Software Battle Part II (Putting it all together)

Last time, I explained there were several tools that I use when creating work. Photoshop, Paintstormsutdio and Corel Painter 11. Note that all versions of the software that I sue are old, except for Paintstorm studio. I don’t necessarily have access to all of the latest features, but that’s ok for me. When I use the tools above, I only need certain aspects of each program.

Here is how the work flow process usually begins for me.

Ideas (Strong Ones):

It all begins with a strong idea. Most of the time I spend drawing and experimenting with ideas or themes. I am constantly drawing from life, sketching on the train, jotting down words and thoughts to save for later. This is where carrying around a sketchbook proves to be super useful. For me sketching and drawing are the basic foundations for everything. I find if the drawing is weak, then the final piece is going to not come out great either. I then go home and edit the idea and do more thumbnails to see where I want the idea to go. Thumbnail, thumbnail, thumbnail is always the key. However, sometimes I will have such a strong visual already that I only need to spend so much time in the thumbnail phase. 

Do what you think works.

Convert to Digital:

-Then I scan the drawing into my desktop Mac (I have a computer that I only* use for drawing and painting - and a few other things, but I find that the less programs that I have on it, the better the computer functions in terms of performance.)

-I bring the sketch into Photoshop first to edit the drawing before I start doing anything else.

This is especially true with the symmetry of a drawing because I tend to draw favoring the right side of an image, so my drawings look a little right side heavy (because I am right handed).Viewing the symmetry and making sure that the drawing looks that right is the first thing that I do, that way I don’t have to spend time fixing it later on.

What Style Do I want to go for?

Think about what style you want to go for. Do I want a traditional painting look? Do I want a hi-res rendered look? Do I want something in the middle? It all depends on what I want to do with it. ie. What style of painting I want to go for. I jump around from program to program depending on what I want to accomplish or use them in combination. 

Photoshop: 

Is the best for accuracy and rendering effects. This is what makes it such a powerful program. However the brush engine renderings a lot like markers on a glass table, so you wind up having to do millions strokes just to get a swatch of color down. That was my reason for moving to other programs. So…

Corel Painter: 

is the program that I am using for most of my work. I really love the way that the brush strokes render. 

[For each of the programs I try to limit my tool set to a few brushes to avoid mental overload]. 

It’s always good to experiment with different brushes and bush types, because you never know what you will get out of it. For still lifes and work that I want to capture from real life, I will use Corel painter for most work. It even has a function that lets you create color palettes from an image and this I find especially useful.  The one downside is that the brushes are not that accurate for minute details. So I wind up bringing the work into Photoshop to final render and perfect the image.

Paintstorm Studio:

This is the program that I know the least about, and am still experimenting with.  What makes this program so great are it’s drawing tools, which surprisingly Photoshop and Corel painter don’t have*. If you want to draw a straight line in either of the other two programs, you can’t naturally do so (there are tools, and such, but I like my brush calligraphy work to feel as close to the real thing as possible).  I find that in Paintsorm, it’s not a problem. Just click on the ruler tool, and go to town. You can even draw ellipses and have perspective guides for 2 and 3 point perspective drawing. It’s pretty rad.

Once I am done with the painting and I feel the I have done all that I can do in either Painter or PSS, I always bring it back to Photoshop to finish. Where Photoshop shines is that fact that is was designed for editing images and accuracy with brightness, contrast and finishing effects. I make sure to bump up the saturation and the vibrancy to make the image resonate (but not too much). 

Lastly, I deliver the final piece, call it a day, take a break and then set up another (make sure to take breaks during and between projects).  Practice is key, and with each project you can experiment with the above or ignore it and find your own methods and tools.

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What I’m doing with my week off?

Instead of talking about software this week (I promise that I will), 

I wanted to talk about relaxing. Every seven weeks I take the week off. That means no working on new paintings, no setting up work. I do this because after a time, your brain needs a break, and you will burn out. Breaks are important, they recharge the mind, and combat idea fatigue. 

By the time the week is over, you are hopefully itching to get back to working with new inspirations and things to work on. To give you a sense of how I am spending my time here is a short list of things that I plan on doing with my “week off”.

Play Playstation or something else fun:

I love* playing games. So much so that I try to cut down on it and avoid doing it when I am doing work. 

It is a bit of a time suck. When I have the time, I love getting lost in an immersive story. Not to mention it’s fun. 

You don’t have to buy a Playstation, but the idea of “play” is really important and should not be overlooked. 

Try finding something you like doing, just as fun and do it all week. The hardest is not feeling guilty you are not “working” on something. You will get back to it eventually, and will attack work with renewed interest.

Sleep:

I read an article recently suggesting the body needs at least 7 hours of sleep to recharge, renew and reinvigorate itself. That is why then it is important you get as much sleep as possible. You can* feel the difference between 5 hours of sleep and 7 hours of sleep. The body is just ready to get up after a good nights rest instead of wanting to hit the snooze button. Even when working on projects you should try and get as much rest as possible it will help you to be ready to tackle those day job projects, night job projects and everything in between. 

Be with people/See your friends:

We’re all busy but when I am on break week, I find that is the best time to be with friends and see people.

Share a meal, talk on the phone, just catch up. It’s easy to let maintaining friendships slip when you and are in flow and are lost in projects. Hours go by before you know it. The opportunity is there to connect with folks and take care of the relationships that are important to you. You will then have a sense of comfort when you are back in work mode.

Make lists: 

I will write about this separately sometime, but one of the ways I get ideas down on paper for later is to make idea lists. This is a process where I carry a note pad, or a piece of paper and write down painting ideas that come to me. They most often come to me when I am doing something different like shopping or washing dishes. 

I think this is because my brain is not as crowded with “stuff”.  I can just exist in the pressure-free space and my brain will come up with ideas from things I see in life. They will just “pop” in there. When they do, I write them down and they will be there later when I decide to go back to the drawing board.

Draw from life:

Carry a sketch book and draw everything you see (this is still allowed). Drawing from life keeps the practice up and is a “pressure-free” way to keep up the observation skills, without a whole lot of pressure about it being perfect. In fact you can even practice “drawing badly”. Do something different like draw with your left hand, and see what you come up with.

Write:

I write everyday for 25 minutes. This is a good one, and I will expand on this at a different point and time.

Meditate:

I do this every morning for 5 minutes when I am working on projects. However, when I am not working on anything it works so much more. Meditating is a great excuse to relax, and achieve focus. I have been doing it now for a few months, and I plan on continuing with it. It helps me stay focused easier, and keeps me relaxed and less “on edge”. Relaxing takes practice, meditation is one of the ways to help you do that.

The suggestions above are just a few of the ideas that I have to help you relax. 

At the end of the week, I should feel ready to get back on the horse and jump back into project work. You don’t need to do the same as the above, in fact I suggest that you come up with your own list of relaxing to do items. Whatever you do, the important thing is that you give your mind space to wander and enjoy life so that you can attack the next project with inspiration from a good week off. What are some of your favorite ways to relax and give your brain a break?

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Software Battle (Which Digital painting program to use?)

I would like to talk a little bit about what kinds of painting programs I use for the digital painting efforts. There are quite a few packages to use for digital painting and I have done a test of a few of them. However the three that are currently in my arsenal are as follows: Photoshop, Corel Painter and Paintstorm studio. Here are the difference between each of the three.

Photoshop: 

by far the biggest and the best program around (I think that Photoshop at this point might have been around for at least 30 years, which is kind of crazy when you think about that number vs. the time that internet has been around in existence. I rememebr first using it back in the day with Photoshop 5 or 7, and learned what a .jpg and a .gif was. Now there are so many advanced components to the program  that I am even behind the lasted version. It was mainly used a photo editing platform at first and now the possibilities and limits in terms of what you can do with it (I mainly only use it for Digital painting work). The program is super powerful, and you have the ability to accomplish any look or desgn tat you are aiming for. You even have the ability to create effects, animated gif effects, and use it for 3D work to some extent. 

What is not great about photos is the level of complexity ythat you get into when clicking options and customizing menus. You can click one set of options in a submenu to achieve one set of effectss and then hen click another set f options to archives another. The issue with this is the ability o get lost in menu navigation and options (you can save your options sing tool presets, but hat is a different topic for another day. Photoshop is the most useful of the programs, but not the easiest without a lot of time o practice using it (I am still learning it to some extent)

Corel Painter:

Corel Painter (they are up to Painter 17 at this point) is not as power as Phosotoshop , bt it also also not as expensive. The reason for this is that cereal Paineer is mainly meant to use used as a natural media imitator and that is all. You can do some effects much like in Photoshop, bt for the most part it’s really only want for creating painting and illustration using the effect of natural media to get some really nice effects. They have a number of media tools from paint brushes to pencils to crayons, to ink wash and water color. The tool selections are really endless. You also ahem glowing media effects, texture and paint effects as well as paper texture and grain options that ygive you some nice impressions of working on textured paper with your brush strokes.

I have found that the software itself can be a little buggy and not as powerful as Phosothsop.

In addition the files sizes tend to get really large (which I think is a by product of the simulated media that program tries to maintain. So if you are on a slower machine you will experience some lag as you start working and adding more and more layers and effects. Still all in all the paintbrushes included in cereal painter, render really nicely and I think that they have added 3d media effects in the latest version to make the work leap right off to the page.

Paintstorm Studio:

The program that I have the least experience using is Paintstorm studio. I happened upon it oneway via accident. The first thing that I will say about the program is that the price is significantly cheaper than either Photoshop and Paineter ($50 for Paintstorm studio vs. $400 for Corel painter or the ongoing subscription model of Photoshop which you now much pay a monthly fee.)

The price alone encouraged me to try it. At frirst it took a little getting used t, but after a few tries, I really started to take to the natural feel of the paintbrushes that Cale with the program.

What I think I really appreciate about it however are the really power drawing tools that the other two programs idon’thave. So if you are drawing things like ellipses, and straight angles, Paintstorm has a tool built directly into he interface that will help you construct those elements. Aside from that the program has a nice range of bush options to choose from (I however tended to stick to the paintbrush tool selections myself.  The downside to the program is that the way some of the brushes render can look a little standard. So the brushes will render ok, but not look as natural as say photoshop or painter even. Additionally, every once in a while the program will be a little buggy and need to be restarted, or the layer effects can tend to not render correctly. I am on an older version however so it might be worth giving the latest build a try. In the end though it’s really a pretty great program for the price, and the rendering effects can be quite nice as an easy entry level painting program.

Next time I will give a little insight into how I use the three together when creating an piece from start to finish.

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How to fix weak areas...

Over the years I have been drawing lots of different things, people, places, superheroes (not so much anymore),  flowers, pretty much anything and everything. I do have to say drawing from life is one of the best ways to get better at drawing what you see. You learn to observe color, and texture through “observation”. One thing I 

noticed is that no matter how many times I drew a specific thing, I always tended to not quite get it right. 

Specifically noses, hands and female anatomy are some problem areas that I always seem to fall flat on. 

Although I don’t have any concrete solutions for getting past these areas, here are some tips you can try.

Hopefully they will help get results and in getting past the rough spots.

Here are some of my rough spots and how I try to overcome them:

Noses:

Use reference:

As many times as I try, I can’t seem to get the nose shape right from head. So the only solution here is to of course use reference. Drawing objects from reference is of course one of the best ways to get around a problem area.

Also…….

Make a nose (insert body part) page:

Additionally you can make a “nose” page. What I mean by this is make a page in a sketch book where you only draw one thing. In this case for me it would be noses. Shoot for drawing 100 noses (or hands or other body part) on a page until you feel like you have the shape down. If you still feel like you need to get more practice, then keep drawing more pages of noses, eyes, hands, etc. Whatever the thing is that is giving you trouble. Just keep at it. Eventually you will feel like you start to get the general shape down. If not then you might need more practice. 

Over time you will find that you will start to get the general gist of what you are trying to capture and the shape will start to come more naturally.

Draw from life: AND/OR Go to a figure drawing class

The hard part about life drawing is that people don’t tend to hold very still for very long. 

People also get a little self conscious when they notice that you are subtly trying to sketch them in public. 

It tends to creep some people out. Once a guy got really mad at me and read me the riot act for drawing him in public without his permission. If that doesn’t work for you then you can always take a figure drawing class. 

Seeing a live model is a great way to get hands on practice in terms of drawing or painting the figure. 

You have the figure right in front of you, and you have a way to see the shape in real life. 

One of my favorite techniques is to use the figure drawing session, and pick an area to focus on. 

Ah Hah! The Nose again! The model will hold still for a specified time, and you can take your time getting some practice in. This in turn will get things set in your mind the next time you want to draw a nose or eye or hand.

Hopefully these tips help! Do you have any other suggestions for how to overcome weak areas? Feel free to comment and share below!

What type of art you are going to pursue (traditional or digital) or both - Part I

Are you a traditional artist or a Digital one? Is there a difference really?

Do you have to be one or the other, you can of course be both.

For years I worked with newsprint, and pastels, and charcoal sticks, and conte crayon and pencils and erasers (and sometimes I still do). However, nothing is easier to and control than using a computer and software program like photoshop. On top of that the combination of both tools can get you great results. 

So do you need to be a traditional artist over a digital one? Why not be both at the same time?

Traditional Art

I didn’t have a computer growing up, at least not the kinds that are available today. I spent a lot of time drawing and copying comics as a child and also coloring. The painting bug came much later.

I am a self taught artist, which means that I never went to art school or graduated with an art degree. 

Instead, I took a few art classes in school and after school would practice artwork whenever I got the chance. In college I took my first drawing class and fell in love with it. I got a lot of practice learning other types of drawing styles and using other tools. At that point I had never had access to live model before. 

The only downwside to the traditional drawing method was the process felt laboriously slow and messy. 

On top of that, I was wary of making a mistake. I would come to the end of an hour long drawing class only to find one detail was off, or the model was not symmetrical or something else was wrong. 

I was more impressed with artists who were able to get wonderful results without using a computer (such as all of the old masters). So I stuck with it I loved it that much. 

Digital Art

Enter the computer. I didn’t get my first computer until I was in my late 20’s. We had access to design programs in college at but nothing like the programs that are available today. 

What I loved about using a computer (esp. on a Mac) was the ability to create anything you wanted. There were no limits, and that was really liberating. I still continued to practice in addition to taking several online courses. I have gotten better over time, and I still continue to experiment with different programs. 

As I have said there are many many ways to get to the end result, and none of them are the only way, 

this allows for a lot of variation and experimentation. 

Using Both

The one thing that I don’t like about digitial work, is it felt like a lot of the natural gestures and hand movements were not being captured. There is a way that the final work can look a little artificial, 

and after a time I missed the natural look of traditional work. I also was frustrated that I could not always have a computer with me 24/7. I would not be able to capture ideas when I had them. I did have a sketch book with me at all times, but I had to wait until I got home to finish the idea.

So, I decided to combine both approaches, and started sketches traditionally and turning them into digital work when I got home. I will get a little bit more into those details for next time.

2017 vs. 2018

I am sure that you have seen lots of posts from people discussing successful strategies in 2017 and what their plan is for 2018 is, etc. I to have thought about this, but don’t plan on writing about that now extensively. However, there are a few things I want to do more of this year, namely through art and practice. 

I just ordered and completed “Alla Prima A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Direct Painting”. It is a beautiful book about art and painting technique. 

I have been avoiding buying physical books due to space and clutter avoidance (I mostly buy e-books and have them electronically instead). This book in particular is really wonderful. It describes the painting techniques via different contemporary artists and the tools that they used to achieve these results. The book includes art tools, types of art (self portrait vs. portrait vs. landscape work) all really well done and presented in a digestible manner. 

One of the practice methods listed was copying master techniques via master studies.

When I was took the Oatley Art Academy of online course a few years ago, this was the first time that this concept was introduced. (Prior to that I had done a few master copies, but I didn’t really do them enough to get any value from them.) 

There is a lot to be gained from reviewing and practicing master studies. 

Namely understanding choices that the artist made when making heir piece. I was so inspired by this that I plan to spend a whole chunk of time this year dong them along with my own work. 

My technique will be to go through the text, and pick the pieces and artists that I find the most inspirational. 

I will them from month to month. This means of deliberate practice will add loads of information to my repertoire and further inform and expand my skills this year. 

Artists that I have selected are as follows:

-Cecelia Beaux

-Arthur Decosta

-Rachel Constantine

-Willam Merritt Chase

-Theodore Robinson

-Jon Redmond

-Peter Paul Reubens

-John Singer Sargent

(to name a few):

I am looking to start this month and am anxious to see what comes out! 

Holiday Rawk 2017 Post Show Wrap Up

So the Holiday Rawkshow is over (thanks so much to everyone who came out and supported). 

It was something I was happy to be a part of. Was it a success overall? Yes, was it a success for me personally? Yes and* No. It was a mixed bag. You might be asking why. 

I normally don’t show a lot of work which is something I would like to change in 2018. 

When I got the invitation to the show, I had mixed feelings. Historically, I never really liked sharing my work in public. I decided I was going to change that this year, and take on the challenge of getting out there and sharing my work with the public. Here are a few hilights of what happened when I did. 

Wins:

The show had tons of people and was well attended as advertised:

Lots of times I go to an event where the promise of a huge crowd is part of the billing. 

Then it turns out it’s little to no people show up. This time around though the turnout was really fantastic.

The organization as set up was top notch:

The staff and team was well organized and provided superior service. It was unlike anything 

I had experienced before. We had semi-weekly calls, they were available constantly for questions. Additionally anything we requested was for the most part granted. They really went out of their way to make us feel cared for and welcome.

The variety of art was vast, it was a true showcase of varied art talent:

The event had visual artists, fashion, hair, makeup, jewelry and other types of performing artists. 

It was was a wide array of talent and was super impressive to see.

My set up was pretty easy, and I was easily able to transport all of my work:

Unlike printing and brining physical pieces of artwork, I was able to easily set up and take down my work via portable projector. Using a projector instead of brining physical pieces made the event a lot more user friendly. No more lugging physical pieces of work, or storing extra work in my studio. Now I can bring and show as many pieces of work as I want, and it only takes up the space of a small shoebox. 

Learnings: 

(Here are some things that I learned by showing work at the Holiday show this year for next time)

An assault on the senses:

A holiday showcase is just that: a showcase for all types artists, and as a result there is a lot of conflict for people’s interests. So when a person comes and is assaulted by many sights and sounds, they may be overwhelmed and not know where to look.

A lot of people, not a lot of space:

The issue with projecting against a flat surface is the projection can be obstructed is there is not enough room to show work. At first I was able to project easily against the makeshift screen that I had created (made from a hung up white sheet). However the more people entering the space, the less and less people were able to see the work until no one could see anything. 

Once the music started it was a total wash. There was no designated space to show work, and instead it became part of the background noise after a while.

Lack of engagement with people:

Because the space was so overrun with attendees, there was no room to actually engage with people who were curious about what I was showing. I was not able to speak to folks directly and could not talk about the work, or share business cards, etc. I mainly shared work, with the people who came to the event to support (family and friends). Which I appreciated.

Sales? What Sales?:

My strategy this time around was to hand out business cards to anyone interested. 

Again, a good strategy in theory, but not in practice. I found that people come to a holiday event like this one, looking for cheap deals. They are less willing to spend money on a piece of art for hundreds of dollars. People become tight fisted especially around the holidays.

So all in all, I am super glad I did the show, but will think about doing a more visually oriented show the next time around. One focused on visual arts and not a mix of a bunch of different art types. 

It will be easier to show work, and less fighting for people’s attention.

p.s.

Here are some photos from the Holiday RAWK 2017 event:
https://rawartists.smugmug.com/JERSEY/HolidayRAWk2017/

I wish everyone a really Happy and Fantastic 2018!