From Thought To Imagery (Part 3)

Part 1 Bringing the World To Life (continued...)

So, now on to day two of my progress with this image... I've only stepped away from it for the night and the length of my work day, and my mind has been jumping with ideas of ways to better bring the world to life... so lets continue...

The next couple steps I did was place a few more outlines of trees closer to the front, then like in the previous post, I added some lighter and darker colors to give these new trees depth. I like to do a lot of tree layering when it comes to forest scenes to add an almost endless depth of trees.



After that, I add a bit of plant life and what not behind the new trees to fill up some of that empty space. To do this, I like to start by adding dark colors to create where plants will take shape



Then I add a bit of green highlights over the dark areas to start the plant life...



Something a little more time consuming is to go back into the highlighted green areas to create the plant details...



Then I add some plant life growing up the side of the tree to give it a more overgrown effect...



After satisfied with the way that looks, I decide to draw the shape of a stump... This is for our Timeless Prisoner to sit upon.



One of the saddest things about these sorts of paintings is with all these layers and what not, some of the work put into the image will never be seen because there is a tree or a bush or people blocking some of things you put work into... but I guess as the artist it is just satisfying knowing that they are there... this is also the reason I like to have another version of the painting without the people within them... just the setting... otherwise the work I put into this stump would be entirely purposeless.



Now that I've added some detail to the stump, its time to start building up the world around it... the stump, at this point serves as a marker for the subject of the painting... I like to then add a bunch of little plants and flowers and that kind of thing, and set up the ground...



And there you have it, a few hand cramps later and Part 1 "Bringing the World to Life" is complete with a little forest scene...

I am one who is really sort of all for "The Big Reveal" and by doing this step by step process it sort of takes some of the power away from the unveiling of the finished piece... so I've decided that what I am going to do is not post the step by step process of the rest of this painting until after I've finished it. Then you can see the finished piece and see the steps I took to get from here to there.

From Thought to Imagery (Part 2)

I've ended up deciding to start with Sketch #2 "The Timeless" to continue on with this "Thought to Imagery session.



The idea of "The Timeless" is sort of this man who is ageless and he sees the world around him ever changing, it is a lonely feeling and sort of the dark side of immortality.

Now that we have our sketch of the image, from here it has to be decided where we will go from here... will the image remain etched in pencil as a finished piece, or will we take it further to completion? Obviously, we are going to take it further... this is the point where I decide which rout it will travel down... the art of oils which I've been doing since 2001, or bring it to the digital world in the form of a digital painting, which I've been doing now for less than two years.

This particular image I've decided to take down the digital rout. In many ways I sort of prefer working in the digital media lately because I find that I can hone my skills better, bring to life more luminosity and create more defined detail, not to mention I do not have to deal with drying time... in oils sometimes things take too long to dry, sometimes things dry too quickly... in the digital media I can start an image, come back to it in and hour or a month from now and still am able to work seamlessly.

There is also a bit of misconception out there that a digital painting created on the computer is not as respected as one created on canvas and is sort of a lazy rout to take... as if it sort of creates itself by pointing and clicking... this is of course wrong... In many ways I find working on digital paintings to be somewhat more challenging because I am using a mouse instead of a brush, but I tend to prefer the final outcome more.

The first thing I do when starting the digital painting is laying out my canvas... I usually work with a canvas that is about 3000 pixels by 3750 pixels. This gives us a lot of room to work with and easily translates to standard printing sizes (8x10, 11x16, 16x20 etc...)



Then I import the scanned image of my sketch into the blank area so that I can get an idea of the layout and what the finished image will sort of look like.



Part 1 Bringing the World To Life

After I get things where I want them, it is time to start bringing the world to life. Most of my work is based deeply in setting, so I always build my world first before I do any work on my character or characters. I also prefer layering the world so it feels deeper than just the small area of our subject. In this instance, we are aiming for an overgrown sort of lonely forest area.

The first thing I do is put down a rough idea of color to build the setting.



Then I hide my sketch, and begin building the world



Creating a forest scene, for me, is kind of fun because it doesn't have to be perfect... you can really be kind of rough and wild with it without focusing too much on clouds and sky... you just sort of let the world build itself and grow naturally...



Sometimes I decide to go in and bring a little more light and color to the background to give the forest a little more light...



After that, I begin to add a few more trees to give it more depth



Next, I begin to lighten up the trees and add a little detail just to layer the world a little better.



After that, I tend to add some darker color to the area behind and around the trees to indicate where some plant life might be...



Then I add a bit of detail to the shadowy patches to give it the effect of foliage and plant life in the background...



And sadly that is all the time I have for today, so I shall soon pick back up on bringing this world to life.

From Thought to Imagery (Part 1)

Some have expressed interest in the techniques I use when it comes to bringing the realm within my mind to life. How exactly does an idea become a finished piece? This is, of course, one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog in the first place... Aside from showing the world some of my art, and going into the details of my thought process and the symbolism behind a finished piece, I wanted to show how a piece actually comes to be.

The first step in creating a picture, for me, is that moment of inspiration. There really is no telling when exactly my muse will whisper the idea into my head. Sometimes the idea will come to me in a dream or while listening to a song, and sometimes the idea will come to me completely out of nowhere at all... but when the idea strikes, sometimes it is difficult for me to focus on anything else. Other times an idea will enter my head, but the process of translating it to an image becomes quite a challenge, so the idea may sit for a while before it is something I can compose. The idea begins as a feeling or a phrase and I begin to shape that idea in my head into some sort of a scene.

Once the idea is there and I can sort of see how to convey it into imagery I get out my sketchpad, or sometimes a just scrap piece of paper when the idea comes to me quickly. For me, when the idea strikes, sometimes its best to sketch it out quickly before the idea disappears into oblivion.

I have, at this point included a few of my sketches that I have not yet transformed into finished images. At this point I would like to make things a bit interactive and ask for an opinion on which one I should use to continue this "Thought to Imagery" sort of lesson...

Sketch #1 "All She'd Never See"


Sketch #2 "Timeless"


Sketch #3 "But a Memory"


Fear not my decision, for each of these sketches will become finished images in time... But which will be the first to be completed? Which will be the first image to gain a step by step from start to finish documentation here on this blog? I would like to hear your opinions.