Tuesday 17 November 2015

havnofear

(ahead: another critical post for the purpose of analyzing how to improve!)

Hey hey hey me! and you!



 Here's what spawned the desire for above video:

been trying to pin down my stress sources/ lately in art! Noticed myself complaining, without words, just negative bundles of feelings or 'voice in your head' complaints about art and my current skill level with not enough solutions or problem solving to balance that out.



some latest stuff and what I feel I can learn about from it or what I'd like to overcome:
Took a very very long time for this to start looking anywhere near appealing to me. Need to understand perspective more. And windows and the things outside them? And populate settings with interesting things. And lighting! Not satisfied with this one, but I learned, and I enjoy the characters.

I enjoy the result, but find it very flat and not all that interesting. Used it as an exercise to dive into painting/drawing houses. Also need to learn to tie in elements with how I paint them. Everything is dealt with differently. Must work on that!

Liked it a lot the moment it was done, then immediately not much at all. Was a fun exploration but I really need to think more about how to make things have more depth and variation... more dynamic and stuff. And more style consistency.

Brushstrokes and values and blending modes and adjustments experiment. As usual, started out very flat and gray. Used photoshop magic to push a bit more life into it after each little while of painting. I learned about values and what changes made it more appealing to me but I am a long ways from producing that all on my own.

Experiment and practice on environment with foreground, middleground, background... colours... and rocks, they baffle me! I think too many of my environments have this same scale? I don't know, something is weird about it. And I scrapped the cliff side and restarted it because it was becoming a mass I really didn't understand what I even wanted to do with. I still need to work on that in general... oh and another thing, I found it frustrating that one brush I was using in this piece had a lot to do with the results I was getting. I liked that it seemed to finally work well, but I didn't like that I was relying on the brush's smooth/hard edges to get the look I enjoyed... Still not sure how I feel about that.

 I felt simply incapable of getting what I saw that same day into a painting, even if I concentrated on remembering what the ground and everything looked like. I learned a lot but still cannot enjoy this image because it looks so all-over-the-place... the values are weird. I stylized the characters a lot to keep it fun and fluid. Some parts were really fun, still.

 I had a lot of fun with this because I love onions, I think they are beautiful. I am frustrated that there is no real lighting, and that I feel incapable to have figured out any real lighting. But then I know I enjoy a lot of art with no actual realistic lighting in it... so I'm confused :P

Enjoyed this at first, thought it was looking really textural and interesting and like it had volume. Now it looks too plain and muddy. :P

 These characters were fun to do, and started out as me wanting to do something like I see lots of artists I enjoy doing, coherent sheets of many characters that look like they're along the same theme. Mine became less and less of that and more of just various stuff. I'm still not sure if I enjoy the way I draw characters (usually from scribbles and shapes). It makes me feel like I have big weaknesses in imagining form and solid stuff, and details. 


This, to me, speaks mostly about the feeling I mentioned in the video. I felt extremely paralyzed during this, like unable to go further in a way that would benefit to it. While I was drawing and painting. I felt way too lacking. And that's a feeling I want to free myself of, and I'm looking for how to do it. I did feel the process loosening up after a while, so I know a bit more about what I need to pursue. :)
Things Id like to achieve/work towards:

-Dynamic!!! Variety in shape, size, balance, pattern, complexity!!! Severely lacking experimentation with this!
-Mood. Need to create a feeling, instead of just empty images or characters. Ask myself what would pull me in, or at least think of the moment or character as existing, and all interesting components of it. Brainstorm?
-Train brain reflexes back into fascination and desire to learn, and less into thinking there is too much to know and it will never be attained :P Too easy to be defeated like that!
-Lots more I cannot think of right now. Mostly things like animal anatomy, human eyes, heads, hair, and everything else in the whole worlldddd!



Onwards into the future!!! Must try more things!!! Refusing to stagnate!