I wanted to share this with you to make sure you use the correct techniques on this assignment. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours working on my pencil comp of the demo I started in class. It's not quite done yet, but it's close:
In my last email I said that the more time you spend on the pencil comp, the better your final painting will be. This is why - the pencil comp carries most of the information. the acrylic wash is transparent, so all it really does is 'colour' the pencil comp, which contains most of the values from taking your time doing a really good job shading everything. BUT...
Notice that I'm not shading with the side of the pencil... I want strong directional lines and crosshatching. That gives the image energy! Watch again how Drew Struzan does his pencil shading:
The next step: applying the first layer of wash. If you're already past this stage, that's fine - but remember: it's acrylic wash - stay away from painting with thick, opaque paint!
Here you can see that I'm barely using any paint - it's almost all water. I'm already thinking about my colour scheme, though. I looked at David Grove's colour scheme for the Youngblood movie for inspiration.
The key to this process is to BE PATIENT! Don't try to get to the deeper, darker, richer colours and values too quickly. Let each layer of wash dry before continuing to the next layer. Keep the paint transparent - DON'T use opaque paint! When you've loaded the brush, paint a small test stroke on a scrap or in the border outside the image area before applying the paint to your work.
Keep a rag or paper towel handy so you can soak up excess paint if you accidentally lay down too much.
Don't worry about going 'outside the lines' ... you can always do clean-up after everything is done with opaque white touch-up paint.
Gradually add darker value (by mixing colours - NOT with actually tube black!) to your colour washes to gradually deepen shadow shapes.
Tomorrow, bring coloured pencils if you have them along with your painting supplies.
In my last email I said that the more time you spend on the pencil comp, the better your final painting will be. This is why - the pencil comp carries most of the information. the acrylic wash is transparent, so all it really does is 'colour' the pencil comp, which contains most of the values from taking your time doing a really good job shading everything. BUT...
Notice that I'm not shading with the side of the pencil... I want strong directional lines and crosshatching. That gives the image energy! Watch again how Drew Struzan does his pencil shading:
The next step: applying the first layer of wash. If you're already past this stage, that's fine - but remember: it's acrylic wash - stay away from painting with thick, opaque paint!
Here you can see that I'm barely using any paint - it's almost all water. I'm already thinking about my colour scheme, though. I looked at David Grove's colour scheme for the Youngblood movie for inspiration.
The key to this process is to BE PATIENT! Don't try to get to the deeper, darker, richer colours and values too quickly. Let each layer of wash dry before continuing to the next layer. Keep the paint transparent - DON'T use opaque paint! When you've loaded the brush, paint a small test stroke on a scrap or in the border outside the image area before applying the paint to your work.
Keep a rag or paper towel handy so you can soak up excess paint if you accidentally lay down too much.
Don't worry about going 'outside the lines' ... you can always do clean-up after everything is done with opaque white touch-up paint.
Gradually add darker value (by mixing colours - NOT with actually tube black!) to your colour washes to gradually deepen shadow shapes.
Tomorrow, bring coloured pencils if you have them along with your painting supplies.
Comments
Post a Comment