Welcome to Lagomorphosis, sketchblog and art blargh. I mean, blog. I needed a separate space to put my art and minutiae of art production. Mostly so that I can keep my hobby separate from my ranting on about personal matters. Not that this won't eventually degenerate into personal matters, but at least they will all be about art.

Today's Work

I might as well post what I've been working on today. I will eventually fill in posts from my previous blargh but in the meantime we'll stick with what's going on now.

I've been trying to develop my digital painting skills, partly because I love some of the effects people achieve with them and partly because it's good for my colourwork. I need a better sense of how to put colours together to achieve certain effects. What I think I really need to do is buy a laptop and head out to places outside my basement and practice painting from life, but in the meantime I'm practicing on various photos I've taken.

So today I was blocking in colour on a picture of a waterfall. I took the photo in Jasper, Alberta several years ago and while the rock textures are fairly complex, the shapes themselves are simple enough. Because I have a tablet, I used pressure-based line width and opacity, which is something I don't do all that often.

Anyway. Here's my waterfall:



and here's the reference photo:



I'm not sure how much more texture to add, though. By going over the photo in detail and zooming in on the painting, I could make it very detailed indeed. I started doing that with a photo of a pansy. But that is very, very slow work and when one is working from a photo, well, one begins to wonder what the point is. So I can make a photorealistic picture of... something I already have a photo of. Great.

Still, the rough looks quite good in a blocky sort of way. With a little bit of refinement it could make a very nice print. I guess that is what I will be working on next.