In 2013 I am going to try and tighten up my traditional illustration skills. With that in mind I produced these still life value studies while waiting to start work on the next series of Mount Pleasant. My aim is to do at least one still life a week this year (even if its only some quick sketching).
These grey scale value studies take 3-4 hours to complete. I set the subject up in a blacked out room with only a angle poise projecting controllable light. Then I sketch the subject with a pencil, scan that drawing into the computer and paint the values in photoshop (I also used the photoshop text tools when needed).
The challenge was to paint a white subject on a white background (the bowl), a grey subject on grey background (KKK mickey sculpture), and a black subject on a black background (hard drive, camera, rugby ball). I got the idea for this exercise from the brilliant ctrlpaint website.
Hopefully I will be adding a lot more of these studies to my blog over the next year.
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| A portrait study. I would like to do more of these this year. It will be interesting to see how much I can improve in 12 months. | |
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| A quick value study of a white bowl on a white background. |
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| Value study of a grey sculpture in front of a grey towel. The KKK mickey mouse was a project I worked on while at uni. This is one of the rough casts I had left over. |
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| Value study of various black items on a black background |
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| A rendering of my hand manikin |
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| A second rendering of the same hand manikin | | | |
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| This is a photo of the set up I use for the studies. |
