Colour study - just starting...
3yr
Dan B
Hi all. I've been scared of colour (particularly digital painting) for a while, but I want to take it seriously now and get better at it. I'm reasonably comfortable with the theory, just lacking all of the practice :p
Critique and advice welcome!
Original image: https://unsplash.com/photos/ffcMljmT3U4
I used the reference without enlarging to not confuse myself. Probably spent 30 minutes on this. Only used 6b for the line sketches then just chisel marker for the painting (Infinite Painter).
Had another go at this one, this time in coloured pencil! I have found through this that I don't particularly like coloured pencil! All the layering to mix colours and that paper is so important to that (I used smooth paper here, which didn't help at all...). Didn't worry about perspective and proportion so much as the sketch was done quickly.
The smooth paper meant I couldn't go very dark, but it made me keep a light touch which was good practice.
I tried to bring in everyone's feedback where I could: gradient in the sky, more warm colours, darker shadows. Coloured pencil is hard!
Looking nice! From the thumbnail it just looks like a photo. Maybe it could use more darkness around the tires and make the dark edge more tight around the figure so it pops out more, now some white is bleeding out from the dark areas, might be a problem if too much.
Thanks. I should have paid more attention to the gaps, I have a bad habit of doing that with digital painting so far.
Nice. I like the colors. I might think of desaturating one of them to make one dominant. Just a thought. Looking good!
Thanks John, I'll keep this in mind for composition. For now I'm just trying to get colours reasonably accurate to the photo as I struggle with that, but if I play around more I'll think about different focus points and accentuation of colour.
This idea is from Atey Ghailan, he mentioned in one of his YT vids that he sometimes uses a small saturated square to compare the rest of the image.
It also doesn't help that you had that almost white background. It's useful to switch between light and dark backgrounds from time to time cause it'll change your perception.
And, the most important step, in my opinion, is to evaluate your own work at the end and if you missed the mark you redo it and hopefully, it gets better. I think this is one of the differences between pros and amateurs, the pros are willing to go back and grind. The amateur will just say "I'll make sure to do it like that in my next painting" and skip the step.
For this step, it's better if you have a specific objective in mind, for example - today I exercise edges, then evaluate with that in mind. Or today I exercise color or accuracy etc.
I admit I'm not so good at repeated exercise loops, I need to do that! My objective at the moment is really just getting reasonable colour accuracy, as even that is difficult for me. Once I can match colours ok I'll extend into playing with composition elements more, shadow colours, edge types, etc. Lots of work ahead!
I'm a bit confused about the saturated square. Is this just for ensuring the pallete used stays relatively neutral with saturated elements only used for elements of interest/focus?
It feels too cool to me. I think it's important in the original photo that there are 3 major warm areas to balance out the cools: the tan triangle on top of the car, the figure, and the yellowish grass on the right side. There are also clumps of orange in the bottom grass. I'd say squint more on the grass and capture the big shapes and overall gradient from left to right. I think the sky could be lighter too, especially as it approaches the horizon line,
Thanks Peter, it's definitely on the cool side. I'll try again with warm colours in the canvas and grass. It is a pretty cool photo (van, sky, grass) overall, but I definitely should balance that out in the painting, so I'll give it a go.
