Shadows and Drawing

So I was originally going to do the entire walk through of my shadow technique page with step by step pictures of every major change.  But then I thought my internet was down so I just did the page.  So now I’m just going to talk about it.

So this all came about this morning while I was talking with my boyfriend in bed. I wear glasses and I hadn’t put them on yet. So all I could see of him where the shadows that the light was making on his face. So this is my drawn from memory picture of him using only shadows.  I used Corel Painter Essentials 4 and my Wacom pen tablet.

I started with a palette of grays and yellows. They were sitting there from my comic banner. And I didn’t feel like mixing more. For this exercise I wanted to try ‘painting’ without a lot of guidelines. So instead of my normal process of sketching out an entire face and then painting over it, I instead just used a few guidelines. Head shape  with eye and nose line. That’s it.

Next I laid down all my dark colors. With the light coming from the left of page that would cast  the right side into shadow as well as his brow line in certain areas on the left side.

Then I turned my attention to the right side. I knew for the most part the lightest parts wouldn’t get as light as they do on the left side. So I chose a mid range gray for the lighter colors on the right side. This allowed me to place check bones and a better understanding of where they eyes set.

Next I worked on the nose. By adding lighter colors over the dark I was able to flesh it out and give it some definition. I followed this same process with all the areas of the face. The eyes I colored with highlighted colors to make them stand out.

I finished the painting by applying highlights to certain spaces.

Is this perfect? Hell no. I can see right of the bat that my eyes are not straight. Also the nose is to short for the  face and should be elongated. So I know better for next time.

Birthday Fails

So I just spent a crazy amount of time trying to figure out how to change the colors on hyperlinks from blue to white in my comic. Since I changed the background and you can sort of no longer see them. I failed at that. I failed horribly.

I did manage to get a new background up. Which is pretty nice and you can see the top navigation bars. If you fumble around you can find the previous and next ones under the comic. Above the blog post. I need to learn css.

I did not get my comic painted in time though. Nor did I get my banner made. But it's my birthday so I'm not going to be so hard on myself. We all fail. And if you can't fail on your birthday, then when can you fail? But if anyone wants to school me on CSS, I'd be happy to be schooled.


The comic is, by the way Carnival Grotesque. Go look at my three posts. Show love and I might make it four.

Underpainting Technique Page

I need to blog more. So tomorrow is my birthday but today is Monday so today we start working on the better me. Today since I had off I did a technique page for underpainting in acrylic. Underpainting sounds either magical or dirty depending on how I swing it. And as an aside, my scanner has died. So we'll just have to deal with my less then premium camera skills. 

So in this I did the top sample, just some shapes with a shadow by starting with an under coat of paint. While that was drying I did the second sample in my usual style of just painting and mixing as I went a long. Since this was just a quick technique page I wanted to keep things very simple to allow for both paintings to stand on the merit of the paint alone, not the picture itself. We will call the underpainted layer Sample A and the straight paint layer Sample B.

So the first thing that I noticed with Sample A was that underpainting made for a lot more planning in the picture. Instead of going in with a general idea of where things like light and shadow would go it pretty much forced me to commit to a light source and keep it that way. There would be no real changing of my mind. Without the undercoat I would general just stretch colors until I like the way it looked.

The underpainting worked well for me when it came to the shadows on the table as well as the coloring of the surface itself. It allowed for a more natural blending and depth which the Sample B lacked. In the Sample B it looks more like I just stuck some dark paint on top of brown. I also felt more confidant with blending the yellow in Sample A because I knew that it would not get lost in the brownish color underneath it.

Also, using the underpainiting technique I could make more subtle color highlights in the shadow as is the case with the red form. There is just a hint of color with the underpaint where as with Sample B its more of a splash of color because I felt I had to use a lot more to make it show up in the shadow.

Where the underpaint didn't work out for me was in the blue ball. The idea of light and shadow worked much better in the straight paint one. In sample A the blue ball looks like a dark blue almost black ball but in sample B it looks more like a the glass effect that I was sort of going for.

In conclusion I do like the over all effect of the underpainting in Sample A a bit more and will be using it more often in my acrylic work.

I Did Call a Plumber Today

Today's card is the Empress. I don't mean to make this into a thing. Where every post opens with what card I drew. But I've done it twice now so it's hard not to make it into a thing. And we don't need to talk about what that card is. What it means.

"The Empress" from Tarot of the Sweet Twilight

Today's card is the Empress but my children aren't home. It's so quiet when they're not here. The energy is different. When they're here I have so many things I want to do that I can't because I have them to care for. So that leaves painting and writing to be squeezed into the in between times of them sleeping or eating or watching a movie. And even then they want my attention. Bed time cuddles or just a chat over what they had for lunch while they eat dinner that day.

But when they're not here I'm so tired. Sure I have all this extra time now. All these things I could be doing but I just want to nap. Just sleep for hours. And when I'm not sleeping I don't want to do anything at all. Just sit and play video games and eat pie.

They are my little double edged swords. They give me drive and energy. But they sap my energy and remind me that I don't have all the time in the world. But that's ok, I miss them. It's almost as if I've trained myself to only function when they're here. And all the time in the world means nothing because I feel like it's all wasted anyway. At least when they're here anything I do feels like an accomplishment.

But still I have things to do. I have food to buy and bills to figure out. Who's getting paid and who has to wait. And in the back of my mind I'm counting the days down until my girls come home.

Sunrises and Sunsets Look the Same

            Today's card is the Ace of Pentacles. This means that there will be financial enlightenment in my future. Which is good because I've been thinking of starting a path to some ventures. Kicking the ideas around in my head. Trying to figure out how to make it all work. 

              I'm teaching myself to read tarot. This is scary to admit out loud mostly because I am not a teenager and because I've never really been one to wonder about what the universe has to say. But when you're the person that everyone else goes to for advice you have to ask someone. And I respect that the universe has a stand point and up until recently I've been uninterested in it. In a sort of punk rock metaphysical fuck the universe I'll do what I want sort of way.

             But then, I'm going to be 30 sooner rather than later and I think that the universe is trying to tell me things. Like I was interested in things when I WAS a teenager for a reason. Not just because I thought they were cool and slightly rebellious but because I liked them.

And I'm an adult and I should do the things that I like. I should be able to do the things that I want to fall in love with. I'm an adult so now I can do whatever I like.
            
            I'm an adult now so I have responsibilities too. I have children. A household. Things that need to be brought. Things that need to be replaced. But behind all of that need, need, need, now-now-now there's something else.

            Like a secret that I'm plotting out and building in my spare time. But it's scary. Because I don't know what will happen and all that need and now well that's more important isn't it? Or maybe just differently important.

           The Ace of Pentacles is about values. And I value my life. I value what I do. And I want what I do to be important an worthwhile at least to me. What good is my life if at the end of it all I did was grind the nine to five (well seven to three in my case) to ensure that I had a roof and debt. What good is that if I don't do anything? This is the time to do things. I'm not a kid anymore.

            I can do whatever I want, I just have to plan.

            So I'm becoming an artist despite what my mother wants. I'm teaching myself to read tarot because it's what I want. And I'm going to open a pet store.

            I think putting it out there is the hard part. That's the scary part. Now it's just the doing.

            Thank you universe. You don't have to badger me.