Shaping Out

This week, I worked a little more on my portrait.  Unfortunately, I have not started the actual portrait part of the painting, and am still working on the background.  Well, not really the background, but have moved closer and into the middle ground.  What this means in everyday English is that I'm no longer painting the farthest objects.  So let's go over a brief recap on what happened.

Day 2 (3/16) : Drying the Sky

After the sky dried, I was then able to work on the buildings in the skyline.   Although I had already put down some buildings, I began to work on the ones on the side of the street.  It was a bit hard for me to get used to the three point perspective, but it's coming along.  

Something I could've focused more on is aerial perspective, especially for the color mixing unit I did a few weeks back.  The colors in the distance are mostly dark gray, so aerial perspective won't apply nearly as much as it would have for other paintings.  The atmosphere between the subject and the vantage point scatters light, and when there is more atmosphere, there is more light to scatter.  This happens way more often in the daytime, because there is outdoor light, and for the colorful neon skyline here, I don't think it was daytime.  

Also, contrast decreases as something gets further and further away, because the brain wants to remove the fine details the contrast has, to run the brain more efficiently.  I missed the first time around the building in the middle, because it blended in with the night, even though it was probably a lighter shade of gray in the daytime.  Because of the less contrast between the atmosphere and the land, the land below the horizon will have a shift towards the sky's color.  The tropical island would appear bluer, and the sunset over a pyramid would shift everything red. Many different sciences still use light scattering of aerial perspective to tell distances, especially observant sciences like optics and astronomy.

Day 2, with a monochromatic palette

Day 3 (3/17) : More Buildings

I focused more on a few of the details on the buildings, but I kept all my details that I made relatively monochromatic, to make my life easier with color mixing.   Some buildings are definitely off due to the three color perspective, but that can be easily fixed as more shapes are added in for reference. 


Taking three-point perspective is difficult because it changes what would be squares and rectangles into stretched-out trapezoids and triangles.  It is the hardest and rarest perspective to master, despite being the closest perspective to what people see. A vanishing point is where the objects of the painting appear to shrink or disappear, hence its name.  Now, how many vanishing points will a three point perspective have?  You might think it's 25, but you only need three, genius.  Two vanishing points go on the horizon line, on opposites sides of the canvas, and one vanishing point goes above or below the horizon line, in between the two vanishing points.  This is one of the ways that space and depth get added to painting, along with one and two point perspective.  So breaking it down, space can be painted like this because we see like this.  Humans (most likely) have two eyes, and they are equally set on the face, so no one looks like their eye fell out,  Because the eyes represent two level perspectives, this makes up the horizon for vision.  Now, depending whether you are looking down or up, the third point will be above or below the horizon.  A vanishing point below the horizon will make it look like you are looking down, because they are lower than your eyes, and vice versa, finding the third vanishing point.

I wish I did other homework this fast...

Day 4 (3/18) : Tips of the Trade

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I am going to a painting studio for a place to paint without worries of mess, and how the painters there also give advice among each other.  This week, I decided to ask a few questions to them.  I asked a painter named Bill, who ran the painting studio course a few questions, some about advice and a few about experience.  Bill is an art teacher for high school and college students, and gives tips on acrylic and oil painting. Here are a few of the questions I asked when looking for advice. 

Q: What is a general tip to use when painting?
A:  When you first start painting, do not focus on detail right off the bat.   Use basic shapes, and when you want to add detail, go back and add detail. Many shapes can be left as just shapes that represent objects like buildings,  especially when they are in the distance and detailed will be hard to paint.   Get rid of that annoying white canvas, cover the canvas  with shapes and then you'll get an idea of how the painting will look like. 

Q: What do you like to paint? 
A: I prefer to paint modern art paintings over landscapes.  

Q: What is an experience of painting that you have had?
A: A few years ago, I wasn't having a good time, as I just went through a divorce.  However, I was an instructor for kids, and worked with these painting books where shapes would be assigned colors to paint it with.  So I took one of these paintings, blew it up on a old piece of plywood, primed it and painted a Tinkerbell, who was happy and it really took my mind off from all the drama at the time.  But it wasn't Disney's, or the book's Tinkerbell, it was mine.  I made it, and I added my own style to it.  Whatever you paint, paint with your feelings, your emotions, and add a twist.

Knowing how important emotion is when painting, I realized that I shouldn't be concerned with having every brick or leaf in perfect position, because emotion should have its own impact on the painting.  It's not just an oily photograph, I added something that made it stand out, making it unique.   Anyway, during the painting class, this is what I accomplished over the weekend:

Anyway, I'm about to upload a Vlog on Vimeo in a few days, as a special feature.  After this week, this blog is going to slow down A LOT, but painting classes go on after this week, so anyone who is interested can see what is going on for the next month.  Anyway, goodnight!