What I've been working on

So this post would be about my subject drawing 1 assignment 2.
basically i've been working on acrylics for this assignment. Frankly i've never use neither learn how to paint using acrylic.i struggled a little to finish it up. So yea i shall post the progress of my assignment 2. By the way its a movie poster titled CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.

i drew the outline of the poster using pencil.

 Painted the characters clothing roughly to get the colors on.

Tested coloring the fonts due to the overlay of acrylic on the font area.

Done with the character and i started the background.

Done painting the whole movie poster but not yet touch up.

i touch up the background using acrylic on sponge ad started rubbing gently to create the smoky effect. 

Coloured the Font and this is how it looks when done.

a close up of the character.

finally after mounted on mounting board and ready to send in .

Art

So, what is Art? It's pretty general. Art comes in many forms. There is no exact definition of what art is. As for me, Art is an expression. Doesn't really matter what form it is; it could be visual, sound or anything. Expression that gives motivation, inspiration and emotion. Art in another word could be something that comes from your heart, be it original or not. It's just another way of expressing your emotions, which seems to be a way of brain to be able to form logical interconnections between information pieces. It's why we have dreams, because the brain tries to randomly organize all the data and trying out logical interconnections. I think the conscious effort to do something similar and expressing it in a tangible format would become art. Like how sometimes I do sketches of my precious dog because he constantly lingers on my mind and I love him :) This is a random thought I have in mind recently so I decided to post this. 

Eye Drawing

I've always had a thing in drawing with pencil. Simple sketch of an eye, hair, or anything that come across my mind. So here's a simple steps that I found in drawing an eye using pencil. Before drawing using colour pencil or other tools, it's best to master the basic drawing using pencil.

STEP 1. Basically all you need to do is lightly sketch the shape of the eye. There's not much to it, but you do want to spend some time just to make sure this part is exactly how you want it, or the completed drawing will not look good.

STEP 2. Here you just want to draw in the iris and pupil, sketch in where you want the highlights to be, and lightly shade in a base tone for the iris.

STEP 3. In the third step, you should shade under the eye lid a little bit and shade in the pupil. You should draw some lines coming out of the pupil going towards the edge of the iris like you see in the picture.

STEP 4. Here you want to add shading to the outer edge of the iris with lines that go toward the pupil. There should still be part of the iris that is the base tone, which you should accent by adding a shadow underneath to give it depth. That sounds confusing so just look at the picture. I added some shading under the bottom eye lid here, but a also made sure I left a small outline of white around the eye where the eye lashes will go.

STEP 5. This might look like a big difference, but just add eye lashes by drawing thick lines that taper to a point. They should dip down before going up to give it more realism. The bottom eyelashes should be smaller and clumped together a little bit. I also shaded the white part of the eye a little. I added detail to the iris by adding small black dots and lines and giving it small highlights.

STEP 6. This is just adding final touches. Darken all the darks to really dark to give the picture contrast. Make sure your highlights are really highlighted. You can make a reflection of the eyelashes in the highlight in the iris if you want. You can either make the white part of the eye look glossy with highlights and shadows or you can put blood vessels in it, or both. Just keep adding detail and shading around the eye until your'e happy with it, and you are done!

See how simple it is. Of course you need practice.

Indirect & Direct Painting

I was browsing through some websites about oil painting techniques. There's this particular website that caught my eye, it's about direct and indirect painting techniques used by some great painters like Titian, Rembrandt and Rubens to construct oil paintings. There are also recommended painting palettes and things to use to create a good painting.

Indirect Painting

This method is used to build up multiple layers of paint and medium to get results of some desired visual effects. Simple technique of applying three distinct layers is used to construct oil paintings.

The painting shown above is taken as an example to illustrate the first step. A dark transparent initial layer made from one or a few colors that relate closely to each other, such as the Gamblin Transparent Earth Colours . These colors can be used to block in (draw in) the painting. Gamsol odorless mineral spirits and a small amount of Galkyd Lite to thin this layer. 

# what is the use of Gamsol odorless mineral spirits?

(1) Thinning oil colors. Stiff oil colors relax immediately when a little Gamsol is added. 

(2) Modifying painting mediums. 

(3) Studio clean up: brushes, palettes, palette knives, etc.

A middle layer made from opaque colors, including the lightest values in the painting (Radiant Colors or a tint of Umber, Terre Verte or Portland Greys would be useful for this layer). Consider using Galkyd or Galkyd Lite thinned with approximately 10 - 20% Gamsol.

A final glaze layer that modifies the opaque colors and makes the surface very rich. Consider using Galkyd without thinning for an enamel-like finish or Galkyd Lite for lighter glazes. An opaque glaze layer is called a "scumble." Because of its transparency, Zinc White is the best white to create this effect. Also, pure hue "highlights" can be added to the top of the painting.

Basically, a good oil painting can be achieved by using the correct tools and methods. 

Paintings built in this manner follow the "fat over lean" rule. what is " fat over lean" rule? I'll be posting about this rule after explaining more about indirect and direct painting. ALL PAINTING MEDIUMS ARE CONSIDERED FAT so use Galkyd thinned wsith Gamsol in the under layers and more painting medium in the upper layers.

For painters concerned about using oil rich colors, consider this visual key: Artists' grade oil paints that look shiny are fat. Artists' grade oil colors that look more matte are lean.

When using tints to build the middle layer, consider the layer lean because all Gamblin Artists' Whites are lean.

This simple system can be organized differently depending on whether painters prefer to build their paintings from dark to light (Leonardo) or light to dark (Rubens). Painters who prefer not to tone the ground will make brighter paintings by applying:

Thick opaque under painting as an initial layer

Thin transparent glazes to modify that under painting

Painters can also use the Indirect method by applying many glazes of only transparent colors over a drawing or a grisaille. The traditional drawing colors are medium brown (Umber), earth green (Terre Verte) or warm medium grey.

Direct Painting

This method of painting is used to make paintings in a single application. This is an opaque painting technique used by the Impressionists in their early work, the Fauves and the Abstract Expressionists. (But consider a painting made with transparent colors all in one layer a direct painting, too.) Direct painting relies on more planning because artists must consider form and color simultaneously.

A few guidelines:

Paint from light to dark

Vary brush marks from long stroke to short mark (like Cezanne's) to stippling, etc

Scrubbing in multiple directions

Scumbling with a near dry brush

Among the many choices, consider:

Paint the background to the foreground

Mix the colors primarily on the palette or on the canvas

Begin with the middle tones and gradually increase the contrast

For painting wet-into-wet, use mostly artists' grade oil colors with a small of amount Galkyd Slow Dry Painting Medium to increase the fluidity of the paints.

Alla prima is a method of direct painting in a single paint layer usually on a white ground.

Plein Air describes a direct technique of painting a landscape entirely out of doors.

Most painters use a combination of direct and indirect painting. For example, a landscape painting may look better when a glaze is applied to certain areas, such as the sky.

(photo credit to www.jasonromneybrain.com)

So, what is "fat over lean" rule?

The “fat over lean” rule allows you to build a painting that is flexible so over time there will be less cracking to your painting.

The under layers of a painting should be leaner than the upper layers. There are two different approaches to building paint layers following the “fat over lean” rule.

The first approach uses the same ratio of painting medium to oil color throughout a painting; however, the fat content of the painting medium is modified between each paint layer. In the initial layers, the oil medium (fat) is mixed with Gamsol (lean). As you add layers, increase the oil content of the medium by adding Galkyd oil painting mediums or a drying oil (Linseed, Stand or Poppy). The bottom layers will have more Gamsol and less oil. The top layers will have more oil and less Gamsol. The ratio of the painting medium mixture to oil colors remains the same.

The second approach uses varying amounts of the same painting medium throughout a painting. Since oil painting mediums are fat, when you add medium to oil color, the oil content increases. In the initial layers of a painting add a minimal amount of painting medium; then increase the amount of painting medium as you build up paint layers. The ratio of medium to paint increase as you continue painting.

visit this website to know more about oil paintings! http://www.gamblincolors.com/

THE MEETING/ BONJOUR

The painting selected for this Art Appreciation exercise is entitled ‘ The meeting or Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet ’ , painted by Gustave Courbet in 1854. In this painting, there are three people and one dog as the foreground.

The left hand site man named Calas. He is standing with head look down 45 degree and the view is third quarter view. His leg is standing around 90 degree. He has a black beard and black colour hair. His right hand is holding a black hat and it named homburg. However, his left hand is holding a stick and his wrist is covering by a red cloth. He is wearing a white scarf around his neck, yellow vest with a brown Trench coat and white glove on both of his hand. For the bottom part of his body, he is wearing a yellowish white long pant and a pairs of brown green shoes.

            The second man from the left hand site on the painting is called Alfred Bruyas. He is standing with third quarter view and his left leg is behind his right leg. His head is around 90 degree and his eye is looking to the man in front of him. He has a red brown beard and red brown hair. His left hand is holding a black hat and it named Beret. He wears a ring on his right hand, holding a walking stick and holding a white glove. For the costume, he is wearing a dark green peacoat with black and white collar. It has 2 buttons and 2 pockets on his peacoat. On his left hand, he is wearing a white glove. A dark brown long pant and dark brown green shoes was wore by him.

            However, the right hand site man named Courbet. He is standing with head look up about 45 degree. His head is side view and the body is back side view. He has a long black beard and black hair. He is holding a stick on his right hand and left hand holding a white hat named Boater. Besides, he also wears a wooden back pack. There are some wooden stick on his bag and cover with a black cloth.

            Further more, there is a dog inside the painting. The species of the dog is Anglo-Francis depetite Verieve. The dog is belongs to Calas. It is standing on the floor and black and white in colours. The dog is looking at the right site and there is a yellow chain on its neck.

            For the background, we can see that it is an infinite space with blue sky, white cloud and a ground with sand and grass. There is also having some shrub tree, few plants and some flower which is red and orange in colours.  Besides, there is also has a carriage towed by 2 horses, one is white and another one is brown in colours.