Martin’s sketchbook

Yessir! :man_artist:

here’s a small (5"x4") section of a painting by Jules Cyrille Cavé I copied yesterday - I experimented with an impasto highlight on the nose (it’s not quite like that on the original) and once again fought with a canvas weave that wasn’t fine enough, but enjoyed it a good deal nonetheless:-

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Looks great Martin! <3

A sketch of a goblin type creature, I don’t usually achieve this kind of value range out of graphite (the whole thing is I think 2b pencil) so pretty pleased this came out like it did.

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This Bouguereau study came together today, I could spend a lot longer on this, refining and correcting, but who has time for that, right, so I will probably move on to something more pressing now it’s out my system, like knuckling down on LoD :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I haven’t done anything creative in months, complicated and messy situation, but long story short, very crazy/selfish/stupid decision made - essentially I’ve resigned from my business, and having completely extracted myself from that, around family commitments I have about 6 months of time now to work on various things (LoD!!!) and try to make something of my artistic direction before I inevitably have to get a ‘real’ job and go back to the 9-5 grind :grimacing:

So anyway, I picked up a brush for the first time in months and had a go at a small landscape of the tyne bridge near where I live, from photo reference:-


yeah the moss looks like grass and the stone colours are all wrong but I am so pleased to be doing something creative again that I don’t care. I’ll do it better next time. Back to LoD!

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Good to see you around again. I hope it goes well for you and you can make inroads rather than procrastinating like I do (health issues though) :grinning:. If you ever want to bounce ideas or want some feedback, feel free to send me a message.

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Thanks Craig, that’s very kind of you. It is very easy to let life get in the way of things. I’ve gone from having no time for anything to having 3-4 hours of productive time a day now, which is incredible to me, so I’m trying not to waste it, my main problem is that I have too much I want to do in that time. Not to mention the many distractions sent to derail my progress, and yes, procrastination…

I’ve spent my whole life trying to perfect everything at once and continually going down rabbit holes :joy:. The main thing the course I was doing (need to get back to) was to take one small bit of knowledge and practice it over half a dozen paintings, then grab the next tiny bit then rinse and repeat. Everything really boils down to 3 things; value, hue and edges.

Value: I consider this the most important as you can swap out all the colours for something else and within reason get away with it IF you nail the values.

Hue: This can really throw you off as most people reach for way to much chroma (intensity of colour).

Edges: This is pretty key and isn’t all that hard IF you can wrap your head around it, but does need a lot of practice. I have to sit down and visualise it every time as it is far from automatic for me. Basically its as simple as light directly hitting a surface will bend around that surface (light beams comiing from slightly different directions) giving a ‘soft’ edge (gradient), though this is relevant as the smaller the light source the thinner that gradient will be, sometimes making it look hard. A shadow cast by another object though will always have a ‘hard’ edge, though these can appear softer if multiple light sources.

Have you considered practising using your own still life’s as that will give you control over lighting. I’d recommend creating a light box with a single light source that is very small (think small book light or pen light). I would also consider painting in greyscale for a few painting so you can concentrate on values and edges without worrying about colour.

Just to complicate matters, while learning, no colour in the light should have a value darker than any that are in shadow. I would consider following that and not worry about trying to break it for quite a while as it stops a lot of errors from not understanding the visual system.

My apologies if I am throwing stuff at you that you already know.

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