[Duracel]

[Duracel]

[Chris-Mayernik]

I should note that when I say working traditional I mean copying what you see with a medium that allows you too. Oils would be the best way to go, but pastels or acrylic are sometimes more practical. Water color really is not the best way to learn value because it's not a point and shoot medium like Oil. With oil you can mix the color you want then just put it down. Sounds simple and it is, patience is all you need, maybe a cd player too.


Duracel I agree with you about working on the computer and how it's much easier to pick the right color right away. That's one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.Seriously though working from life is the best way to understand light.

Light does not just randomly fall on objects , it's all pretty precise and when one views life and learns to see relationships in color,value, and saturation then they will know what to do when painting from their head. I don't think just painting from life alone is going to improve anyones skill that much if they don't write down important notes on what's going on with the light ( planes, value, color ) . Mixing colors really is not that hard as long as your pallete is simple. A important thing that you can learn when painting from life is that colors always change when more or less light hits them. A orange cube will be more orange in the light and in the shadow it will be moved over in hue slightly to red. The amount it's hue is changed depends on the color or saturation of the light.


When painting from life always try to learn something and understand different materials in the scene and how they react to light. When I do studies from life I won't paint something if I don't understand what's going on and how things got the way they are. When you know how to break a picture down and simplify information into a working and understandable system then it is much easier to paint what you see. In just this past month of life studies and paintings I have learned more then last year altogether. I don't see how anyone could find a faster way to learn.
I'm sure it's hard when you don't know exactly what to look for or exactly how to go about taking notes but once you figure out the way that works for you things will start to make sense, and then you can pretty much paint anything out of your head with confidence that the values, saturation, and color are all in order in relationship to everything esle.

sooner or later you will see the importance of it all.

[Mikko K]

[Chris-Mayernik]

Actually Mikko k alot of the FAQ is pretty much copied from fengs site, but thats pretty old and I just havent gotten around to finishing my site. I don't think that also has anything to do with this topic.

I don't believe I'm to young or inexperienced. I'm studying art 14 or more hours a day, it's not like I am just sitting around doing a couple speed paints.
I know what your saying about mixing paints, but because it takes time it allows you to think of what is really going on and why are you painting that color in the first place. As for the process of painting that should be just a personal thing but I feel that everyone should atleast study from life. I love to paint from life, but some people don't enjoy it as much and love to paint things from their imagination. I would suggest painting from life so that you are able to paint well from your imagination, which is only the sum of all you know,seen. and experienced. A good mix of digital and life painting allows you to put to practice what you learned at the end of the day.

Also, I'm not saying I know everything, I'm no pro or master. I don't think it's good for more experienced artist to be saying that digital is the way to go. Then All the beginner artist start painting on the computer and waste lots of time because they are trying to do something to soon. First the pencil or pen should be picked up, then the paint brush.

I think everyones mind works a different way and we all must find the best way to learn, for me working from life and then on the pc allows me to improve faster then just working on the pc. I'm not sure if it works for
everyone. Would you really try to draw a figure from memory without studying the figure and expect a masterpiece. I doubt it, you probaly would spend many hours copying pictures, taking notes, and workings from life. Then you would apply all that information onto your paper, and then you would have a masterpiece.

Duracel it's cool, I'm not hurt... and yea we do have a lot to learn.

[Mikko K]

Thanks for replying so quickly, I'm trying my best to not sound like an idiot here (my english isn't too good)

First of all, I'm no pro nor master either. I'm just a beginner with this whole painting thing. You have lots of valid points there that make me think.. Some of the rhetoric is pretty funny though, I mean you can expect something like that from a veteran artist, not some 20 yo bloke (Tyler Gentry, anyone?)

Maybe I don't even want to "argue" about the whole digi/traditional thing because they're both just means to an end.. to tell a story with a picture.. I personally think it's just foolish to say that traditional painting is better for studying lighting or whatever, because a lot of this discussion is started by us beginners who often make a big fuss about techniques used, instead of concentrating on the actual thinking process that leads to the painting. Sometimes we produce crap both ways, so is that analogue piece elevated just because it's more artistic to get your hands dirty with oils?

I mean that with proper studying, pencil sketches, looking outside the window etc. one could be able to learn painting just by using a pc. Didn't some academic painters just make sketches outdoors and then paint the finished piece indoors in the atelier?

Like I said in my previous post I'm very much encouraging working from life. I just don't think that traditional garbage is any better than digital

edit:

[watmough]

well....here goes.....

ive done quite abit of both.
working from life has trained my eye.....immensely.
i see colours and values more accurately than i did before i started painting from life (about 2 years ago).
this training i just could not have gotten working out of my head digitally.
no two ways about it.
i need the mileage painting from life,its study,and its necessary,to me at least.
it improves my drawing skills,helps me to see rhythm and patterns,helps me set up more realistic lighting,helps me with my palette,trains my eye-hand to record more quickly and confidently....etc
now,digital painting is good for me in the way that i can paint very quickly with little of the technical frustrations inherent in traditional media.
this is good,because, when i paint quickly,my mistakes are exaggerated,and it helps me correct them.....without using up supplies.
and ...in a weird way...digital has helped me develop a surer stroke....when i am sooo used to ctrl-z in traditional work,i tend to put down the mark without hesitation,and that has helped me too.
i think people alot of time look for 'the quick and easy way " to success in art...and that just doesnt happen.

[Capt. Fred]

One (comparatively tiny) pro for digital, is that the colours are lit up, instead of just reflecting ambient light. So if you paint under a regular 60W light bulb in the evening, your picture doesn't look different in the morning or under fluorescent lights. But then of course you have coloursyncing!

on the issue of the thread, I guess at the end of the day, different people's brains work in different ways. different people are bound to choose different sides of the fence in the trade-off of advantages and disadvantages. To battle one set of pro and cons against another sort of requires one to believe everyone's brain is wired up like your own. Anyhow it's a new medium*, maybe it's too early to decide whether it is in intrinsically less valuable than older mediums.

(*or should I say, lack of medium!)

[jfrancis]

I'd like to paint digitally from life, but I can't figure out the best way to do it.

One way is to set up still lifes, I guess, but I don't always want to paint still lifes.

Another is to have a model pose in view of your computer, like Robert Chang did in his work Elena Formal Portrait

The problem is there are only so many things you can se from your computer.

Anyone try painting on a laptop "en plein air?" Can you even see the screen well enough?

[Reakshun]

I personally have welcomed the challenge of fighting with a mutable light source as big as the sun.
Testing real time color theory/drawing without undo while I'm trying to capture a close friend's likeness.
Or is it that I can actually hold a canvas up to the sun and watch a brushstoke shine back at me.
Or, maybe it's just the high brow notion that I'm using OILS over acrylics becuz they're fucking sexxy.

...off topic.

Whatever the medium...the point is: Did you get YOUR point across?

If you did that...hell, I'll respect it with a level brow.

[DangerousLlama]

drawing from life seems like an exercise in problem solving as you have to figure out how to render what you see. your brain has to translate something it sees as 3d into something thats 2d. and it helps you do the opposite (if that makes any sense lol).
and even if you aren't thinking about it on a conscious level, you are still working things out and taking notes subconsciously.

I find myself thinking back to how I painted a nose or an eye in figure drawing when I'm trying to paint a face from my mind. painting from imagination seems like making composite of everything you've seen before, whether it be a person or light shining on metal.

and as far as the computer vs. traditional stuff, I think they are just two different mediums that each have their strengths and weaknesses. I wouldn't mind painting from life on my computer but the screen hurts my eyes after working on it too long and it's hard to find an outlet at the park... I also like being able to just reach out and make a smudge or something with my finger.

I dunno...

[Torstein Nordstrand]

I agree with you, Chris, that painting / drawing from life is a good exercise. That shouldn't dictate your choice of materials, however. The better the tool for the job, the more focus you can have on the important learning bits, like rendering, colour chemistry, dimension, etc. Photoshop, Painter, etc are good tools.
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[Odds]

I agree with pretty much everyone else's posts... Drawing or painting from life is the way to go, and if you can do it with a computer then you'll be able to focus more on the actual drawing and painting instead of the technical mess. i'm not saying that traditional painting/drawing is obsolete, though. you can get textures and other pretty things with traditional more easily than in digital (unless you have your brushes set up right, of course).

[sweetums]

"Tyler Gentry is a visionary artist..."
I still crack up every time I think of that!
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