talon on the chick’s
further foot.
The
colour I think was pretty close, but not exact. The orange tone of the egg was
the most difficult to mix, together with the gradient proved to be too
difficult to get exact. From looking at the painting and photo right now, I
think the egg can be improved with more yellow and white in the colour, but
only a slight bit as I think was I have already is a good mid-tone.
The other
challenge was painting the chick’s body. The fine details, like the dark spots
showing the protrusion of the feathers, were virtually impossible to paint with
my common brushes. I borrowed a fan brush from a fellow classmate, and
experimented with its effects for the first time. The result turned out
alright, but perhaps a too dark and too many darker lines. The little folds in
the chick’s legs were difficult to reproduce, and what I did was press my brush
tip horizontally to form parallel presses, and the excess paint squeezed out
from the edges formed the lighter folds on the legs. I then painted a slightly
darker tone on the presses to intensify the lighter lines.
Overall I
am happy with the result considering my lack of experience with different types
of brushes.
Retrieved
from:
Fourth Painting (Digital) – Peeled Orange
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| Final Painting |
This
digital painting I started back in a lab on Photoshop, and decided to finish it
off for the summative. It is a monochromatic painting of a peeled orange still
life.
I decided
to go monochromatic to better focus on the shades than the colour as I find
working only with shades is more challenging to successfully represent a still
life. I also painted this using the smudging tool for the great majority of the
painting. This was only because I found it easier at the start of the painting
when I did yet have a graphic tablet.
 |
| Reference |
Gomez, A. (Year Unknown). Retrieved from:
http://lumartingalleries.com/artists-2/alfredo-gomez-still-life-paintings/#2
Fifth Painting (Traditional) – Four Seasons
For this
painting I based it on two different photo references, and created it my own. This
is an acrylic painting. It is a painting of the same tree in four different
seasons, with each season occupying a quarter of the painting.
The
painting looks a bit too cartoonish and not realistic enough with realistic
lighting effects. The autumn sky looks too red and the clouds aren’t
realistically shaped. The spring branches look too rough and too thick, and
should’ve been more like the winter branches. I tried creating sun glare on the
summer sun, and I think I came close at recreating a realistic looking glare,
but not so much when matches with a visible sun. Improvements on this would be
for a near white sun with more noticeable and brighter glare lines.
(Left Photo) Retrieved from:
http://www.edb.utexas.edu/visionawards/petrosino/index.php?usr=katieraegan&id=s:home_katieraegan
(Right Photo) TheAngelsFace. (2013). 4 Seasons Tree. Retrieved from:
http://theangelsface.deviantart.com/art/4-seasons-tree-347511010
Sixth Painting (Digital) – Sand Dune
My last painting is of the Sahara Desert. I always wanted to paint a desert for its beauty, and also because I could use this backdrop for my game project I am working on.
I approached this painting with similar techniques from my orange still life, as it was (almost?) monochromatic with many gradients of shades. I laid down a base colour for the whole desert, then applied shades and highlights to individual sections and focused on completing each section before moving onto the next. I used the smudge tool in Photoshop to create the gradients, which wasn’t too challenging but was time consuming to get the right shade.
The most challenging part of the painting was the ripples in the sand, and how to show the dark lines. I found it extremely difficult to draw line by line was they were either not on the correct angle or had too many breaks in between creating jagged lines. I settled with a brush in Photoshop that had two parallel lines each, therefore giving a better illusion of uniformed ripples. The biggest improvement I could make to this painting would be giving more time to the ripples and making them more details, as right now they are aren’t very realistic upon closer inspection.
Retrieved
from:
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