Crit Presentation and Reflection

Since the last presentation I followed the advice to watch some of the BBC production series "The Power of Art" by Simon Schama which really is fascinating and well made. As well I decided to create a very visual presentation this time to convey my art interests and inspiration. I therefore had a look at several artists' visual styles and picked out some that inspire me and I find especially appealing. My project is developing into a very aesthetic heavy direction.

Just like in the last presentation I added some literature I am currently undertaking and updated my project aim and objectives.

Lastly I included my personal sketchbook development, traditional as well as digital. It consists of anatomy practice, life drawing sketches, observational studies and digital exploration into different painting approaches and methods (tools, layers, effects, colour schemes and so on)

The main feedback I received this time is to find something to make my art special. Give it meaning and purpose and to not only focus on the craftsmanship side. I agree with this feedback, as these digital paintings have no expression. (Despite only being practice works.) In able to create appealing artwork for my final project in the second semester I need to start defining my artistic style and come up with a message, even if the message only means something to myself.

Life Drawing No. 2

 40 min Sketch - Pencil

Focus on the face. Also the legs appear to be a bit small. Basic shading.

45min Sketch - Pencil

Focus on overall pose with fairly detailed shading.

"Blackrock Castle" - A Composition Study

The mighty Blackrock Castle sits high above Red Needle Rock. The imposing structure is said to be impregnable to any attack and functions as the kingdoms last resort in times of war.

Reflection/Project Relevance

This digital painting helped improve my craftsmanship understanding, particularly in regards of composition. Before starting the detailed painting I came up with a good composition first. The painting consists of the 3 major planes: Foreground, Mid-ground and Background. The viewers is supposed to be drawn to the Mid-ground and the "Needle Rock".

I therefore used dark value behind the red "Needle Rock" to let it stand out more. From a colour point of view "Needle Rock" also has the purest red in the painting and amplifies the effect further. The cliffs with their pointy peaks including the needle rock on the other hand all point towards "Blackrock Castle". This has been done deliberately to guide the viewer to said castle.

A further composition advice Feng Zhu gives in his tutorials is to darken the foreground in able to concentrate the focus further on the Mid-ground, which I did by darkening the foreground cliffs.

Painting Process Decisions

 The strong lighting from the top right corner is distracting the viewer from the overall image in my opinion. The cliffs/mountains are also still quite rough/sketchy, so I will try to improve these two aspects.

 I have now changed the main lighting source to a place on the horizon line.

Finally, some finishing touches on the castle and extra detail to the foreground is added.

The Rules of Composition

Composition guides the viewer's eye. During the compositional stage artists determine important areas in a painting use lines to lead the viewer to them. The arrangement of shapes play an important factor as well as colour. Despite many artists using intuition to compose their artwork, a few important elements such as Rhythm, Balance and Unity are to be found.

Rhythm
Rhythm helps guide the eye through the artwork. It can be seen as a method to organize the painting. There are two basic types of rythm, the dynamic and the controlled type.
The dynamic impression is created through diagonal lines, patches and varying spaces between shapes and creates a sense of activity.

If the spaces are repetitive and even, the painting is dominated by vertical and horizontal lines and the colours are analogous the composition tends to have a more controlled and static pattern.  

Balance

Again two contrasting aspects can be used to describe balance best; symmetrical or asymmetrical. Balance can be achieved through 

the arrangement of shapes and colours. Important to realize is that regardless if its symmetrical or asymmetrical, the artwork will still be balanced in some way.

Unity
This element can be described as the consistency among the various elements to create a unifying art piece. This can for example be achieved by using colour schemes to guide the eye around and also unify the picture.
A further facet of unity is the feeling of “completion.”  In an unified artwork no part can be added or subtracted without destroying the whole.

So now lets have a look at some example compositions. "Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation" has a nice section on composition and depicts the different compositional structures and layouts precisely. The following images are from the book Dream Worlds. (Bacher, H. 2007. Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation. Focal Press)

Afterword: Sometimes Less is More

A complicated composition is not always the best solution in art. Simplicity can be stronger than a cluttered or complicated composition due to its effectiveness.

”Simplicity does not imply starkness. A simple composition is economical in use of line, form, mass and movement; includes only one center of interest; has a unified style which harmoniously integrates camera angles, lighting, tonal and color values” (Mascelli, J. 1998. The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques. Scb Distributors.)

Consequently everything decreasing the pictures effectiveness should be removed since it has no real purpose and only distracts.

Honours Workshop Diary 5 – Artist Inspiration Part 2 and Art Theory Research

Meeting Agenda

Search for artists with appealing styles to me. The idea is that this search will trigger my own search for an aesthetic style by indicating attributes and artistic features. By combining different features and aspects I will gain my individual and original artistic expression. 

Progress Report

I subdivided the artists into to main categories. The digital artists and the traditional artists. There is a short description to each artist describing what makes the artwork stand out for me.

Inspirational Digital Artists

These are some of my favourite artists. I specifically chose digital artists painting with a fairly traditional feel. The artworks spread strong atmospheric vibes and contain well studied lighting and value skills. The colour choice is also great and these paintings are what I consider my goal. One day I would like to be able to paint at this level. With these last words, please enjoy the great skill these artists showcase in the following images that I selected from their galleries.

Lane Brown

Andreas Rocha

SnowSkadi

Viktor Titov

RHADS

Life Drawing No. 1

Improving Anatomy and Observational Skills

The first life drawing session for me this year. Unfortunately we didn't have a proper model this week and ended up drawing each other in 10-15 min long poses. 

Life drawing will help me improve my anatomy skills and improve my observational skills by paying attention to detail and recognizing significant trademarks that defines ones' character. In future classes I will set specific tasks such covering important aspects such as lighting, staging, composition, value or colour. Today I focused on scale and proportions of the human body.

They images are made up out of corresponding 2 dimensional forms that create the illusion of a 3 dimensional person. The challenge is to focus on the forms and in the eventually the whole picture will come together with correct proportions and scale. This is only one method though. If the time is not long enough to do so one can use charcoal for example and block in shapes, which can be done very quick. 

Beneath are my sketches using pencil. I also defined the outlines a lot this time and spent little to no time on shading.