Articles

Quick rundown of prep work for "Nugget"   1.  Sketch ideas and sketch studies:   2. Reference photos consolidated:   3. Painted studies - 8 x 10 inches each - Marble Study, Value Study, Color Study:   4. Final Painting - 16 x 20 inches: [...]

This is a quick tutorial...just want to illustrate the process:   Step 1 - Once concept decided on, reference photos are collected - a pic of my cat and two reference photos off the internet.   Step 2 - Value, color, and chroma levels are determined and mapped.     Step 3 - Value study is completed, 8 x10 inch.   Step 4 - Color study is completed, 8 x10 inch.   Step 5 - Final painting is sketched and started.   Step 6 - Painting completed. [...]

Started a new painting and wanted to illustrate my processes leading up to the final painting. This painting started as an idea and then all the parts pieced together to make that idea comet to fruition.   Step 1 - Concept Development I sketch random ideas until I land on something.  Below are examples of the randomness of sketches as I play around with ideas.   Step 2 - Concept Decided On Once I decide on what I want...it's game on.  I will continue to fine tune the composition to include writing out the overall value plan and color plan (very simply).      Step 3 - Gather Reference Photos Once [...]

With all the average artists on the internet these days showing their artwork, there appears to be a lack of prep work.  It appears the artist finds a photograph, immediately paints it, and then posts it for the world to see as a finished "look what I did" painting along with video of their painting process.  The result is an ordinary painting that shows their lack of understanding the basics.     So what are the basics and how can they improve?   1.  STUDY THE HUMAN FIGURE    Painting a portrait or a full body painting without understanding bone and muscle structure is like building a house [...]

The basics: Value is the key to making something look realistic. Value (also know as Tone) is most easily represented by a value scale showing gradations of greys from pure black to pure white. Value ranges in a photograph or photograph of a painting can be seen by converting it to a black and white image.   Value scale and landscapes: Adjusting light and shadow impacts the outcome of a landscape painting. You are not tied to what you see while painting in person or in a photograph. The images below show the variations of shadow to light relationships for various landscapes [...]

The challenge with sunsets is the constant change of value, color, and chroma from one end of the painting to another.    First, lets look at value: The center of a sunset (you're right, the sun) is the lightest value of the entire painting.  Nothing can come close to this value!.  As we move away from the sun, your guessed it, the value decreases.  Fairly simple concepts. Water or land directly below the sun will reflect very high values, second only to the sun.  However, the lightest areas of other parts of water or land must be darker in value than anything in the [...]

When I find I am trying to paint something new that I am not familiar with, like planet Earth, the only way to get good at it really fast is to gather lots of reference pictures and paint as many of them as I can.    I start with several pencil sketches to get the feel for drawing the Earth with the land and weather patterns.  I then start painting a couple of the reference photos to get a feel for how I am approaching this - how my eyes "see" the reference photos and how my brain transcribes this to the canvas [...]

Starting a new painting is always exciting. Motivation is in the driver's seat when it comes to gathering photo references, sketching ideas, and starting color studies. However, as time goes by and motivation in the painting process starts to subside, it's the grit and discipline that allows me to see it through to the end and to get that painting across the finish line. Definitely the case with this one.     Once I had a general idea of the layout, placement of the mountain and foreground, I started value sketches in pencil.  I know I wanted the mountain to pop in both value [...]

This started as a simple idea of a piano and light.  I wanted to work a darker painting and practice painting a single light source within the painting showing the light falling and fading on objects around the light.  I also wanted to take a simple setting and make it complex with a complicated wallpaper design.     I set up the still life and took several reference photos with high and low camera exposure times to get bright and dark options.  Even the though the intent is a darker painting, getting photos of a bright version of the still life allows me to [...]

This was the first of some larger size paintings I did, 18" x 24".  Previously I had been working in smaller 11" x 14".  Had an idea for this painting and started off by taking a bunch of reference photos.  Took separate photos of the face with strong and weak lighting so I had a full range of reference options.  I find that as I paint I need a variety of lighting options, not different lighting angles, but some photos with strong reflected light, some with none, some with darker shadows, and some with lighter shadows.  It gives me options to [...]

Value studies are key to understanding how to paint realistically.  Landscapes can be particularly challenging to paint due to the slight differences in value that can impact the appearance of objects at a distance versus in the foreground.    For landscapes, as a rule of thumb, objects in the foreground use the full range of values from the darkest dark to the lightest light.  Due to atmospheric effects objects at a distance have a reduced range of values as they move back into the painting.  The darkest dark for an object at a distance is less than a foreground object's darkest dark.  Same [...]

These paintings are a series of 1 1/2 to 2-hour acrylic studies using three colors on 11 x 14 inch canvas.  Titanium white was used in each along with one warm and one cool color.  In the study of the baby I used bright reddish purple (I can't remember the color name) underpainting just to see what would happen.  The gnome and plant are from life and the others were from photo references.   These are great ways to transition from pure value painting with grays using white and black to introducing color without using a full palette of paints.  The primary focus [...]

I decided to try something different with this one.  Due to my impatience and limited time I normally go from sketch to painting with little to no planning…I just kind of wing it.  This time I decided to do a full up value study in various lighting conditions followed by color studies and then a final painting.  I should not have been surprised but this made the final painting so much easier to do.  Working out all the “bugs” I could encounter with values and colors made the final painting much easier. The only challenges ended up being blending colors to [...]

It’s nearly impossible to accurately free-hand an aircraft by looking at a reference.  I find that tracing a photo reference is critical to accurately portray a currently built vehicle.  Often times there is no photo reference available for the lighting and/or the angle that I need.  In these cases I need to make my own photo reference by getting access to a model.  I have made a few model aircraft, positioned them, and photographed them for references.    The photo below show the model that I built of a C-17.  I positioned it in the middle of a room by hanging the model [...]

This painting was done several years ago just after the Landscape 1 in the previous blog entry.    1. Same techniques used with regard to the underpainting, hand painted with burnt sienna.      2. Added initial layers of color for the trees and grass with green and orange followed by a light blue/green for the foggy haze.     3. I like the technique of seeing the light through tree branches by painting the trees first (such as the one sticking up above the others on the left) and then painting the sky through it, as opposed to painting the sky and then adding the tree on top.  [...]

This painting was done several years ago.  It was my first painting after returning from an 8-month deployment and I had not touched a brush in the 9-10 months prior.  It actually turned out pretty darn good…in my un-humble opinion.    The underpainting was painted free hand and done in burnt sienna.     I used a bright orange to highlight the transition of the dark tree line with the light sky behind it.  For the electrical wire I should probably have painted less of it, should have just “hinted” at it with a smaller line.  It stands out too much to me.  I also could [...]

This one was done several months ago.  The focus of this painting was to practice blending in two separate photo references, the mountain and the Army vehicles.  Up to this point most of my paintings had been modifications to various single photo references, primarily in the "Military Aviation" section of this website.  Also, I do not have much experience with landscapes.  If I wanted to get better I would go outside and practice, but life gets busy and I usually don't get around to painting until about 1-2 hours before I hit the bed in the evening.  So photo references are [...]

This painting is a good example of happens when not maintaining consistent value relationships throughout the painting.   This was my first attempt at a rather complicated painting using 7 reference photos.  As opposed to the portraits and figures that I paint free hand with a brush, this one was created with tracing the shack and figures from photo references...I know, not the most artistic, but it's effective.  I had a photo reference for the buildings and a separate one for the dog, child at the top of the stairs, old woman sitting, girl carrying the baby, the man inside the room, and the [...]

The following shows my process in creating a portrait from a photograph using acrylic paint.   1.  Using the photo as reference I sketch out the portrait using burnt umber paint.  I only use pencil if doing a very detailed painting that requires a precise drawing.  I'll block in the shadow areas using varying amount of paint, thinning it with water as needed for the lighter values and heavier on the darker values.  I like using the warm burnt umber or burnt sienna for the underpainting.   The underpainting establishes my basic values, masses the lights and shadow areas, and makes it easier to [...]

    Artist Spotlight:  Marvin Mattelson (Portrait Artist) Go to his web page:  https://www.fineartportrait.com/ Select “About” and read through his background, where he went to school, and jobs he has had as an artist Select “Portrait Gallery” and look through his artwork.  His technique in painting is very technical, similar to what you have learned in this class.  He is very strict in maintaining values and does not veer away from colors in that he wants them represented as he sees them.     [...]

    Reference the following blog post by Paul Foxton on color matching for still life paintings: https://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/a-blue-lemon-why-understanding-colour-is-the-key-to-realism    Note:  He is using oil paint and Munsell scales in his blog post, we are not, but the overall concept is the same   [...]

      Artist Spotlight:  Colie Wertz (Concept & VFX Artist) Go to his web page:  https://www.coliewertzdesign.com/ Look through Colie’s gallery of concept art.  (VFX in the title is Visual Effects) Focus on his use of values and color.  His digital paintings are very subdued in color except for one or two colors that really pop out.  It’s a good example on how not all colors have to be their maximum hue. We need to vary the chroma based on what we see, or in the case of Colie’s concept art they vary it based on what they want to pop out.       [...]

  Artist Spotlight:  Ian McQue (Sci-Fi and Concept Artist) Go to his web page:  https://www.iamag.co/the-art-of-ian-mcque/ Look through Ian’s artwork.  His work is done on the computer. Focus on his use of values.  Even though the colors are bright, his values are maintained throughout his artwork. Also focus on his use of atmospheric effect and how the values change to make objects appear further away, similar to our example number 5 in this exercise.   [...]

    Artist Spotlight:  Kadir Nelson (Illustrator) 1.  Go to his web page:  https://www.kadirnelson.com/ 2.  Select “About” and read through his background, where he went to school, and jobs he has had as an artist 3.  Select “Gallery” and look through his artwork.  As a study in this homework assignment look at the painting called “Morning Post” (just past halfway down as you scroll across the pictures). Look at the values used for the light colored shirt and newspaper versus the darker pants and skin tones.  The boy is standing in a shadow so even the brightest part of the white [...]

Value Study   Select 2 photographs of your choice to draw.  Select something simple and sketch them about the size of an iPhone.  The emphasis of this exercise is to draw the shadow and light areas resulting in 3 values:  white, mid-value gray, and black.  Do not focus on any details, just the variation of light.    SQUINT – when you squint, colors and details are minimized so that all you see are the values that stand out as white, gray, and black.  SKETCH PICTURE – using a pencil, lightly sketch the picture you selected.  Occasionally squint while sketching so that you focus on the light [...]