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good bye · junior member Member # Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 37

Hi, I'm new to sijun but not to art. Here's the latest painting I've done. My method for creating this painting may be of interest. I set up a landscape in Terragen as my reference. I started out by trying to paint from my computer screen but that did work very well. I ended up printing it on my inkjet. The quality wasn't so hot but it was all I needed. The woman and the moon weren't in the Terragen render so I had to make those up.

Feedback is welcomed!

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good bye · junior member Member # Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 37

No one has any suggestions? Comments? Questions? I realize I'm new here, did I do something wrong?

cheney · Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2002 8:11 pm

Looks like pastel. Very well done. It does not look digital at all.

BloodStone · Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2002 8:12 pm

That moon looks fantastic!

DeathJester · Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2002 8:13 pm

You have to give your post some time to be on like 48 hours.. A lot of people have jobs and can't reply right away. Being new really has nothing to do with it either... Just time.

You did a nice job! looks good.. some crits.

1. If the sun has set in front of her, I dont think you would see the moon right there at that time. Normally the moon would be opposite the sun.

2. What is teh light source from behind her? I would think the setting sun and the moon would have more of an impact on her from the front side.

3. Her hair and scarf look really windy and the water seems really calm.. perhaps put some white capps in the water.. also with the groudn it seems almost static.. no movement...

But all in all nice job! keep it up.. Im sure people would like to see more of your work..

A good exercise is doing the speed paints.. even if you don't like your work and chose not to post it.. Its good exercise.

Good Luck

good bye · junior member Member # Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 37

It doesn't look digital because it's not!

It's acrylic paint.

The light source behind her is the setting sun. The sun did not set in front of her. Maybe it's a little too subtle but notice the light on the hills is coming from that direction, more or less.

Thank you for the suggestions. I do need to work on getting the lighting to look correct.

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: watchitman ]

cheney · Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2002 8:27 pm

If the sun is setting behind her as the shadow shows, then the sky is wrong. The red of the sky should be in the direction of the sun.

good bye · junior member Member # Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 37

Sorry, but if you look around a sunset or sunrise, you will see that there are color changes around the entire circumference of the horizon. Now what we think is correct and what is reality are two different things. It may not "look" correct but I can assure you that in this case, the color is correct.

More or less.

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: watchitman ]

good bye · junior member Member # Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 37

So I guess what I've learned here is I need to figure out how to make the lighting conditions satisfy realism enough to make it seem real and supply enough information so the viewer reads it that way. Does that make sense?

cheney · Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2002 9:00 pm

No. The horizon is 360degrees. On one side the sun is setting/rising. The other side is the night sky. The night sky is dark. The red/orange sky comes from sunlight passing through air at an angle so that the sunlight passes through a greater amount of atmosphere before it reaches your eye. Because of this the sky appears red/orange in the direction of the sun.

good bye · junior member Member # Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 37

cheney: You are right. I went back and looked more carefully at my reference and the sun is setting just off "camera" to her right. I made the shadow the wrong direction! It should have been almost parallel to the bottom of the image.

I don't know why I did that considering I knew that when I started. I had some goofy idea in my head about why I should have the shadow going the wrong direction but I can't remember what that reason is. :P

cheney · Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2002 1:45 pm

I don't really think her shadow is in the wrong direction, because it matches the direction of light that is also on all of the land texture. It just seems as if the sky is in a bit of a different rotation.

Its good though, and that error is not stronly noticable. I am learning to paint with acrylics, and this is much better than I could hope to do.

Infinity Girl · Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2002 5:34 pm

Hey nice try watchitman!!I pretty like it, and here are some of my opinions.
1)Since it is a scene which happens around the time of sunset, the ambient should be more yellowish or orangish.
2)it seems that the moon is waxing gibbous.In this case, the position of the sun should be on the far right (a little bit lower right)of the picture. Since ,the main light source is on the right, the shadow of the woman should be on her left which is almost parallel to the baseline as u said.
3)imho,i think that the painting will look better if u emphasize more on the depth and the atmosphere.For example, the color of the further mountain could be more desaturated.

Anyway it is an eye-catching piece of work.Keep trying and u will get better!

Btw can u tell me how large is your painting?Is it on canvas or linen or other surface else?

good bye · junior member Member # Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 37

26.5 x 37 cm, acrylic on Arches Watercolor Paper - it's a heavy paper stock and is very durable. For acrylic work do not stretch it! Instead, thumbtack it down to a board. Depending on how much paper texture you want, you can use a coat of gesso for a smoother surface or you can paint directly on the paper.

It looks nice for fine art work but I doubt it would be suitable for illustration work. The surface is too rough and even with it tacked down, you will get a little bit of curl.