The most important thing about drawing and painting, you see, is that you have to embrace the "it's gonna suck, and that's fine" attitude. That took me the longest time (years I'd say, before I started this project), simply because I never really thought about it. Otherwise, you'll never simply experiment, try, and learn. I actually thought this was a horrible painting up until about 3 minutes before I was painting in the finishing touches. Then I thought, "Wow! This is unexpected!"
What I can say is that most paintings will look terrible to you unfinished, and maybe they will be when you're done too. You'll never know till you experiment. I had no clue how to do the tea when I started. Thinking is a big part of it. I looked at the photo and thought about it for a bit before I even began coloring.
As an example, here's roughly the steps I took to color the tea:
1- I decided to draw very lightly with a pencil the clear segments (the circle in the middle, where each section of the grooved glass is separated from the next, and other other clear separations).
2- I drew lines to mark the areas with different hues. A big triangle in the middle with deep red hue, surrounded by an orange hue, and then a light brown one.
3- I make note of the light areas I don't want to cover right away as they're shining and covered them with masking fluid (you don't need it, you can just paint around them, but it's easier and prevents errors).
4- I make note of the shadows and dark grooves and keep them in mind. I didn't draw them in or anything.
5- I paint the hues first. A crimson red in the triangle ( not too dark, assume you're painting in the lightest part of that area), an orange one, then a light brown (I double layered for light brown: raw umber followed by burnt sienna).
I must note here that there's no exact guide for how thick your solution should be. Get some paint, add some water, and test it on a white paper. If it seems good, go with it. It gets easier the more you paint.
6- I paint a uniform layer of tea-ish orange (actually, since I don't have that exact color, I started doing one really light layer of red, one of burnt sienna, I even used yellow). Then added more layers of red/orange/brown where needed in the picture to get in a satisfactory change/gradient of hue and color. Orange where's it is supposed be, red in its place, darker red, brown, etc.
7- With a small brush, I paint in the details: dark brown for the glass shadow pattern on the bottom, the grooves, darker shadows of tea in any particular area.
8- Here I removed the masking fluid, and painted a light wash of burnt sienna to sort of blend in everything into a fluid consistency. I then tinkered a bit, and fixed with a small brush whatever areas that needed fixing, additional shadow, color, etc.
This pretty much is the case for everything. You'd never know, but I actually painted the jewelry box complete with details the first time. I added the dark shadow and a purplish hue because it needed it. It did not go as planned. On one hand, it messed up all the details and made wash them wash into each other (with much muttering about my stupidity from me), on the other, it gave a really nice realistic quality to the surface. So I painstakingly re-painted all the details, and retouched any faded colors that needed it.
Some things I would recommend, is to first practice a few clean washes. Not just in rectangular layers going down the page, but draw a few random shapes too, and try to do good washes that stay in the lines. Test out a few colors on top of each other on side scrap of paper if you're unsure how to proceed. And always, always, paint in the large shadows, backgrounds, under-hues, and base layers, before you start with the details. Saves a headache down the line.
Perfection is not necessary. Terrible paintings welcomed =)
What I can say is that most paintings will look terrible to you unfinished, and maybe they will be when you're done too. You'll never know till you experiment. I had no clue how to do the tea when I started. Thinking is a big part of it. I looked at the photo and thought about it for a bit before I even began coloring.
As an example, here's roughly the steps I took to color the tea:
1- I decided to draw very lightly with a pencil the clear segments (the circle in the middle, where each section of the grooved glass is separated from the next, and other other clear separations).
2- I drew lines to mark the areas with different hues. A big triangle in the middle with deep red hue, surrounded by an orange hue, and then a light brown one.
3- I make note of the light areas I don't want to cover right away as they're shining and covered them with masking fluid (you don't need it, you can just paint around them, but it's easier and prevents errors).
4- I make note of the shadows and dark grooves and keep them in mind. I didn't draw them in or anything.
5- I paint the hues first. A crimson red in the triangle ( not too dark, assume you're painting in the lightest part of that area), an orange one, then a light brown (I double layered for light brown: raw umber followed by burnt sienna).
I must note here that there's no exact guide for how thick your solution should be. Get some paint, add some water, and test it on a white paper. If it seems good, go with it. It gets easier the more you paint.
6- I paint a uniform layer of tea-ish orange (actually, since I don't have that exact color, I started doing one really light layer of red, one of burnt sienna, I even used yellow). Then added more layers of red/orange/brown where needed in the picture to get in a satisfactory change/gradient of hue and color. Orange where's it is supposed be, red in its place, darker red, brown, etc.
7- With a small brush, I paint in the details: dark brown for the glass shadow pattern on the bottom, the grooves, darker shadows of tea in any particular area.
8- Here I removed the masking fluid, and painted a light wash of burnt sienna to sort of blend in everything into a fluid consistency. I then tinkered a bit, and fixed with a small brush whatever areas that needed fixing, additional shadow, color, etc.
This pretty much is the case for everything. You'd never know, but I actually painted the jewelry box complete with details the first time. I added the dark shadow and a purplish hue because it needed it. It did not go as planned. On one hand, it messed up all the details and made wash them wash into each other (with much muttering about my stupidity from me), on the other, it gave a really nice realistic quality to the surface. So I painstakingly re-painted all the details, and retouched any faded colors that needed it.
Some things I would recommend, is to first practice a few clean washes. Not just in rectangular layers going down the page, but draw a few random shapes too, and try to do good washes that stay in the lines. Test out a few colors on top of each other on side scrap of paper if you're unsure how to proceed. And always, always, paint in the large shadows, backgrounds, under-hues, and base layers, before you start with the details. Saves a headache down the line.
Perfection is not necessary. Terrible paintings welcomed =)
No comments:
Post a Comment