Chaos and Gold - Introducing a Structured and Controlled Pattern

Reflection & Analysis

Another abstract piece I continued working on from an early development stage of my other artwork "Dark Symmetry". In this image the structured gold striped pattern is contrasting the chaotic and seemingly random background textures.

• Composition
• Balance
• Straight vertical stripes
• Controlled pattern
• Mirrored symmetry, also in background

Dark Symmetry

Please go ahead and have a closer look at this piece and discover some parts and forms that don't become visible straight away. 

A Closer Look

When encountering this abstract artwork the eye is firstly drawn to the light source as expected. When exploring the rest of the image after this first impression some forms will start to come forward. For example have a look at the area right above the glowing creatures head, a dark skull-like shape should start to appear with the "mouth-line" supported by the blue glow of the creatures top of the head. The abstract mass of white pixels at the top form the eyes as well as a silhouette of the skull.

The white abstract spaces centrally positioned on the sides of the image also represent arm rests in which one can see the basic shape of a hand lying on top and leading the viewer through the continuing form of the arm back to the "skull" and then back to the centre of the image.

Reflection & Analysis

• Dark atmosphere through cool colours and dominating dark value
• Horizontally mirrored symmetry
• Cool light source with transparency effect
• Creates mystical mood and atmosphere
• High value and saturation contrast to intensify the glow effect
• Greyed colours surrounding the light source
• See blog post on "The Importance of Value" under "How to Create Glowing Objects with Value"
• Balanced composition
• Main subject in the central third
• Controlled space division

Cons

• The two vertical light beams are possibly breaking the rhythm of the image a bit too much

Adding the Glowing Light Effect

Landscape & Scenery - Ben Vrackie near Pitlochry

Composition

Rule of Thirds

Beneath one can see how both photos were taken with consideration of composition and space distribution. 

 Foreground, Mid-ground, Background 

 Spotlight

The sunlight (on the mid-ground) works as a spotlight and guides the viewers eye to sunlit area. The colours are more saturated, contrasty and brighter in this area.   

Harmony in Blue and Grey - Soft Tides

For "Harmony in Blue and Grey - Soft Tides" I wanted to achieve a very dreamy and soft atmospheric piece of art contrasting the last digital painting, "Up the Ragged Rocks", which consisted of many rough textures and angular shapes. To achieve this soft feel I primarily used grey tones, to which I added blue colour for the water, as well as soft lighting techniques with only a few highlights on the town to make it stand out from the otherwise flat image. The scene is inspired by Mont Saint-Michel, a rocky tidal island, located in Normandy, France.

Reflection & Analysis

• "Beautiful grey"
• Harmonious scene
• Overall low colour contrast and value contrast
• Visual style follows subject matter
• soft brush strokes of the tide slowly going out
• The shadow helps give the town volume and let's it stand out from the otherwise flat environment/background

Cons

• The perspective of the town is incorrect. There should be more of a top view on the town as the horizon is very high in the image (somewhere above the picture).
• The town might stand out too much from the rest of the image and destroy the unity/rhythm/balance of this particular painting as I was aiming for a very flowing and united dreamy look. 
• In previous development and refinement stages I did already reduce the highlights on the town by lowering the value and colour contrast though.

Painting Process

Started off by blocking in colours and creating the overall mood and atmosphere of the piece as this will be the top priority of the image. I had my colour scheme pretty much set from the beginning as I was also using some reference images and simplifying their colours to these core colours to maintain a more monochrome and harmonious feel. 

Next I started to clean up the piece and soften transitions as well as add some detail to the town area. 

The main work on this step was creating detail on the town itself and improving its perspective (which is still a bit off in the end). Afterwards I darkened the foreground which resulted in more depth in the painting. 

As I was going for a very soft feel I decided to lighten up the foreground again and lower the value and colour contrast of the town and in general of the painting as well as soften up areas by making the the colour/value transitions softer.

Some Colour and Lighting Variations

For this version I merely changed the hue to a more purple/blue colour theme which is still very harmonious as I only increased the value contrast slightly.

In this nocturne version however I increased the value contrast as well as the saturation which is creating a more dynamic image. By darkening the foreground and adding this contrast more depth is created and the town itself really reads strongly compared to the original version. The top part of the painting now also has a very shiny blue glow which adds a nice effect. It is hard to choose between the different versions as they all create a different vibe and expression. 

The calm and misty versus the slightly surreal versus the clear and contrasty.

Honours Workshop Diary 19 - Refreshing traditional craftsmanship knowledge: Mixing Colour

• Primary colours
• Yellow, blue, red
• Secondary colours
• Mix two primary colours 
• Purple, orange, green
• Tertiary colours
• Contains all three primary colours

How to create brown and how grey?

• Grey
• Orange, blue (more blue) and white
• Brown
• Primary colour with complimentary colour

How to identify correct value and colour?

• Isolate colour from surrounding colours as they influence our perception.
• Use the cross-eye technique to retain Hue and Chroma
• Or cut out some wholes on a piece of paper in 2 different locations and use as compaing device. the paper around the whole will isolate the colour
• Determine value
• Use squinting technique. The eyes blur the scene a bit and one will see the original values. The eyes only desaturate the scene slightly.

"Beautiful Grey"

Painting and focusing on the depiction of exact colours can be very strenuous and as a variation painting in grey tones can be a nice challenge. Removing all colour and having simply a black and white value painting is boring to me though.

But I found an article about "beautiful grey" which has a great solution to retain the challenge of a colour painting by using grey tones with hints of any two complimentary colours to add tension and create engaging atmospheric artworks. This is something I would like to try out in one of my next digital paintings.

Up the Ragged Rocks

Reflection and Analysis

For this painting I went for a very texture heavy and sketchy feel to portray the roughness of the scene. 

• Connection between art style and subject matter
• Composition: main subject in verticle line of the rule of thirds

Top Version

The top version uses clear and high saturated colours and still throws off a quite friendly impression of the environment in contrary to the bottom version. 

• High colour contrast and use of complementary colours
• Warm colours dominating

Bottom Version

In the bottom version there is far less colour contrast which lets the whole image merge together as whole far more. It therefore creates more unity. The lower saturated colours and the unhealthy sky colour as well as the now cool colours for the rocks (especially in the shadows) create a much darker atmosphere than the upper image does. The sky seems almost like industrial smoke now and covers the mountains creating a sense of danger in the air.

• Low colour contrast
• Cool colours dominating
• Unity of the image due to a fairly monochrome colour scheme 

Different Alterations

Here are some further colour variations that I created to test different atmosphere and lighting effects.

 Painting Process

This is one of the few paintings I started off without any reference or subject in mind. I just sat down and started with a empty canvas and wanted to see the result. My initial plan after setting the basic composition and colour theme was to use the clouds as sort of lines pointing towards the mountain to strengthen it's importance.

Later on I felt there was too little of a texture in the painting and that it started to come across a bit boring. So I tried to add different kind of textures (through texture brushes in Photoshop (not photos)) and create a more realistic lighting. The clouds were also a bit too much as the mountain was already in the rule of thirds and the only real object to look at. To create more balance I changed the clouds therefore. Finally I adjusted the final colour and lighting in the scene.

Research into Online Gallery Exhibitions

Collection Overview Interfaces

Here I found some different variations, but all very similar in the end, covering from selection tables, flashing images of artwork, static image and name, scroll wheels to opening slideshows. The examples below were some choices I found smart and elegant. 

Image Selection Interfaces

Below are three different table and interface variations. For the basic selection screen with a page full of visible paintings and the title and artists name. Then there is a more detailed version in which the table is ordered alphabetically, as well as adding short descriptions to the image in comparison to the previous. Lastly I chose the large preview version with detailed descriptions about the painting and artist on the right and other image options below. Most online exhibitions are using one of these, or similar, methods to portray the artwork. So nothing fancy and the viewer can fully concentrate on viewing the art pieces.

Showcasing my Personal Artwork

So I decided to also stick to a simple structure for the Abertay Digital Graduate Show. I am planning on adding a slideshow or showreel covering my 2D illustrations though to show my personal progression over the year in terms of craftsmanship and aesthetic vision.

Some further Research into Layout Options for the Graduate Show

Honours Workshop Diary 18 - Personal Epiphany: Understanding Light and Colour Theory

After some more in-depth research into lighting and colour theory I now know why complementary colours work together so well and I am quite certain that I will benefit from this knowledge in future artwork. I summarised the acquired knowledge into the following to paragraphs by describing the background story of discoveries about light very briefly and go on to its use in art.  

Newton’s scientific discoveries set the foundation for modern colour theory, as thanks to him the modern colour wheel was born. Michel Chevreul then discovered that an intense dye colour would produce the appearance of its complementary colour on surrounding neutral areas. Eugene Delacroix was the first artist to make use of this information and found out through close lighting and colour observation that a colour’s shadow contains its complementary colour. The impressionist artists’ soon began to implement this into their art to create realistic lighting effects. This is why impressionists supported the idea of using colours for shadows and avoiding the use of black in their paintings when possible, which lead to more vibrant paintings and a clear distinction from the up until then extreme rendered and artificially lit studio work.

The chance to avoid studio work and properly observe lighting and colour in real life day situations was made possible through the invention of portable painting sets, which is one of the main reasons why the impressionist movement originated at this time. En plein air became the impressionists’ trademark and their close observations of light and atmosphere, especially in combination with the passage of time like sunsets, made clear that light was observed differently than before. Scenes were captured in their painting through small but visible brush strokes due to the quickness of the paintings, but retained certain softness in tones, especially inside individual objects to avoid the as before mentioned black colour and extreme rendering.

Motorcycles - Vision in Complete Abstraction

Reflection & Analysis

• High value contrast between light sources and rest leading to complete abstraction.
• Hard and large visible brush strokes
• create texture
• Lens flare lighting effect
• left light source is brighter and more detailed through the use of stronger outlines and more texture to show it is closer to the user. The right light source was blurred.
• creates sense of depth
• Monochrome colours
• Composition:
• Rule of Thirds: The main light source (left motorcycle) is horizontally on the third of the image creating a more dynamic and expressive image.

Beneath the abstract image I created a few weeks back before painting over it.

Gateway Artwork Revision

Reflection

In this experiment I tried to create a more visually engaging and interesting art artefact through abstraction, adding textures and creating new patterns. The darker edges lead the eye to the centre of the image. The clouds form a smoother transition and retain the unity of the artwork. Compositionally the red roofs are now the alone main focus of the image, as the horizon in the previous version was distracting the viewer offering a second focal point. The red roofs also brake the overall feeling of division in the painting (stronger than the clouds do), The town and castle also follow the rule of thirds and avoid being placed in the centre of the image. 

• Abstraction through texture layers and spatial division
• Simpler composition emphasizes main focal point
• Town and castle
• Created through colour contrast
• Complementary colours green and red
• High value contrast of castle against background
• Textures create interesting atmosphere and mood, as well as unitiy in the image
• The darker the area the harder the texture overlay
• Division into 3 parts
• The outsides being darker leading the eye to the centre through the clouds
• Retaining unity balance
• Clouds function as transition as well as town

Comparison

Honours Workshop Diary 17 - Creating more Engaging Imagery

My goal is to produce more challenging and engaging artwork. Luckily I came across Richard Robinson, a traditional artist from New Zealand (his website: http://www.newzealandartist.com/index.htm). His style is very emotive and expressive, which I am trying to integrate into my paintings as well, so I took some time and had a look at his lectures on different painting techniques. The videos are very clear and tremendously informative. His knowledge over lighting and colour is outstanding and taught me a lot about observation and craftsmanship. Beneath are some notes I took on this topic.

Glowing Light

• Everything close to the sun gets lighter and warmer
• Or if it's a cool source everything get's lighter and cooler
• Therefore colour mixing knowledge is essential