The give up

At this stage I  feel like I've lost the contrast in the piece. So I dislike it now.

Wolf: gesture and shape study

I did some gesture studying from the previous ref sheet. I liked one of the wolves and felt like it would fit into the painting as it had a confident shape and form.  

Reference: The lady and the wolf

Here are some images I collected from the internet and I use picasa to make a collage of the images. This helps me to pick out the elements I like or find useful from each image.

My Problems, (Kinda my Personal statement)

I was working on this piece during the summer, suddenly I left it to die in the abyss of untouched folders. In this post I will talk about the process, why I dropped the piece and why I have started it again during Uni.

This painting started out as a test of my knowledge from watching Etyan Zana's Gumroad video on composition. I liked the comp and how it has a snippet of story.

  

At this stage I added a pillar to the right to lock the viewers eyes and give the feeling the viewer is peeking into the action taking place. I initially added a photo texture to give some grit to work with and by playing with layer modes I gained this deep saturated red. This is the point I stopped the piece,  it was going well and fun so far. However, the idea that I would have to come up with a wall carving which could have a story or purely looked interesting. Didn't appeal.

Why I came back? the idea that I could just make this simple looking wall carving entertained me. However what really pushed me to continue the piece is its strong comp but how I could deepen the story. I thought 'the wall carving will show or hint at the transformation of man to a creature.' in the reality of the painting I decided to show the remains of a creature and the women holding the creatures head that would be all.' This extra piece of story telling and the open interpretation of it gets my juices going. So maybe it's a one time thing or something I want in all my pieces. The mystery. 

Starting the piece again I've found, I waste alot of time if I start designing on the tablet, I will try to get the perfect position that perfect angle and just keep working on achieving that till 2 hours have gone. This presents my three bad habits, which is not having a good idea what I want, not creating variations and finally not setting up a time limit to do things. I use the stop watch tool for doing gesture drawings but I need to get into the habit of applying it to my paintings and when I study. This will make me more efficient and clear in my intents. Finally another of my problems is when I've started a painting and I come across something where I'm finding a problem of painting. Like in this piece I tried painting the wolf but couldn't seem to do it. Then I asked myself do I know how to paint fur. Nope. Never studied it. Stubbornness makes me determined I can do it without the knowledge. However it makes the painting bad. This presents the my two problems. Treat each painting like a learning curve. If I have a problem studying something, study it. Till its become a religion to, or good enough.      

Master Study

Here I've tried using the medium Greg Tocchini uses in some of his pieces which is watercolour whilst studying Gustav's figures. I used bold vibrant colours and focused on capturing the shapes Klimt creates. I have found the shapes that Gustav use are bold and fluid. The lines used in the hair definitely reveal volume. I've also found there is an attention to weight in his figures.

Artist influence: Greg Tocchini & Gustav Klimt

Greg Tocchini is a comic book artist. The reason why I have chosen him as a source of inspiration is because I love his vivid use of gesture, colour and movement in strokes and shape. Looking at the colour they feel very saturated but the values ground them. Looking at the gesture of the figures I can see that  the figures are very expressive and fluid. Looking at the female figure, we can see there is a rhythm to the form, which makes it pleasant to look at. Finally, looking at the shapes they are designed in a way that have great moment. This is especially evident in the clouds.

Here I've decided to put Gustav Klimt next to Tochini as I want to blend Element of Tochini's work with Gustav's simplicity and use of pattern. The way Gustav uses texture is used in a fashion sense and like a texture. The use of fluid line of line reveal the women in sensuous and elegant manner. The absence of rendering of the females gives an emphasis on there graphic shapes, which balanced with the detail on the hair, gives this complete image. I like this approach as it gives a focus on emotion rather then being attacked with information.

Week 1

In the first week we did a loosening exercise in order to become more fluid with our movement and the transition of mind to page. I found the lesson awesome as I was able to see and feel my confidence. When it came to drawing in 3-D forms I had to slow down as I wanted to draw in perspective.  

The second task was to go to another persons page and from the scribble come up with a creature. Usually I am person who would look add reference and do studies. But I found the process very liberating, as I was instantly designing purely from imagination, leading to a bizarre outcome. This process demonstrates I can get more orginal and strange designs with this process.