Monday, February 19, 2007

Van Gogh and a little dog


Hello everyone!
I started on the Van Gogh project yesterday, with acrylics on a canvas board a little bigger than 11x14 inches.
Here are the steps which I've done so far, which I so patiently and diligently took pictures of for you, (okay, okay, maybe for me, too, ;) ).
Here is the first step. The underpainting. What this does is make the colors you put on top look fuller and more saturated. Red for green, green for red, blue for yellow, and orange for blue. This is what we call the ugly stage.

Now I've slathered on lots of green, blue for sky*, and I've made basic values on my focal point, the cedar tree.
* I'll add more layers of sky as I go, which takes the muddiness away.
Ahhh, now the fun part. I took yellow paint while the green of the grass was still tacky and I splotched it all over it. It's starting to look vaguely Van Goghish.



Now I've added artsy blotchiness to the tree as well.



Here's the beginning setup.



Here is the latest update. I've begun forming the clouds, I dotted white everywhere, which I think I'll probably take out again (ah, the wonders of paint!) because the effect of the that color is too cold.

And here is my other project. It's 10x10 inches on bristol smooth paper, done with prismacolor pencils. I decided to do it all over again, because the hair wasn't right, the layering, I just decided that I could render it better then that.
So here is my friend's dog- again.
To hear more details about how I did this, check out wetcanvas colored pencil forums.
Check my blog out tomorrow for more of this little dog and my Van Gogh project, and don't forget to check up on the Van Gogh project started by Maggie Stiefvater at greywarenart.blogspot.com ( this is the link to her starting Van Gogh post, click here to get her latest to date post.
Thanks for reading!