Watercolor WIPs- Sharing and Learning

[chinapete]

... the vision is in Clear Canvas, and the power is in ease of workflow ...

... a blank canvas is a terrifying thing ... so we embrace clutter, more tools, more surfaces, more colors all at once and right at hand, we are anxious to fill up the space before we've laid down a single brushstroke ...

... your design invokes the principle of less is more, and is a giant step toward the seamless integration of work and vision, with greater emphasis on vision (deviantart boasts 230 million images, so execution isn't a problem) ...

... a paradox of digital art is that it enables faster execution of an idea but threatens to diminish our feel for things in the world ... revisioned in art ...

edit: forgot to mention the chalk wash you've asked about ... so here's a detail from an image I posted earlier this year on this forum ... the idea was to create a single-stroke classical Chinese landscape mountain that moves in gradation from deep black (ink) to a delicate wash ... after much experimentation (read: frustration), I finally hit upon a thin 1% chalk underdrawing, which I then washed over to produce this effect ... so the advantages of a chalk underdrawing for what I'm trying to do are twofold, thicker body paint that can be washed out into natural-looking gradations, and less work to achieve what I want ... admittedly, as I've said, this technique is inefficient and limited to what I'm trying to do, I only point to it because you asked :-)

[Steve B]

That's a very cool thing you've got going there. I presumed it was the natural media example you were trying to meet, until you told me otherwise, so it's nice and tasty.

Before I got to bed-- a new video is up here. This ones on how to make Layer Masks, and how to use them for Glazing effects. It's not super sexy, but it can be quite useful for certain pieces. Coming up next will be a video on Sticker Sprays, which can do some very awesome things if done right. I'll be going over the ones I use most, a trick or two I use with the Spray Variations chart, as well as how to make a new Preset that saves your new choices. I think it'll be particularly useful.

[maddog]

Great job Steve! Will the new toolbar work ok with Studio? I have to upgrade to Studio Pro still. Went to see my aunt's watercolor show this weekend and it made me realize that a lot of what I like about 'real' watercolors are all the 'happy accidents' one gets from the uncontrolled bleeds (that are too controlled or seem forced in digital media). That may create a more visceral reaction from the public plus the knowledge that a lot of unsuccessful work probably got thrown out along the way. The other question I had was in regards to how digital watercolors look when printed. A lot of traditional watercolors glow from the white paper bouncing light back off back through the pigments and one sees that on a monitor, but I haven't seen digital watercolor art printed yet, so am curious what artists here think. Is it better, worse, nada? I am posting a watercolor I did years ago from a famous photo. I really want to be able to work in both traditional and digital medias and that new toolbar (plus a Cintiq) is really going to help. Huzzah!

[Steve B]

Those are some really interesting observations, maddog. I, too, like the translucent quality watercolors have on a paper, how the light pushes through it and back to us, etc. I also agree that those "happy accidents" are one of the great pleasures of natural media watercolors-- both as a painter and a viewer. I like working with water and pigment and gravity. They do really fun things together!

There have been a few threads around here that have talked a lot about "real" painting vs. digital painting, public perception of the two, and the fact that many people find having the object of a painting important (or atleast knowing there's an original)-- I think that has a lot to do with the fact that viewers of art like knowing an artist had to "duke it out" with the medium, so to speak, right? There's no undo button. Crappy versions were thrown away, etc. as you pointed out. Those happy accidents that we love so much are one of the indicators that deals directly with the artist's process in making an object.

A lot of the focus of my video tutorials so far has been about how to attain some control over the Watercolor Tool in Artrage, how to get effects you might like, understanding how to manipulate the Settings and Presets and Layers, etc. The next few lessons should be more about how to sort of "let go" and try to play what you've got digitally, now that you've got some control. The Sticker Sprays can provide some really interesting opportunities for this, as does the use of Blend Modes, and finally as does the use of Stencils (as detailed in some of the wonderful video tutorials with Jon Hodgson that I've linked to earlier in this thread). So, I think there's room for play, even digitally-- an important part of any creative process that I think comes through to a viewer when they see the final product.

I will say, however, that I think you can already get some really interesting "happy accidents" by using, for example, things like Lock Transparency in combination with Blenders set to a very large size. Digital parameters begin to unexpectedly bounce around in those kind of confined spaces, and can create some really neat effects. Same thing goes for doing things like using interesting Layer Textures and pushing the toggles to high percentages.

I mean, happy accidents are all about 2 objects meeting and creating effects, right? Canvas and pigment, water and gravity, etc. And the truth is that those happy accidents are really called into play by the water color artist-- they could have easily kept things very dry and controlled, but instead have deliberately chosen to paint wet and see how things work out. IMO, an experienced watercolorist knows (approximately) what's going to happen when they load their brush with a ton of pigment or lay a ton of water on a canvas, tilt their canvas, or charge a partially dry area with new pigment. They're doing it on purpose to introduce chance and play with water. We can do that digitally too, and deliberately bring Chance or Chaos into play, using things like the Watercolor Brush and Layer Texture, Lock Transparency and Blender, etc. We just play with digital water!

edit- I also like that painting! You did that yourself? It's some good control.

[Steve B]

I happen to be home right now, and so took a few pics of some of the digital watercolor paintings that I've printed out. They're below in this post. It's hard to say. I easily think they look as good as any normal reproduction of an original natural media watercolor that's been printed. That's clear. There's no real difference between digital and natural media in terms of how they're being printed, so on that level there's not much difference. Looking at some of my natural media watercolors that I've got around in the flesh, .....it's also hard to say. The difference.....

I've never really tried, say, scanning an original and then reprinting it on watercolor paper, and then comparing the two. That would be an informative experiment. I'll admit that even though I love natural media watercolors, I'm unconvinced they somehow express color "better" than their digital printed counterparts, if you do it with a good printer and on actual watercolor paper (I use 140 lb in my printer). I think that natural media watercolors have a far wider range of color gamut available to them, compared to the printers we have available. So that's an issue if you're painting very vibrantly. Of course, that's an issue all the time if you want to see your work published or reprinted or copied in any way.

I'm sure there's a difference between the two, but it's not been so much that I've been struck by it. I typically paint with muted hues anyways when doing "illustrative" work, so that may be affecting my opinion. I think you can clearly get certain effects when painting with natural media that I've just never seen done convincingly with digital tools (mostly stuff to do with water, dispersment, tilting, etc-- real gorgeous wet abstract stuff, such as what M.Aster posted a page or two ago), but I'm not convinced that the use of color, as it's commonly used by most people, is one of the major differences. That's my two cents anyways. You definitely need at least a nice printer though, and some real watercolor paper to compare.

[maddog]

Thanks Steve, you can see how I love Wyeth from the painting's subject and process. I will post something from Artrage when I can accomplish something similarly worthwhile, too. I totally agree with your response and feel I just need to learn the tweaks of the software to get the effects I want. Your instructional videos are a tremendous help for that! 3 cheers for them! I wish there were a series as comprehensive and insightful, (yet simple) for all the other media AR has.

Also, I do think there is a 'correct' market for specifically digital art that doesn't need to try to displace or compete with traditionally painted work and that would be in animation, illustration and posters. I originally got excited about Artrage to create 'vintage' looking travel posters. There is no way that commercial work should be done as a fine painting, even though they require the same skills. A quick test for me between digital and 'fine' art is to think whether a museum featuring say, Old Masters would ever buy a digital work, no matter how finely executed. I don't even know if MOMAs like digitally created work. Digital art really seems to have its place with the masses, which is a fully legitimate market, to me. One may be miffed that one is not acknowledged as the true genius one thinks one is, but hopefully one will be crying all the way to the bank. Besides, look at all the fine photography that should have 'killed' fine art. Are artists and the public poorer for that indiscretion? Digital will settle into its rightful place in the historical context.

Oh and chinapete , maybe the caveman muralist says to his friend, "Waddaya mean? My kid DID do that". (Still working on the cartoon.)

[chinapete]

hi maddog, you know, the New Yorker has a famous competition, a cartoon is published without a caption, and readers are asked to send in their own ... If you are drawing two cavemen looking at a painting that one has just completed, my entry would be:

"I like it. It's very Neo-Bison"

[chinapete]

steve

... "Layers" is another great effort in the series, thank you ... you know, the style of painting I practice is called "xieyi," which basically is done without preparatory line drawing ... I'd really like to see your finished Orchids with the line drawing suppressed ... I know you encourage escaping line when possible, since this enlivens the image and does appear more "painterly" and less like commercial work (as I think maddog was hinting at in his distinction between fine art and other types of artwork) ... ... in the two w/c's you posted to illustrate a point for maddog, the one with the roosters or chickens got my attention, there is a moment (lower middle left) when there is no line at all, just the brushstroke ... freedom in brushwork always is my goal, and I think it must be high on your list too ...

... we iPad users don't have the benefit of selecting layer contents, and I wonder whether you have any further thoughts on masking without selecting layer contents? ... to my mind, a layer by default is a glaze and can be a mask depending on whether and how it is made visible ...

... your treatment of glazing I'm sure will get a lot of folks interested in layers and in the possibilities for increasing light while retaining texture in their digital works ... I've attached a detail of a w/c I posted earlier this year on this forum, done on the iPad in two layers ... having watched your Layers vid, I may return to it on the iPad or in AR Studio Pro, to see what other effects I can get ...

[maddog]

Checked out your gallery. Stunning! Can you please post some instructional steps on how you accomplish those incredible bleeds?
fyi, This is where I want to head with Artrage for commercial purposes http://tinyurl.com/c2w6pvt.

[chinapete]

maddog, very impressive site! ... my first thought was ... Tintin! ... but a quick search didn't surface any vintage posters ...

re: bleeds, you know, my post and pic were craftily designed to stimulate steve to talk more about that very subject ...