Just image dumping to prep my CA.org sketchbook. Can't keep everything at a higher reso there. 

About studying

Lately I've come to realize that I am not actually learning properly. Rather than understanding how things work in an image, I am starting to just copy what I see. This isn;t a huge problem - my main goal was to to improve my mechnaical and observation skills, so it's good. Except that my second goal is to put this ability to the test in making images which don't yet exist.

Analysis is observations intelligent brother. Why does the light behave the way it does? Why does the form turn? I haven't been asking these questions enough. Luckily, I have found a method to practice analysis - the Reilly method.

Instead of me explaining it, I will just let the person that introduced it to me do it.

http://www.freshdesigner.com/how-to-construct-the-limbs/

Good websites.

The following websites contain a wealth of information regarding colour, painting, and concepts. First off,  I've been reading HueValueChroma.

http://www.huevaluechroma.com/

Probably the most intensely scientific approach to light for painters there's available on the web. It aims a lot of the disucssion at why that scientific system is good to know as a creative, and it's a good if lengthy read. I'm struggling myself, but it's worth it.

Second up is a blog by a rather good painter:

 http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/ 

If there's someone that can analyze the decisions master paintings made, this guy can do that. He gives clear demonstrations of why certain techniques in painting work the way they do, and how they are employed in clever and creative ways.

Finally, blog by the Senior Art Director for Wizards of the Coast. Less to do with painting, but everything to do with ideas, and how important they are to a business such as WoTC - and how you go about selling them. 

http://artorder.blogspot.com/

New stuff from 8th of March

I took a week off to work on a SS Great Britain painting with Floris, which we managed to finish in less than 4 days. So I started this Sargent study on Monday in preparation for (sort of) for going outside and painting with gouache.

The focus on this image was to get the colours and feeling of the painting right. While shapes are important, this painting is much more impressionistic and adhering strictly to the shapes wouldn't teach me much (I think). So once I got the colours right, I went on and tried to pick out the things that could help me move towarda a final picture. Not quite there yet but I'll keep putting time into it until I know how to finish a painting properly.

Wednesday's Effort

Tuesday was life drawing day. I did this in about 3 1/2 hours spread out on Wednesday, which is a bit faster than the previous portrait. It also looks a bit better I think.

Too bad she still looks like a man.

WIP

Block in Picture as well, so you can see how bad this stuff starts out as!

And sometimes, everything turns to shit.

End work for Thursday and Friday + one from monday. This day went completely terrible, and by the end I had zero motivation left to continue working on any of the things.

However long you think any of these took: they probably took a lot longer.

Wednesday and Thursday

Started some colour studies of artic environments. Trying to get colours right first; then go in for accuracy. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to go further than the current stage yet.