day #365 - the end of an era

-
Image
I thought I was on top of it; I had finished early and was looking for a movie to watch already 3 hours ago. And I don't know how time went by. A phonecall, some networking studying, some online shopping and here we are, already past the time for an early movie. Regardless, today is a special day. The blog is over! I finished 365 days of daily painting and recording it, whatever that means. A big part of the process I will have to keep doing mainly for myself. Perhaps taking daily photos of my work and saving it on some folder. This has provem useful many times when I trying to date a piece I've been working on. Also making a small diary of today's achievements. It's still useful. But this will be done for my eyes only. I also don't know if I will be continuing my obsessively daily painting. How would life be if I had days off? Now for example that I'm moving out and I have to daily chores that until now were completely taken care of, perhaps I'll allow my
Post a Comment

day #61 - More practice

-
More practice day. Also known as I-am-so-afraid-of-doing-anything-creative-day. I did posture drawing mostly... I worry that I'm missing the point by not doing anything creative, but I try and tell myself that it's okay, that there is time for everything.

How do I like today's postures? I've tried doing 3 minute long sessions, which is not very common (I usually do 45, 60 or 90sec). The three minute ones allowed me to be more details in certain cases. I also did a very interesting vehicle(?) in perspective. It's not so much the design, as the complexity and orientation of the parts. I eyeballed it but I feels its falling into place. On the same sheet I like the female skeletor a lot; this one was based on some random pinterest image. Not happy with the result when I added the skin though.

I feel a bitter taste in my work today. I'd rather not go to bed feeling like that. I need to work it out a bit. So... what is it dear self that you don't like? Obviously my postures. They look very stiff, unnatural, cartoony. "I hear you". They might even be. Even though occasionally there are some that look real. Like moebius says static poses are more difficult than dynamic ones. And I can see a few static ones that look pretty. Also today I've leveled up anatomy-wise. I'm starting to see planar/muscular nuances on the legs. I still haven't completely worked them out, but as they say - once seen, can't be unseen, and now I am consciously aware of those muscles; it's only a matter of time that The appear. I also like some of my most minimalistic gestures; how they hold volume and posture with only a few lines. What else is there? Yes, back to the original issue: I wish I could draw real-looking postures on one hand and on the other that I could be creative. "I hear you (me)", I say. Might need some more practice and time before this happens. It's already better than when I was in the kindergarden, perhaps better compared to when I was in my 20s or early 30s. One day I'll get there. I need to stay motivated (in other words happy and inspired) and the rest will come; and if alive postures don't come, it will be because I'm enjoying painting other stuff, so even better!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

day #2 - Skulls, Perspective and Vehicles

-
Image
Days like today, I feel as if there is a race I need to excel at. I was watching a video on the very impressive Kim Jung Gi and suddenly here I am again, trying to improve my skills at drawing things into perspective. Some days (most days in the recent past one year or so) I work for hours inside small digital gray boxes (so I don't feel the pressure of wasting paper), filling them up with skulls, faces, body postures, vehicles, architecture and all things into perspective. This has been an improvement since two years ago. Back then, I'd fill sheets of paper with hand-drawn lines, triangles and ellipses. A whole lot of pages. I wish I could call this warming up and maybe it is too, but the truth is that it's a self-worth deficiency response mechanism (in my own words). When I don't feel enough (worthy of, capable of) doing anything remotely creative, I tend to do repetitive and measurable things that I call practice. On one hand I get the feeling that eventually I will
Read more

day #223 - Colorizing

-
Image
Today's piece has been an experiment (aren't they all?). I decided to try the "underpainting" technique, something that I only recently found out! To my disbelief, the habit of laying tha values first before the colors is not something only photoshop artists use, but has been around since forever. So I created a monochromatic painting of mere red values. It was quite beautiful. I hesitated attempting to add color since I didn't know whether it would work out, but eventually I took the plunge: I started with the sky and the background mountains. I wasn't too happy with the tampering but it was already late to go back. I moved on to adding color to the ground, which worked amazingly well and fast since you don't need to be too precise! Apparently it's easier and nicer to "colorize" the complex ground than the minimalistic sky. Perhaps again, red plus blue (purple), and red plus green (gray) are not compatible. Perhaps I had used too much water
Read more

day #283 - Ancient City of Zor

-
Image
Today's highlight has been this explorative piece that I did with the new iPad. The new apple pencil, has a button (unlike the first which had none). This allowed me to remap some other functions, and I suddeny have an ever more streamlined way of switching between drawing, erasing, and smudging (that I hadn't used until now) in an instant! I enjoyed a lot creating this piece (though I don't like it much), feeling a lot in command of everything down to the texture. What's most important though is that the details were coming easily. As if I was discovering the details of the architecture. This is my favourite way of painting/drawing! How I wish this was more frequent! I even got somewhat transported to that realm. The rest of the sheets are my attempts at comparing the two ipads/pencils; the old and the new one. I'm a tools-guy. I still like the old so much more but I hope I get used to the new one since spec-wise it's so much much better. Both sheets, carry ve
Read more