A little holiday R & R

[geedubelyer]

Hello all,

I hope you don't mind me posting this here. I've just returned from a two week holiday in the south of France where I dabbled in my first oil painting. It was alot of fun and passed a few pleasant hours but it's certainly no masterpiece.

I'd call it naive and crude if I'm honest but we all have to start somewhere eh?

The colours of the grass and sky seem a trifle "bright", the background foliage is too bold and certain areas lack clarity. All in the learning process. On a brighter note, I'm happier with the metal of the cowl, a couple of the shadows and the prop so it's not a total loss.

I take my hat off to you fellows who turn out beautiful works of art......it is n't as easy as some may think.

I hope it's given some of you a giggle at least........

'Til next time.

[Lock n' Load]

Well, i really like it!

I haven't been able to finish my first oil painting attempt :( I get very desperate when i don't have the colors i need so i put the canvas next to all the others,kinda sad.

BUT YOU HAVE A VERY GOOD JOB THERE. ;)

Edited September 4, 2007 by Lock n' Load

[pozsgay]

Great job! And for the fist try really awesome. The prop is perfect.

[Clave]

First oil painting? You are going to be good at this, and by good I mean epic... B)

[HOLMES]

This is good... :)

[geedubelyer]

Well, i really like it!

I haven't been able to finish my first oil painting attempt :( I get very desperate when i don't have the colors i need so i put the canvas next to all the others,kinda sad.

BUT YOU HAVE A VERY GOOD JOB THERE. <_<

Thank you Lock n' Load. Im glad you like it but I'm sorry to hear that you can't get all of the colours you need for your paintings. One good thing though, you should be quite good at mixing paints?

Great job! And for the fist try really awesome. The prop is perfect.

Thank you pozsgay, I was very lucky with the prop but I admit that it is one of the bits I like too.

Whether I could recreate it again is another matter......

First oil painting? You are going to be good at this, and by good I mean epic...

Thank you too Clave. I hope I can live up to your expectations if I ever do another.

This is good... :D

Thank YOU HOLMES, i'm glad YOu like it

[mudrat]

Geedubelyer,

Now comes the hard criticism...If you work on the fundamentals of proportion and perspective in your layout, you've pretty much got everything else down pat. Don't stop with just this, start on another one, dude.

I wish you well.

Stephen

Edited September 4, 2007 by mudrat

[geedubelyer]

Geedubelyer,

Now comes the hard criticism...If you work on the fundamentals of proportion and perspective in your layout, you've pretty much got everything else down pat. Don't stop with just this, start on another one, dude.

I wish you well.

Stephen

Hi Stephen, thanks for adding your thoughts.

I'm all for hard, constructive criticism, it's often how we learn. (I am probably my own worst critic!)

I was very interested by your observations and wonder if you could elaborate?

Is there any way you can think of to illustrate what you mean so that I can get the idea please? That way I can try and avoid the same problems in the future.

Edited September 5, 2007 by geedubelyer

[Lock n' Load]

Thank you Lock n' Load. Im glad you like it but I'm sorry to hear that you can't get all of the colours you need for your paintings. One good thing though, you should be quite good at mixing paints?

Indeed :)

When life doesn't give you enough paint... MIX 'EM!

[mudrat]

I was very interested by your observations and wonder if you could elaborate?

Is there any way you can think of to illustrate what you mean so that I can get the idea please? That way I can try and avoid the same problems in the future.

When doing life drawing, try to teach yourself how to measure accurately with your eye. You've seen stereotypes of artists using their thumb or brush handle held up to view against what they are looking at,

right? They are using the brush handle or thumb as a type of ruler, to establish a kind of scale. For example; lets say a fuselage that we are viewing, is 1/3 as thick at the nose (its a radial engined bird viewed at a 3/4 frontal aspect, like your Camel) as it is long, excluding the rudder. You've measured this with your eye, and now you can put this down on paper this way, 1 unit thick at the nose by 3 units long. The top wing and bottom wing at the far tips are 1.5 times the distance apart from each other, as the nose is thick (1/3rd units). The closest wing tips are seperated vertically by, lets say 1/2 the amount of the fuselage length. These things can be lightly sketched in as a kind of guide, before you get heavily involved in the drawing. The a/c landing gear struts (overall) are also the same length as the nose is thick. you can lightly rough that in, too. See what I mean? I'm talking about a hypothetical biplane, yes, but you can use this method for measuring anything visually to establish reasonably accurate proportion in the initial drawing.

Perspective is a rule all representational art must follow. Thats another paragraph.

Regards,

Stephen

[geedubelyer]

Cool!

Thanks for the tips Stephen, much appreciated.