I create different scenes with the same characters, and im working on keeping my style consistent. My main goal is to illustrate picture books for children, though with the specific skills i have i think i would be better suited for doing covers rather than a whole picture book (For now). What do you think?
Rembrandt and Sennilier on white pastelmat. First one is from Suzan Jenkins tutorial, the chicken is from a picture reference to practice the same technique. This is my first time using those brands, im still amazed by the difference in texture and colour richness from the super cheap stuff i used before.
(Please ignore the obvious masking tape fail and blurry camera quality)
I'm not new to using soft pastels, but I've never paid attention to the right ways of using them or the difference in quality. I recently bought a set and followed Suzan Jenkins tutorials to learn how to use them for landscapes. The issues were:
Lighter colours weren't pigmented, they just lightened whatever they were on top of, but the result was never the actual colour
The set is about 20 colours, but the options were a bit frustrating, like no dark green, no shades of purple just one dark purple, so many shades of yellow that just looked the same
The white was basically just a white film on whatever colour was underneath
What frustrated me most about all these issues is that I went dark to light as she advices in her lessons, but my colours just didn't cooperate. I always assumed you go light to dark with soft pastels and that's how I've used them before so I never noticed this issue.
I'm looking for a set that has a proper variety of colours so I don't have to keep buying (where I live the options are limited to bad quality colours so someone will be ordering from Amazon and bringing them from the UK in the next few days). Sennelier was recommended a lot here to beginners but I see lots of people say they buy certain colours separately (like a box of greens). I don't want to exceed 100€ but if the set is tempting and the difference isn't huge I could exceed it.
Since they mention sennelier is crumbly when you break it, I could get another small basic colour set that breaks with sharp edges for adding lines and details.
We got those three ladies from our friend leaving the country, they are between 3-4 years old. We built this expecting to get two of them but got all three. They got comfortable around me and follow me around since I feed them and hang out around them a lot (except for one that was abused by a rooster before).
The idea is for them to have a bit of free time outside the coop during the day (want to avoid them destroying the whole garden). So we added an extension away from it to give them more space and filled it with soil and leaves (Still working on it)
We are constantly trying to improve their space.
I added the boxes upstairs but they never go there, they'd rather huddle up together at the bottom than go upstairs. I don't understand if they don't find it safe, or they don't know how to use the ladder? When I placed the boxes down, they inspected them then all went inside the same box.
I want to give them a comfortable home, as much as I can. What else can be done?
I initially planned to do a light source in the middle to make the characters pop more and did most of the shadows accordingly, but later realized I put a lot of shadows on the left side of objects. I'm trying to find an efficient way to fix this.
I haven't illuminated most things yet as you can see the torch doesn't have any light yet and I'm not set on the torch itself, so I can also replace it with a different light source
1.What are the common elements in those three paintings? Or what would make you know they were done by the same person?
I use Procreate, though prefer my work to mimic traditional watercolour or coloured pencil art. I like to do picture book scenes that give a sense of whimsy and peace like the first image, also enjoy sloppy looking expressive art like the second (did this one during an angry art block), and the third is what happens when I improvise after drawing from a picture reference (just an ostrich photo here) and feel the need to add more.
I used to do more realistic art and was a perfectionist with the details but the results felt soulless, like there were no pieces of myself in them. Then started allowing the rough edges to just be and I enjoy the process and the results more this way. I want my art to reflect my inner world in all its forms, so that is where my inspiration comes from
I feel that if I understood what I always lean towards doing (regardless of the style I'm going for) then I would have a clear idea about what I should invest more time working on.
Critique on the paintings is also welcomed of course.
What are the common elements in those three paintings? What would make you know they were done by the same person?
I like to do picture book scenes like the first image, also enjoy sloppy looking expressive art like the second, and the third is what happens when I improvise after drawing from a picture reference and feel the need to add more.
I used to do more realistic art and was a perfectionist with the details but the results were soulless, like there were no pieces of myself in them. Then started allowing the rough edges to just be and I enjoy the process and the results more this way.
I feel that if I understood what I always lean towards doing (regardless of the style I'm going for) then I would have a clear idea about what I should invest more time working on.
Critique on the paintings is also welcomed of course.