sketchbook Stretching ...

Here are some more pages from my warm-up sketchbook.
They're about horses. Their skeleton structure in particular.
Still 'copies' from Ken Hultgren's book.




It makes it a lot easier to draw a subject if you study and understand it's structure.

Listening to: Geoff Farina & Chris Brokaw.

Environments | page no.36

Here's another attempt to paint a 'rainy street scene'.



Listening to: Al Green.

Sketchbook Stretching ...

and for warm-ups I started copying the drawings of Ken Hultgren from his book 'The Art of Animal Drawing - Construction, Action Analysis,Caricature'.
Here's me struggling some pages on construction...





Listening to: Marvin Gaye.

Seymour Bits-Put It Back Down

This is the brand new clip that my 'gold honest' friend Marbl created together with Michiel ten Horn, and the help of many others, for Seymour Bits.

Enjoy!

Sketchbook Stretching ...

...and warm-ups.



Listening to: Kanye West, De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig.

Sketchbook Stretching and Warm Ups

Environments | page no.35

I painted this one today. Trying to do the same scene, but then a wet, rainy variant. There's some things I like about it and a lot of things I dislike, but hey, its all about experimenting and learning some new stuff, so I'm gonna give this one another try. I think the main problem is that the contrast is way off, for it to be appear wet and rainy. Be looking at some reference, and then try again.



Listening to: Rufus Wainwright.

Environments | page no.34

Still trying to learn watercolors, and I started experimenting with a technique called:

Glazing.

With glazing you apply layers of pure pigment one over the other, to produce a desired color effect. The result is that color is "mixed" optically. There are endless possibilities with this technique. It is a sort of underpainting, which is an advantage because it doesn't let you start with a 'scary' white page, and it simplifies your painting into a value pattern. And of course one of the qualities of watercolour is it's transparency, so I better learn how to use it.

Here's my first attempt.



Second attempt trying to make some improvements in the scene, by controling the glazing process more, leaving area's untouched when layering the glazes.
Tried to make the area around the lightsource warmer, more saturated colors, more contrast, and the surroundings cooler less saturated color and with less contrast.



Listening to: Menahan Street Band.

Watercolors | 9

6th Watercolors exploration study.

White Glows.

Here's an attempt to painting white glows, aka, pure pigments diluted with lots of water. I think I could have used more water for this study. The color just pops up when it's drying. When you lay it down it's tricky to define how light it is going to be. Definitely worth some more practice.



Listening to: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.

Watercolors | 8

5th watercolors exploration study:

Compare Color Reactions

To make a color sing you need to create a reaction with the color surrounding it. Below are some possible combination's that work.



Listening to: Lee Fields & The Expressions.

Watercolors | 7

4th watercolors exploration study: Clean, Clear Browns.

It's not just the color you use; it is the way they are mixed.

Browns can be mixed with the same colors as the variety of greens.
The 'secret' is to establish a basic orange mixture.
Here are some of my attempts.




Listening to: Starsailor.

Watercolors | 6

Third color study: Darks.

Exploring the possibilities to mix luminous, bright and powerful darks.

'Darks should do more than supply a dark vale. They are the catalysts for the effect of light. The function of a dark color is to complement the light and help emit a glow. That means that a dark should not only provide a contrast, but also animate the light.'
from the book: Making Color Sing by Jeanne Dobie.




Listening to: Starsailor.

Watercolors | 5

Second color study: Greens.

First page is about exploring greens mixing them the 'normal' way, blue/green with yellow.
Watch how the green mixes becomes less vibrant towards mixing with FU (French Ultramarine). This is because this color holds the most red, it's complement which also can produce gray, and it sits across the line in the color wheel.



Next two pages are about exploring more green possibilities, adding reds, which produces more warm and lively greens. It is all about the ratio of warm and cool colors in your mixes, that is of the essence.





Listening to: KidCudi.

Watercolors | 4

Now I have a 'new' color palette, it's time to see what it is capable of.
By doing some color excercises I want to get to know my palette, so I can be in control of it. The previous palette I used, I was usually mixing 'mud' colors. With this palette this will hopefully change.

First color study: GRAYS.

Here's a study on what Jeanne Dobie in her book calls 'Mouse Power'.
Mixing the 3 primairies produces a neutral gray. Adding blue, red or yellow produces various luminous grays. The color gem inside the squares is the complement of the dominant color in each gray.


And some saturated grays.


Listening to: FutureVintage.net

Watercolors | 3

Page no.36 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Note: Updated my color palette after doing some more reading on watercolors. Above is the selection of colors based on how transparant a color is.
Below is how they sit in the 'color mixing' wheel. Again the same approach, for mixing vibrant colors stay within the line, and for less vibrant (grayed) color cross the line.



Listening to: Jack Johnson.

Watercolors | 2

Note: Some test pages exploring the possibilities with the new color pallet. I've been doing these in the sketchbook. These pages are really yellow (the scans are not representing what I'm seeing), so I'm gonna be doing some more color exploring but I will be changing to white paper. This way the (mostly) transparant colors come out best.

Listening to: FTG.

Watercolors | 1

Page no.34 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Note: After some research and reading about waterpaints I decided that my old pallet I was using was worthless, so ... I put together a new one!
My previous pallet was based on me picking 24 (my paint box can hold 24 1/2 naps) 'random' colors to mix all the colors I needed (I thought). With this pallet I had no clue what I was doing. How to keep my colors vibrant or how to make them less saturated, I was working clueless.

So after some reading and research I have now put together a new pallet, at least this is a start. I'm going to be doing some tests to see if I this pallet works for me.
The way to work with this pallet is as follow: If you want your color to be more bright stay within the lines when you mix. If you want to make your color less bright and more greyish you cross the line.
Here's a first test with some results.



I have some more colors added to my pallet for specific use.
More on those and some more testing in the next post.

Listening to: Fakkelteitgroep.

Environments | page no.33

Page no.33 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Background from Lady and the Tramp (Disney,1955).

Listening to: Zwart Licht.

Environments | page no.32

Page no.32 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Background from Lady and the Tramp (Disney,1955).

Listening to: Brian Eno.

Environments | page no.31

Page no.31 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Background from Alice in Wonderland (Disney,1951)

Listening to: Jamiroquai.

Environments | page no.31

Page no.31 from the 'Envronment' sketchbook.

Background from Alice in Wonderland (Disney,1951).

Note: Another look at how the color picture looks in value.

Listening to: Fakkelteitgroep.

Environments | page no.30

Page no.30 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.
Background from Alice in Wonderland (Disney,1951).

Note: Color thumbnail study from that scene.

Listening to: Zwart Licht.

Environments | page no.29

Page no.29 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.
Background is from Alice in Wonderland (Disney, 1951).

Note: It's interesting to see how they use shapes of light and dark to guide you towards the point you need to look. The curled shape curling around the black hole from left to right. The white triangle shape shaped like an arrow saying 'Look here!', that shape again is inside another black round shape with a point going inside it's own shape pointing right.

Listening to: Steely Dan.

Environments | page no.28

Page no. 28 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.
The background is from the movie Alice in Wonderland (Disney, 1951).

Listening to: Boards of Canada.

Environments | page no.27

Page no.27 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

The background is from the movie Alice in Wonderland (Disney, 1951).

Note:
"As an exercise before a day of composing, Chopin would spend an hour or two playing music from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. When he played Bach's music he felt he absorbed the master through the pores of his fingertips.
Why don't we artists do the same thing? Maybe because we're taught that it's bad to copy someone else's artwork. And we're justifiably concerned about becoming an imitator of another person's style.
But there's nothing wrong with copying as a way to practice and learn.
It's the shortest path to understanding."

from the chapter 'Copies from the Masters', Imaginative Realism by James Gurney.

Listening to: Peter Broderick.

Environments | page no.26

Page no.26 from the'Environments' sketchbook.

Note: This is a value study of the original image of the house.
Here are the two previous color studies with their value versions next to it.



One thing that all three images miss is lack of contrast to guide the viewers eye. You don't know where to look in these images. Also the images have a weak composition.That's another important tool you can use to guide the viewer. I'm gonna do some studies on these subjects the coming period.

Listening to: Minco Eggersman.

Environments | page no.25

Page no.25 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Note: Trying to keep the cool colors more mixed with blue and the warm colors mixed with yellow. My goal was to see if this would make the image feel more sunshiny. It's a little better than the image in the previous post, I think, but it's not only color, it is also the contrast and value in the image that makes it a little more sunny. If I squint my eyes it's best visible I think.

Listening to: Sticks & ART.

Environments | page no.24

Page no. 24 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Listening to: U2.

Environments | page no.23

Page no.23 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Environments | page no.22

Page no.22 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Note: Trying some artificial lightsource.

Listening to: Antony & The Johnsons.

Emily (9)

Started to work on the head again.



Listening to: Reflection Eternal.

Environments | page no.21

Page no.21 from the 'Environmnets' sketchbook.

Listening to: Iggy & The Stooges.

Environments | page no.20

Page no.20 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Listening to: Freddie Hubbard.

Environments | page no.19

Page no.19 from the 'Environmnets' sketchbook.

Listening to: Freddie Hubbard.

Environments | page no.18

Page no.18 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Listening to: Kings of Leon.

Environments | page no.17

Page no.17 from the 'Environments' sketchbook.

Listening to: Pete Philly.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Here's the first six pages of reversed storyboard I made of the Lost Ark.
Loving the excercise for now!
Great to train your quick drawing skills; gives me an insight in storyboarding, how much time does it take me to do these thumbnails, what language works for me, words?, arrows?, do I prefer pencil or pens to draw these?, colors/no colors?, great to experiment with; and it's really interesting to look and analyze at how the story is being told visually.
I also try to thumbnail the contrast and somewhat of the lighting used in the frames. I think I can improve in choosing my key poses/gestures in the frames, and I should watch closer to the emotional expressions of the characters. Important information that give much information about the scene.
But remember, we're not to produce pretty pictures here, but we want to see how to story is told visually!