Back to the Drawing Board

I've been doing more pencil sketching again recently, trying out some of the woodless graphite pencils I found locally, and working out of a book my sister gave me for christmas on drawing the human figure.  Here are some of the results:

 

 

Obviously, the kitten at the end is the one I spent the most time developing, and I can't take full credit for it as I got lots of help from another book on pencil sketching.  I still think it turned out quite nice, though.  Little by little, I think I'm improving.

goodbye, old friend

the bridge in this painting is out back from my parents house, on the MKT trail.  It's been there for many years, and this year it's being replaced.  So, as my first landscape that's done without help from a tutorial, I chose to take this bridge and make it my model.  Here's the result:

It's a little rougher than my last work (a riverscape), but there were some challenges that were neat to attempt.  The bridge itself has two sides to it, so painting the beams side by side was tough.  Also, because it's winter, the colors are all a little muddy, which is true to life. 

A Riverscape from scratch

Here is my latest project, a riverscape in watercolor with several pictures from along the way:

 

I'm happier with the detail on this painting than I have been with any other so far.  The trees on the left, especially, I'm pleased with.  Some weak points are the log in the foreground, which looks a little deformed, and the greenery over the rocks on the left side, which seems like it's too normal of a line to my eye.  Another part I'm really happy with is the water, though, especially the reflections under the rocks on the left.  Better and better every time!

Three steps in a Snowscape

Today I was able to finish my next attempt at painting with watercolors.  I decided that given the season, a snowscape would be appropriate.  After doing some research through a few Youtube videos posted by professional artists, I was able to produce the following:

 

 

This project was a great way to experiment with the different texture levels for objects at different distances, and to develop brush techniques from very wet (for the sky) to very dry (for the grass and twigs).

A New Medium

This week marks my first foray into watercolors.  A few lessons:

1) Painting is way harder than pencil-sketching
2) watercolors BLEED.  When I put my pencil down, it marks exactly where I place it.  With these paints, the mark runs everywhere.  It's tough.

Like most new attempts, the first one is pretty poor:

The colors don't blend well, the shape is malformed, and the structure is way uncomfortable.  However, it was a good learning experience, getting my hand used to having a brush instead of a pencil.

The second shot was marginally better.  Here's a monochrome mountain scape I ripped off from some tutorial video on youtube:

Better.  The blending is better, and the different objects have slightly different textures.  The water in the foreground looks somewhat watery, and the sky falls away better than I expected.  Still, the brush strokes seem clumsy.  Hopefully my next shot at stuff like this will continue to improve.  :)

Isabella Vizitei

As my first serious project, I've sketched up the 20-week ultrasound we got this week of my wife and I's first child, Isabella:

You may notice an addition in the final sketch that wasn't present in the original ultrasound.  :)

A sunflower in 6 stages

I'm posting today a sketch that I spent a little more time on than the others I've worked on so far.  From the first pencil stroke to the final blending pass, it was probably a 3 hour project over the course of the last 4 days, and as a result I have a nice collection of photos cataloging it's progression at every step.  First is the original loose sketch:

 That's the part I'm honestly not that good at.  My freehand is poor, and I have to spend a lot of time refining from the first sketch to a decent line drawing, which is what the next photo is of:

The leaves I wasn't happy with, but overall the shape looked decent, if a bit cartoon-ish. Here it is with the first layer of shading done.

That was mostly shading around the outline, which took some time given all the nooks and crannies around an organic shape like this.  Then I applied the first shading layer to the flower itself:

Now some more detail lines were added to give the leaves and the face of the flower texture (along with a more detailed pass at the shading):

And finally some blending to reduce the obvious lines throughout the drawing:

Overall, I'm calling this one my most successful work yet (not saying much, but I feel better about it than anything else that's up on this blog so far).  I guess it's true that the more work you put into it, the more pleased you'll be with the result.