day #365 - the end of an era

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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

day #257 - That Underwater World

It's a very complicated situation, that is very very familiar. I'm observing how I'm craving to "see" (and admire) this piece over and over again - I'm somewhat enamoured to it; yesterday before going to bed I checked on it more than 5 times. Every single time, I'd be so excited and proud for it, and so disappointed after seeing that it actually doesn't live up to my expectations. It's good, it's probably the most (technically) as I can do at my current skill-level, but it's not exceptional. The colors are dull, the spaceship uninteresting, the figure mediocre but worst of all, the camera angle/fov is not dramatic enough. And yet, as soon as I close the image, my mind builds up anticipation to see it again - The realization that it's "merely ok", doesn't stick; In my imagination it lives as an idealized memory. I wonder why this happens. Perhaps working on it was so intense that my brain was wired to think it's awesome and now I'm having a hard time un-wiring it?
Anyway, today I resumed working on the piece; had I more time I would had worked longer on it, but I didn't so that should do for today. It's nice that I can allow myself to work on a piece over numerous sessions, all thanks to the practice with physical media. I liked how I started adding light and details, and how I've started adding information and color/contrast variance locally, without overthrowing the initial composition and without worrying for it to cruble while being zoomed in, since I have already placed the midtones. I am enjoying the subtlety of color variations I can achieve with digital paint, as opposed to physical media where I both don't have the patience to wait for layers to dry and the orderliness to keep my palette clean for this level of control.
I also like how I for once wasn't too ashamed using the "smudge" tool to soften areas of the piece. I enjoy how I'm creating the illusion of "details" by playing with the edges sometimes as little as a stray stroke next to a perfectly straight line! It's fascinating; As a fan of less work, I hope to reach a point where I don't have to paint anything, and instead "indicate", allow the viewer imagine it all. Another aspect of today's work I've been enjoying is rendering light and form; this is something that feels like a mindless relaxing task with certain(?) succes given that the base is good. This piece is also helping me realize that if the thumbnail isn't good, not much can be done to save it, and if it is good, not much can be done to ruin it. Having said that, I wish I had spent more time working on the camera, a more dramatic FOV would had worked nicer, a more tight spacing of the details would benefit the piece. I'm repeating myself.
In any case, it's a very pleasant process now. Seeing it on the computer screen, with high brightness, the walls look jarringly empty. I think after I finish the piece in my favourite brightness level, I'll rework the shadows at full brightness and add some details.
I'm resisting the urge to pull some references (for the underwater view, the reflections on the u-ship's glass dome and the giant window's refractive properties) and instead I'm trying to let it fall into place by accident - the surprise of discovery/emergence is so much more satisfying (and exciting) than planning/observation and deliberation. This is a tenet of my life, I should note it down. I'm also looking forward to what sorts of flora might appear.
Finally, I can see my tendency towards drawing "awe-inspiring" tranquill caverns where solitary travellers look outwards.

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