Caroline

Tags

1920s, girl, illustration, portrait

I sometimes use my friends’ Facebook pics for inspiration

Through the bus window

Tags

illustration, landscape, norway, winter

I live in Norway, so a simple bus trip often provides me with already perfectly composed images. naturally framed by the window. This is what happened here.

The Artist Workout Jar, Ticket #9

Tags

art, artist workout, dailyspitpaint, digital art, landscape painting, portfolio, speedpaint, spitpainting

25 minutes speedpaint done for the Daily Spitpaint Group. Becaaaause, ticket no.9 was “speedpainting”. Theme was artificial clouds. Here’s a cotton candy island for you.

 

The Artist Workout Jar, Ticket #8

Tags

artist, artist workout, cityscape, color and light, painting study, rain scene, value study

A value/light/color study of a city at night.

Reference from here 

This one was about Color and Light. More precisely I read and took notes from one chapter of J.Gurney’s book. This part is about different sources of light.

Direct Sunlight

In direct sunlight there are 3 different sources of light: sun, the blue sky and reflected light from illuminated objects.

You can think of the skylight as a soft light, coming from many directions.

The higher the altitudes and the clearer the air, the sky will be more blue-violet and shadows darker and bluer relative to sun.

As more clouds show up, shadows become grayer. The more haze or smog shows up, shadows are tonally closer to the value of the sunlight.

The color of the ground and nearby objects reflects into the shadow areas.

Overcast Light

-soft illumination (because clouds diffuse sunlight)

-this eliminates dramatic contrasts of light and shadow

-ideal for complicated scenes

-colors appear brighter and purer than in sunlight

-it is easier to show patterns of costumes

-the sky is usually the lightest note

-light comes evenly and equally from above

-good for photographs cause you expose a scene evenly

Window Light

-soft light

-if the sun is not shining directly through, the light is bluish

-you can get nice contrasts together with another source of artificial light inside (cool-orange for example)

-on a sunny day light shines on the ground and bounces up through the window and on the ceiling

-depending on colour of the ground, you can see orange or green on a white ceiling

Candlelight and Firelight

-yellow-orange

-weak, drops off rapidly

-no deep darks next to the light source, but glowy appearance and many soft edges

-it is a point light (think starburst shape).At twice the distance, the light is only 1/4 as bright. At 3 times the distance, it drops to 1/9 as bright.

Indoor Electric Light

It has 3 qualities: relative brightness, hardness/softness, color cast

The brightness depends on wattage, lamp type, how close the subjects are, how bright the other lights are

Hard light comes from sharp, small points like spotlight or sun. It is more directional, more dramatic, casts crisper shadows, brings out more surface texture and highlights

Soft light comes from a wider area (ex:large panel of fluorescent tubes over a workbench). It is more flattering and reassuring. It is better for task lighting because there are weaker cast shadows. The tonal transitions are more gradual.

The color cast depends on the dominant wavelength. The regular incandescent tends to be strong in orange and red and weak in blue.

Standard warm white and cool white fluorescent light emphasizes yellow-green.

Streetlight and Night Conditions

-blue-green moonlight can contrast nicely with warm lights in shops and streetlights

-gas light is weak

-modern light: incandescent, fluorescent, neon, mercury vapor (cool, drains flesh color), sodium vapor (sickly, warm, narrow wavelength), led lights

Luminescence 

bioluminescence- light from usually ocean creatures, mushrooms, insects. It is usually cool, blue-green and the colors gradate from one hue to another.

Best to paint the scene in dark tones and add glows at the end.

fluorescence- light produced by an object that converts invisible light (amber, calcite)

Hidden Light Sources

Light can come from outside the picture, inside the picture or it can be concealed but inside the picture. The hidden one is more intriguing. Can also be used for silhouettes, pools of colored light, emphasis.

 

My first handmade watercolor sketchbook

Tags

diy watercolor sketchbook, handbound sketchbook, handmade travelbook, tutorial handmade art journal, watercolor handmade sketchbook, watercolor paper

I have been very frustrated lately that it is so hard to find good watercolor sketchbooks in Europe. I realized I had lots of paper and cardboard I wasn’t using, so I decided to invest in a few tools for making my own. So far it seems like a very wise investment.

I used a wonderful tutorial for most of this by Otterluv. However I added a few things to help when on the run (a pocket at the back and an elastic to hold it closed tight). I started with some tools, but I ended up ditching some and adding others. I also used paper glue. The blue paper was never used cause it was not big enough.

So, left to right: packing paper, hole punch, craft knife, elastic, fabric, waxed linen thread, bookbinder’s needle, double sided tape, strong glue, ruler, scissors, 300g watercolor paper and an A3 cardboard from an used pad. Also used an old brush and a wooden bookmark for spreading the glue.

Cut the papers and folded them into signatures/stacks. Also made marks through the center.

This was pretty fun. Sewing the papers together, then sewing the signatures together.

Glued the fabric to the cover parts. I accidentally skipped a step here but I hope it will be fine.

Glued also the first and last signature to the cardboard inside

Glued wrapping paper on each cover, then glued some cheap white paper to hide the edges inside.

But before that I added an elastic band.

Yeeey. It lies flat when opened. I am hoping to have time to do some panoramas.

Also made an envelope and glued on the inside cover at the back. Useful for collecting stuff or having my pocket color wheel.

Can’t wait to use it 😀

 

 

 

September Wallpaper&Calendar Freebie

My favorite season starting tomorrow Here’s a little wallpaper with a September calendar for you. Resolution is 1600×900, but if anyone needs different aspect ratio..feel free to ask. Enjoy the golden autumn light! 

The Artist Workout Jar, Ticket #7

Tags

artist workout jar, greece painting, high key painting, santorini painting, speedpaint, white houses village

Yeeey, more speedpaint. I made this one in a bit under 2 hours, since there was quite a bit of perspective there. I used reference from here. To be honest, this was more about practicing light rendering/high key painting. You might think all you see is white walls. But it is so much more color there. I soooo want to go to Santorini at some point.

The Artist Workout, Ticket #6

Tags

artist workout jar, bunnies, color light practice, forest painting, speedpaint

Speedpaint time, once again. A bit shy, but I am starting to include some personal elements. Kind of influenced by reading about broken color.

Little white forest monsters

The Artist Workout Jar, Ticket #5

Tags

artist workout, broken color, bunny thief, color and light, complementary color palette, impressionism, james gurney, tea house

This time it was studying, taking notes and applying what I learned from a chapter of Color and Light, one of the most useful books for a painter, by James Gurney.

Chapter 1. Tradition

Painting analysis: Noonday light casts shadows directly downward, avoiding drama.

Impressionism uses broken color – the placement of adjacent strokes of contrasting hues, which mix vibrantly in the eye

A color scheme that contrasts greens with reds, while downplaying yellows, violets and blues. Reds appear in full intensity, but also muted in pinks. Red- green palette.

Applications:

1. use of broken color. I tried, but I do not have the patience to put side by side tiny strokes of color. I tried something more similar to scraping off the top layer of paint to reveal the one of a different color underneath

2. try out a full color palette with red and greens as dominants

The Artist Workout Jar, Ticket #4

Tags

daily spitpaint, night clouds painting, nightscape speedpaint, speedpaint, stonehenge painting

Today’s ticket was “Speedpaint”. The goal is to do around 30 of these with photo reference in the near future, then start riding without the safety wheels and go all crazy creative in 30 mins.

I had photo/painting ref from here. Took me 55 mins and way too much browsing through my brushes.