[beginnart]

Hello,

here's my first "work", I would be glad to read some comments and perhaps some ideas on how to improve it. I'll soon add more.

beginnart


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[Sumaleth]

You've got the right idea, working from a photograph to learn, but there's still a lot more you could learn from this project. You should keep working on this.

Perhaps forget about details at this time, because the details look a bit odd in the absence of a good base, and your "values" still need some work here.

Values means how dark and light something is, and on three dimensional objects like a person it refers to the shading and creation of form.

You've got that started here, but the shirt looks very flat -- the shading is not convincing at all -- and the skin tones are inconsistent.

Go back to the photograph and look again at the values. What makes the shirt look like a shirt? How do the values vary across the face? What is the difference between the value at the tip of the nose to the tip of the chin? What values are used on the arm, and what are they like in comparison to the face?

Seeing value variation can be tricky at first -- all the values across the face might look the same, as you've painted them -- but with practice you'll learn to see that the top of the nose, for example, is a different shade than the side, and it's that difference that creates the form and makes it look like a shape.

You'll also learn to see that the hues (colors) on the nose usually have slightly more red in them than the slightly-blue forehead.

While it's not a good habit to get into, at this early stage it might be worth you using the color picker in photoshop to pick colors directly from the photograph. Be careful though -- jpeg has a habit of doing weird things to colors, so you might need to sample an area to see what the color really is.

Have the RGB color box on the screen at the same time, to see what the colors are made up from. If it's a good photograph, you should be able to see the red increase when sampling from the nose compared to the forehead.

But values (light/dark) are more important to learn before worrying about colors. Get those forms popping out.
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Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

[beginnart]

Hi Sumaleth,

thank you for your tips! You are right, she looks too flat. "Make those forms popping out", that's what I think of now. I will work on on her, but I decided to finish some unfinished business first, and this is what I would like to present. The b/w-woman was actually intended to practice my "values" (started before I finished Mme Jolie), and I think she looks much more alive. I'm curious what you think of these:









beginnart

[FallDamage]

I remember back when I was first starting out, I was advised not to work from photo ref and I ignored that advice. I really shouldn't have. Creating appealing art of any sort is all about the visual tools you employ in translate what the eye sees. Aiming for photographic accuracy in depicting people detracts from that translation process, and even a perfectly photgraphic painting is less interesting then a subtlety stylistic yet still realistic interpretation of a subject.

Your best bet is to try and analyze the photo for 3 dimensionality, and to really try to understand the form you're depicting.