Speed painting

My first ever speed painting!

I've had the urge to go back to digital recently, so I figured speed painting is an exercise I've been wanting to try and let's me experiment with the new CS5 features.

Finally getting my hand into environments. I didn't focus too much on anything but mood, and just wanted to make it up as I went along. It's a freeing exercise and came out better than I expected.

Just have to figure out how to get the colors to translate properly to to a web friendly file, the colors are desaturated =\

Time: 25 min

PS CS5, Intuos 3

EDIT: Playing around with settings, have to test on other monitors, but looks considerably better already

Secret Places

I had to rush this to get it in time for judging, but I'm glad I did because it got accepted! It was assigned by my mentor depicting my secret place.

I'm going to clean it up the best I can before getting it framed. Certain things I would change if I had more time but it came close to how I had imagined it.

Walkthrough the Portrait of Hu Yaobang

I kept bothering my friend with quick webcam pics to ask advice, so I ended up with a general idea how I went through this process.

This is probably one of the more tedious undertakings but it was still enjoyable.

First- the flowers! So many flowers! Each one took quite a bit of time. The first took me two hours to figure out how I liked the design best.

They're white chrysanthemums- traditional at a chinese funeral.

Next, the portrait. I first did the portrait in pencil to size, then went over it in black marker where I planned to cut it out.

This is partway into cutting

This is the result with a white sheet of paper behind it so you can see it

Originally it wasn't supposed to be backed at all, but it was too difficult to see. I tried a number of colors and decided on yellow

We agreed it was missing something with just the flowers and the portrait, and needed something to soften the edges. So I added a frame and the yellow "drape"

Played with the layering and placing of flowers, and the final picture!

...actually I found an extra flower after this which I added. When I get back home I'll upload a better photo of the final ^_^

Petrushka

I've gone back to this theme because who doesn't love a sad clown? And it's nice to get more use out of that photoshoot.

I'm happy with the way this came out. I think I'm going to continue tweaking it so I can submit it to the senior show.

It's slightly lighter overall because all of the background tends to darken when printed.

Despair continued

This is where I left off the end of the semester on this painting. It has been my most experimental oil painting and I'm still not sure where it's going but I'm pretty sure it's not done yet...
I still want to finish its partner, Fear but I'm taking a much needed break so I don't kill everything next semester.