Forest WIP

[dustinwilson]

Been lurking here a while. Thought I'd post something I've been working on. I usually work in black & white first and add color to the shadows I've painted and eventually color later. This is just a portion of the overall painting... the only part I have any paint on the canvas. One would notice the trees are missing bark. Yeah... I'll probably start on that soon. Got tired of painting on the big one and moved to other things. I'll eventually come back to the bark there and elsewhere. This isn't a place that exists in real life but a scene from my mind mostly. I do use a few photo references for the trees. The big one in the foreground is modeled after a moderately large oak tree at a local park. It's been a change from what I usually do. I find doing simple landscapes to be boring, so it's been difficult working on this at times. That's the point, though!

All of this is done in Artrage 4 using the oil paint and palette knife tools. Original size of the canvas is 10800 x 7200 as I hope to get it printed about 3 ft by 2 ft (ArtRage 4.5 can't come soon enough for me...).

[stevemawmv]

'Bout time! It's a biggie alright, just bumped it to screen size....your doing a great and tedious job on the detail, good work!
Looking forward to the completion....
Take care,
Steve

[Chinchi]

This looks so good. Your spot on with the tree anatomy.

[shekofte]

so realistic

[dustinwilson]

I've just gotten some time to work on it again. Started adding the texture to the tree on the far left by painting it in bit by bit. Didn't take as long as it looks because it was a pretty random process. Since I'm essentially just painting in shadows I'm not trying to paint in every nuance of the texture. I have a medium-sized oak tree right outside the window of my office, so I've gleaned its bark texture for this. I don't think it's even the same species of oak tree as the one in the park, but that's okay.

StratoArt's recent post has gotten me thinking about using stencils for this, so I'll give that a go when I get some time. I haven't explored everything in ArtRage, mostly just painting with the oils and using the palette knife as if I were doing it on canvas. Ha.

One question I have, and perhaps it's been asked elsewhere is if I need to export the image elsewhere what can I do to make it export without canvas lighting, so if I ever need to import again I'm not double-applying that effect?

[StratoArt]

This is simply gorgeous!!

[dustinwilson]

Thanks, StratoArt. I experimented a bit with stencils and just couldn't get the effect I wanted with the bark. It always ended up looking as if it were Photoshopped on there as I didn't get the painted-on look I want from ArtRage. I just continued and redid a bit of what I did earlier. I think I'll move on to some other stuff instead of applying bark textures to the other trees I've painted in. I'm about sick of fighting with tree bark. At least I've worked out a process for painting it. Before I move on I might go in and make sure the edges of the tree don't look so flat as if there's depth to the bark (like there is on an actual tree). In some places it simply looks as if it's a texture on top of a round object. Thankfully there'll only really be one other tree that's somewhat as close to the viewer as it...

[StratoArt]

Bark is very tricky to draw. I've done okay with stencils, but then sometimes it turns out too photographic, and I want it to have a drawn look, so I have to go back with the pencils and blenders over it. Your doing a great job on this piece. I love how you are doing the leafy shadows over the tree in the foreground.

[dustinwilson]

Been a few months since I've posted in here. Been a while since I've worked on it. I've since added in rocks and leaves along the water in the foreground. I haven't done reflections in the water just yet because I don't know how the top part'll turn out just yet. I still have to paint leaves up into the ground area. Got tired of painting leaves and decided to... paint more leaves up in the trees for a bit. This is probably one of the most tedious things I've painted in a while, but that was the intent of the project anyway. When I get tired of the tediousness I work on something else and then come back to it. Ha.