Digital Painting
Marilyn opened a new group on Flickr a couple of months ago to accompany her upcoming book. In the discussions for the group, Marilyn posted a question about using software aside from Corel Painter X to “paint.” In my answer to the question, I added After Effects CS3 into the mix of everyone else’s suggestions because I actually have used it in still paintings before!
Those of you who know what After Effects is may be a little confused, but I’ll get into the “why” in a minute. For those who may not know, After Effects is a motion graphics and video creation/editing/compositing application produced by Adobe. Chances are, if you watch movies and TV, you’ve seen the power of After Effects for film effects.
How does it apply to still images and painting?
Not to be confused with the time lapse paintings available on YouTube often labeled as speed painting, real speed painting is a practice by which an artist gives him/herself a, usually short, time limit to lay out a painting or composition.
Speed paintings generally do not involve a beginning sketch. Instead the artist lays out block and shapes of color to begin to establish the basic composition, values and volume.
Playing with the concept, I created this painting in Photoshop CS3 [though the speed part isn’t quite there – it took around 3 hours to get to this point]. I plan to keep working with the process in hopes that it will help speed up my normal painting process as well [not to mention that these are just fun to do]. Some of the steps and a mini-tutorial for this painting are after the jump.
This morning I ventured out into the local art community for the monthly figure drawing workshop. This was my first time going, but it was a lot of fun. Admittedly, figure drawing is not one of my strengths, so it was good to get out for some real-time practice with a live model and good company. Of course, I took trusty Corel Painter X and my Wacom tablet for sketching.
I was present for two posing sessions. In the first, the model was in a relaxed position, and I focused mainly on her face. The second pose was a standing pose, and instead of plain sketching, I worked with shape instead of lines to produce a few silhouette sketches. The one to the right is my favorite of those. I think I may end up reusing the silhouettes later for other paintings.
A little info on the workshop
It is held in the Art Studio at Lander University the first Saturday of the month and is led by local artist, Denise Waldrep. Denise’s work ranges in styles and across different types of media. Check out her website [linked above] to see her work.
Shadow, my sister’s cat painted earlier this year, makes an appearance as a full page print in the current issue of Painter Magazine‘s Painter Showcase along with some information on Digital Art Academy!
