Watercolor WIPs- Sharing and Learning

[Mick CrocKode]

First time I have seen that painting in an exhibition in Paris, I didn't know what to think... beside of a lot
of nice paintings I saw that "not normal" one:

Attachment 69596 (do a search of "Magritte" => wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images)

Was the title of the label on the wrong place? NO! The same sentence was written directly on the canvas
and this canvas was on the wright place.
Am I the only guy who is as stupid to not anderstand the hidden sens of this sentence? of this picture?
Yes, because no one seemed to be as questionning as I was.
If it's not a pipe, so what is it? A french horn? A spoon? What else?
Could be ART... because I am in an exhibition. Visual art... and the painter is well known! He is a serious painter!
(I payed an entrance to see his work). And he painted "that". Is he dyslexic?
Is he Joking and playing with us, the viewers? (was some one looking at my trouble with a hidden camera?)
I thought that something was wrong in this exhibition place; Everyone is looking at this masterpiece with expert eyes... but not
me. So, I went away, asking no question to no one, and I still stayed with no answer for years. Frustrated! Realy!

Hope I anderstand it today! The only thing I can guess now (with that pipe in my mind), is that "Art" is a representation of reality,
it is not important if the material is real, if made of stone, wood, plastic, painting or what ever you like.
It is just a representation of the reality, not the reality at all.

So if Art, and specialy visual art, is not the reality... why should watercolour (vs digital painting) be real wc, if the reality of art is not real?
If the depicted subject has no reality... why should I, the viewer, take importance to the fact that the media or the material used to create it, is real or artificial?
The only thing that is important is the message that is carried by the painting.

Think that Magritte had the same discussion in the past then "M. Aster" and "Steve B". All in All, it's an interesting subject.

[chinapete]

“what you see is what you see”

(Magritte revisité par Foucault)

[eighty+]

Yeah. Pete. As. Long as the light is on

[Steve B]

Lol. I like your style 80.

[chinapete]

... this iPhone sketch has an oil base, but mainly is done with w/c overlays, I post it to show some effects steve highlighted in his video on blenders, especially hard smudge to round the apple, unshape the leaves, and fade the branch ... w/c and blending in AR Studio Pro ...

[Steve B]

That's a nice piece M. Aster-- I like the line work in particular, very spare and direct in choice but with a nice bit of wobble. Thank you for sharing it. It helps clear things up!

I agree that its definitely something that feels somewhat like watercolors, though a bit digital, as you suggested, and that it happens to be something you can do in Artrage with that tool. Truthfully, it reminds me a lot of a cell painting for animation, and I mean that as a compliment. Of course, you have more blending going on than a normal cell painting, but your use of blocks of color and a simple, small range of tones and hues reminds me of that approach. I particularly appreciate that you posted the Settings panel wity it as well. I think for others who are interested in achieving results like yours, your post will be very helpful.

If you have the opportunity or desire to respond to any of the various points I've made, I think it would be interesting to hear your opinions, as they seem different from mine. Of course, I understand if you're just interested in sharing your technique. Time is of the essence.

[Steve B]

I'm going to go over this more later on, probably in the General Chat forum, but for now, the video is up on Youtube here. I go over everything the toolbar I've been building can do. I've been the concept designer for the interface as well as the bug hunter, but I've been really impressed with my teammate, Luc, who's been the programmer-- there's stuff I didn't think we'd be able to do, and he figured it out. So, I often feel lucky to be using this myself. So, not to toot my own horn too much, but personally I think this toolbar is fantastic, and I'm really excited to share it with everyone!

I hope others will end up finding this as helpful as I do. I don't use Artrage anymore without using this setup. Literally. It just offers too much for me in terms of how I wish the interface was.

[Docsmith626]

OOOOOH! I want that for my Eeeslate. I suspect the Rage team will be wanting to add it to their store.

[chinapete]

steve ... congratulations! ... admire your vision and your ability to execute ... (I'm sure similar notes were written in the past to your namesake, a famous personality in visionary technology )

[Steve B]

Yeah! I hope its something that others will also find useful, or dare I say..... essential in their Artrage work flow. !!! I built this tool because I wanted to work a certain way in Artrage, but I think it would only be useful to others as well. I __really__ like working with it, and as I say in the video, I don't use Artrage much anymore without booting up this little baby as well. I love being able to Resize and Zoom on the fly. I like being to really use the Clear Canvas mode better. And I love the Hover Icons and how functional they've made things for me. So, mostly as a fanboy... I'm really interested in seeing how this helps other people out. I'm hoping a week or two and we'll be rolling. When the time comes, I'll post here, of course, but I'll also make a more substantial thread with general info, etc.

I really want to just sit down and do some drawing soon. I'd like to try out the Chalk and Thinners method you've been showing here. If you get the chance to respond to my question about process vs. results, that'd be helpful to understand. And interesting besides.

Thanks for watching the video!