Color II - Pallet's Final

So these are the final pieces.  They aren't extremely different from where they were in the last post, but I've got to put up the finals because I'm so happy with them.  I've gotten a lot of great feed back on these.  It makes getting to class late ok, and make makes me excited to keep going.  The process was such great learning experience.

Note: they are a bit desaturated upon upload.  Weird.

Prints Available

Prints Available

Prints Available

.....I hope you enjoy the finished product!....

Color II - Pallet's WIP

Due to a wonderful break to celebrate Thanksgiving holiday, feed back on current projects is painfully limited.  Such is life.  So, if you see this and have a few minutes to appraise what I have done so far and comment your suggestions I would be ever so grateful!  It's good for digestion. :)

This assignment was to find 3 pieces of art that had inspirational color.  We then broke the color in those pieces into simple ratios to more easily see how they composed the color and why it was so attractive to us.  The final part of the project is to create our own pieces with the color ratios of our inspirational pieces.  It's a great process that I'm going to have to practice more.  Being inspired by others is a great way to learn from them.

Here is what I have so far....

I am at a work in progress stage with these, some more than others.  I have things I plan to do, but I'd really like to hear from you.  What do you think are the most important things for me to adjust, fix, and refine on these pieces?

.....Thanks!.....

ps: that took long time to get to look good in the post!

Illustration for spread 3 in WATERCOLOR!!

I finally did it!  I did one of my BFA illustrations in watercolor!  I really enjoyed the planning and painting process.  It was really nice to be able to see the whole painting, step back, and focus in to work a little smaller.  On my previous digital pieces I'd have to zoom way in just to see anything at full scale, and then I could only see a small part of the whole.  It was really nice to see the whole thing progressing at the same time.  It makes me wonder just how big a difference a nice big screen would make in my

 . . . . . . . . . . . . .digital work. . . . . . . . . . . . 

Interesting way to end a paragraph. :)

When I painted it I didn't want the saturation to get out of control because watercolor can be very vibrant and I wanted the piece to harmonize.  Now that it's finished I want to do some touch ups to saturation.  Mostly in the sash, flowers, and the hat.  

I did do some tweaking to the darker darks, but I'm not sure if there is enough to get a good sense of perspective in the foreground.  Your thoughts?

PLEASE CRITIQUE!

Trust me, I like it. :)

Watercolor Gifts

For my most recent watercolor assignment I made gifts for my friend who got married this past weekend and another friend of mine who had her baby shower.

This was for my friend who got married. A cute quote with my first experiment with masking fluid. It was fun to try a text piece, especially the negative positive play with the flower shapes. Silly me, I forgot to scan the final before I framed it. Sorry for the discoloration of the photo under warm light.

These were for my friend to decorate their nursery. I found out her favorite animals are hawks and falcons so I made a Mama falcon, Papa hawk, and baby chick. The parents look at each other with the baby below in the middle.

Over all they were enjoyable, but I definitely got what I paid for in the cheap-o paper. Arches would have been much better, but it was a good learning experience. Maybe good for little studies. I'll find a use for it, but not the best for finial pieces.

Color II - 3 Contrasts

The assignment was to create an image in a square format 3 different ways. First, using only contrast of value to create a focal point. Second, create a different focal point using only contrast of saturation. This one was a little trickier because you can't exclude value, but the contrast of saturation was supposed to overpower any contrast of value there might be. Third was to basically have no contrast of value or saturation, but of hue. So a "blue" object would be blue in all three, but the hues in the third would be grouped so closely it would seem like there is no contrast at all.

These are my revisions from my first go at the assignment. Sadly, I didn't get them printed today, so this beauty of a project probably won't see the Spori display wall. I'm happy with the first two pieces, but the hue exercise might still be a little too close to be discernible. No contrast, yet still discernible. What a challenge!

The process of production for this project was executing each painting in watercolor, scanning them, and manipulating them in photoshop. The hue exercise was the most heavily photoshopped because the watercolor paper had so much variation of value due to the tooth of the paper. Beautiful, but not appropriate to that specific exercise.

Spread2

This is the second spread of the Lithuanian fairy tale I've been working on for my BFA. This illustration has come so far! It wouldn't have been nearly as good without all of the wonderful critiques and advice I've received on it so far. Critiques, comments, and educated and explained opinions are so powerful in helping me improve in my work. I'd very much like to hear/read your thoughts about the basically finished product. My one disclaimer is that the spot illustration is only a rough place holder. I'd even like help on the text; design and writing. As far as the writing goes, I want it simple and to read like a classic fairy tale. I haven't addressed it much as far as the finished text goes. English majors, GO! :)

Thanks!

Wow, this washes out online. Going much more saturated in photoshop I'm going to melt my lappy from the radiation of the pixels, but it looks so blah here! Pixels, such defiant little creatures.