WEEK 6 - Thesis Development

This week was more thumbs.
Keep working the thumbs.

I also did this little piece of Albert's house.

Sherrie's major comments were that the bridge wasn't reading, and the house still resemble's the "UP" house. Ugh. Still developing.

I also showed her the Eskimo piece I was working on for my portfolio. She had notes. A lot of notes. It's getting better. But I'm finding myself running short on steam for this one.

The Eskimo and the Flower..... and a Lighting Study

This is a personal piece I worked on this week, in trying to make my portfolio more painting-oriented. I really like how it turned out. And I learned a lot. I'll be doing more on this story for the full page in the portfolio.

Also, a lighting study of my room/floor, I did as a warmup. About 1 hr.

WEEK 6 - Adv. Perspective

This week was "Theatre," camera looking upward. I decided to use this opportunity to do a couple Tuner story beats.

I think I improved a lot in these paintings. They were done really quick, because of my compressed schedule this week, but I still think I pulled off some new things. I'm getting more confident about my brushwork. And I'm learning new techniques in getting my edges to be tighter, and to have more clarity.

I usually work in a lot of layers, which after a while begins to get a bit stifling, creatively. I feel overwhelmed, and the organic fluidity of the creative process (*starting to sound a little pretentious*) suffers as a result. I feel less motivated.
So.... to counteract this problem, I've been trying to work in layers, but then merge those layers as often as I can. This helps to both boost my confidence in painting on as few layers as possible, having less chances to have editable layers, I'm forced to paint traditionally. I have to paint on top of what's already there, not have the crutch of being able to paint beneath an object. I find it slows me down a lot as well..... which I need... desperately. I still keep things like light on separate layers, because they're going to effect the rest of the paintings SO much, that it's just way easier to have them separated for as long as possible.

I'm also learning to push my values a whole lot more, and I think I'm getting much better results. What I'm doing right now to counteract my tendency to go dark to soon, is at certain stages in the painting, I'll   raise the levels on the background and foreground, to make them much brighter and lower contrast than  they were originally. I just trust that what I'm doing is helping, even though I think it's wrong, like EVERY TIME. But in the end, this adjustment always looks better. So I trust it.

Something that was pointed out to me by my friend, Isaac Orloff, was that my paintings all kind of fell in the 6-84 range of values. Never going to pure back or white. He suggested that I go back and add those pure values to really help punch up the focal point. And he was so right. So after I think I'm "done," I go back and check the values, then really push the focal point with intense bold strokes of pure black and pure white. Keeping it limited but punchy. It's paying off so far, so I'm gonna keep up that process, and see if I can learn to refine it. Hopefully, eventually I'll be able to work in the full range on my own. But we'll see.

Next week, is our Midterm paintings. We're gonna choose three of our past assignments, and push them through to the finish line. Looking forward to it!

Also, here's my "Spider Room" painting, that I've been trying to push further:

WEEK 5 - Urban Landscape Painting

For Week 5, we worked on a two week painting in class, dealing with the blend of foliage and architecture.

WIP..... the truck is ALL Craig, but the rest is me. I was having major structure problems with the truck, so Craig (rather quickly) tuned it up. And I think I have a better sense of what I need to try and accomplish on the rest of the painting.

Craig also brought in his pieces for his one-man-show. Which was amazing! It was super great to be able to see his work in person, and really get close to his brushwork, which I'm finding is incredibly appealing for me. I love his use of lighting and color. The feeling is very similar to when I look at Dice's paintings. I just love the spirit of the painting, and how the brushstrokes are so confident and intentional. That's definitely something I need to work on. Intent and confidence.

Next week, we are turning in our first official assignment. I haven't started it yet, but I'm still optimistic.

WEEK 5 - Adv. Perspective

This week was Noah's Ark, once again. Figures and environment, camera looking down.

I focused on individual rooms this week, instead of big exteriors. I looked to the work Ryan Lang did on Wreck-It Ralph for inspiration, and I think it helped my composition quite a bit.

Joko mentioned that he loved my composition, but that, once again, my values just need to be pushed EVEN FURTHER. Which I completely agree. I think I pushed them in the right direction, but I still have a long ways to go still.

For next week, we can either stick with Noah's Ark, or move on to Theatre. Now the camera has to be looking upwards.

Joko also showed us a matte painting technique to use with reference photos that we can take on our own.

Film Study - "Jurassic Park/Lost World"

WEEK 5 - Thesis Development

This week was more thumbs. Sherrie and I talked about how to better tell my story visually. There still seems to be some inconsistencies with the story itself, and Sherrie is worried that when I try to break it down into 15 shorter concise beats, that it won't make sense at all. So she has me editing, and tweaking, merging, and adding, as needed to the current selection of beats I've created, in order to make a more cohesive story, both cinematically, and visually.

We talked about giving Lucy her own magic sooner in the film, and taking some of the magical burden from Albert. That way, when Lucy adds her bit to Albert's song, it doesn't come out of nowhere. We will have seen it coming all along.

We also talked about my portfolio. I've recently decided to basically overhaul my portfolio, and I asked her specific things I could try to achieve (for the CTN deadline), that would really make my portfolio scream, "Painting Portfolio." I think her suggestions to work on fewer pieces rather than more is the best decision. Working up and "polishing" some of the assignment I've already started in Adv. Perspective, will also allow me to not have to stat from scratch on everything.
Range over quantity.

Strength in lighting, color, composition. These are the three things I need to be focusing on most heavily.

WEEK 4 - Urban Landscape Painting

This week we turned in two color studies for our first official homework painting. It has to be an urban environment with focus on good spatial breakup and design.

Craig loved both my paintings. He said he loved the composition of the left one, but the boldness of the marks on the right one. If I can achieve the same confidence in my stroke son the larger version, the slide is the winner.

I really like the challenge of painting reflective surfaces like metal. I hope it will be a fruitful exercise.

In class, Craig talked about a lot of great things while critiquing our work.

He told us to think about atmospheric perspective like painting a "veil of mist".... which just makes too much sense. Also, when starting studies on location, establish your darkest dark, your brightest bright, and the easiest color. This is exactly what I've learned from Ryan Lang's tutorials, and it makes total sense, because Ryan could not have spoken more highly of Craig's Quick Studies class, which I intend to take next semester.

He also talked about painting through, not to. Overlapping your edges will create a more unified feeling to the painting, especially when architecture is involved, and it will decrease your chances of blank canvas popping through at the seams of things.

Complexity doesn't always necessarily mean detail... it might just be more brush strokes showing.

And finally, the difference between a pistol grip, and a pencil grip. Pistol is used to infuse energy into the painting, and pencil is for control in your marks. A combination of the two is where painting really starts to gain life and spontaneity.

Here's the painting we worked on two weeks ago, and now have finished:

WEEK 4 - Thesis Development

(CANCELLED)

WEEK 4 - Adv. Perspective

This week's theme was "Noah's Ark," focusing on putting figures into the scene, with a Depth of Field, on varying elevations, in perspective, of course.

Joko liked my concepts, but had comments of course. He discussed how for my lighthouse light, I should think of the light in terms of what's it's hitting, rather than as a beam of light. Right now, the beam is covering a lot of the background, and making it harder to read. Also, making sure that I am thinking about how the light is actually effecting the scene, what's in shadow, what's in light.

This week, I think I stretched myself in terms of the subject I chose. I realized my pieces are starting to look a little like game design concept art, which I like, but still find unexpected. I am definitely thinking more in terms of storytelling more and more. I find myself thinking about story beats for Tuner with the perspective tips and tricks I'm learning in this class.

Here's my assignment for this week:

Next week, more Noah, but perspective, looking down.