25 Clouds (1/2)
1yr
@dredd
I had challenged myself to paint 25 clouds. I was not confident in my ability to paint backgrounds and I wanted to improve, then thought of clouds as my starting point.
It was difficult.
I began the first 10 on grayscale, aiming to study the value and structure of clouds. I found that clouds also have gesture and it affects the composition of the piece.
From painting 11 to 25 was colored studies. This hit like a truck. I had extremely little experience with color and brush work. Getting my colors and values accurate to my reference was not easy. Even after finishing he challenge, I still think that something is off in the most recent paintings.
Most of the pieces are done at around 30-60 minutes. There are some that took 2-3 hours especially the final 25.
This is merely 25 little paintings and I have told myself that it would only serve as a milestone in my art journey. I still have a long way to go.
P.S. Some are painted with a reference and some are from memory. It was also done digitally.
dredd, I applaud your efforts here, clouds are hard! people think they are just big puffy shapes, but they are so not.
They have mass, they are dimensional and they are translucent sometimes. This makes them a real challenge to paint convincingly. You did a good job on these, but man you couldn't have picked a harder background element to start with :)
You have a point, haha. I could have started with an indoor setting like an apartment bedroom, which I like to use in a lot of my drawings and just focus on perspective and spatial awareness (I am quite a fan of Kim Jung Gi). What's done is done anyway.
