Today I resumed working the Underwater scene. It was awfully fun; I've lately observed that if I start feeling that what I'm painting is already something formed/real/plausible, then all I have to do to improve it, is to "test" my new brushstrokes against my "intuition of plausibility". I can treat perspective like that, I can treat light like that. It becomes an exercise of testing something against "what feels right". The problem is while the painting universe is still very loose and nothing is clear, then you have to create. Then the light has to be painted and you don't know if it's right or not; the perspective has to be calculated and it's still unclear whether you've succeeded, you just hope that you did it well.
Anyway, today was fun! Unfortunately now that I brought the piece to compare it to the latest incarnation of it, I realized it's not much of an improvement! The reason is that I was fixing the brushwork at it's lowest level (it's a first for me) only to see once again that it's still very weak overall (and no matter what you fix locally, you can't fix the general). If only I knew how much I'd invest before starting... Then again, I'd never reach this place if I had spent more time sketching different setups. There are some issues that I can now see clearly on the computer, as if a new eye has opened for me, a better perception of masses and the contrast between them. It's possible that it's more visible now because I have started enriching the regional colors whereas until now it was a very coarse palette.
All things said, I see now that I have a few areas that I need to rework (I can't afford to be lazy), keep working at my brushwork and perhaps accept the fact that this piece is not meant to be inspected up close; digital brushes are nightmarish with that.
On the positive side, other than my overall confirence and clarity in seeing these issues with my piece's design, I feel glad that I'm practicing more of my digital brushwork and reinforcing my discoveries around fleshing out of the "flats", it's been a puzzle piece that had been missing and it's going to open many doors for me. I seem to have finally understood a practical way to build compositions starting from a flat color: I start with a flat shadowy silhouette and add some upper-midtones to create form. then I can add deep shadows and highlights. I'm also more excited about a newfound better understanding of edge control, thought this might be the case only because this is the first piece that has allowed me to work on it so meticulously. This very meticulousness, is also something I'm very happy about; I'm glad I have the capacity to slow down and work something systematically until it's complete. I've missed it! Finally, this has been another day of excellent textures and reflections.
Overall very happy with the "session" (and not so happy with the result).
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