Watercolor WIPs- Sharing and Learning

[chinapete]

... I don't know which one of you is Beauty or who is Truth, but Old Age also agrees

... did you know that in Auryn Ink, that watercolor program I've mentioned in the past, if you shake the iPhone you get a random splatter? ... I've attached an image ... in it, you can see the initial broad stroke actually received one of the splatter dots on top of it, and faded nicely ...

... also, many months ago I posted in General Chat on LeapMotion, software that will allow kinetic motion .. as there seemed to be little interest, I dropped the thread ... but recently I saw someone posted again on it (without referencing me), so interest may be growing ...

... there's more to say about your natural media, but I'm working on an image using sticker sprays, stimulated by your last ... so I'll come back to this ...

ps: what a joyful image for a children's book

[Steve B]

Auryn Ink can do some pretty cool stuff. Notice though, how the random splats look like splats dropped from above? What they really should have is a bit of velocity- almost like a comets tail. I bet you could atleast simulate this with a sticker spray that had more than one stamp. Have them "aim" in the direction of your pen stroke.... I wish I was better at making sticker sprays. It might be an area for me to work on more. I had another idea for how to bring in salt effects using stencils, but I just haven't made the time yet.

Oh, and yes, the Leap Motion looks quite interesting!!

I await your experiments.

[chinapete]

steve .... good point about splatter effects in Auryn, it's a baby watercolor app, but it can do something AR on iPhone/iPad can't, so I showed it ...


With this image of an iris in the style of Chinese inks, I wanted to:

1. achieve delicacy of line with the Adonit Jot pressure sensitive stylus: in the long main stem, done in a single stroke, and retouched for contrast

2. emulate sticker spray effects on the iPad: in the body of the flower, where lifting of color is similar to tamping down on wet strokes with an absorbent tissue, done with the Nomad brush set to the background color

3. imitate rice paper: by mounting the image on juz fine wc paper

4. produce a pleasing image: fail!

edit: scaled down first image, and added a second, done with an oil base on the iPhone applied thinly to emulate inks, and showing sticker spray effects in the body color of the flowers, done with repeated daubs of the Nomad brush ...

[maddog]

I wasn't going to continue the digital vs traditional theme, but this is too good not to share, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKbFZ...eature=related in which David Hockney determines that the Masters 'cheated' by using a camera obscura to create their paintings quickly and accurately. Well worth reading the book 'Secret Knowledge' too, if you can find it. Not an actual digital process, but it kind of blows apart the argument that 'true' artists would never stoop to using 'technologies' that could cheapen their legacy. Another savings using ArtRage, you don't have to buy this http://www.camera-obscura-lucida-shop.com/lucid-art.php just use the trace pod (judiciously).

Did everyone catch the story of the 'restored' fresco of Jesus in Italy? OMG! You can't make this stuff up!

[Steve B]

Chinapete,
That's a beautiful understated flower, in my opinion. Less can be more.

The motion and long soft dry brush stroke you're getting on the stem is very nice. So too the very understated color and form of the flower. I do wonder if the color of the paper is pulling too much away from your color choices-- the canvas feels very grey in these images, and that makes it sort of "subdue" the values of the flower. I do like, however, the oil effects you're getting. I've thought about (and read about) using the oil tool to good effect for watercolor results. How are you doing that? Using a lot of thinner and a dry oil brush? What's it providing you that's different in terms of mark-making, compared to the watercolor tool with similar settings?

Can you post a new larger image of the whole flower with the oil and sticker spray effects included? It looks like you've got one version that is "softer" (on the left) but farther away, while the other version is rougher textually (on the right) but is zoomed in. It'd be interesting to see the rougher version, but as a whole composition.


Maddog,
Gotta check out that video. Looks cool!

[chinapete]

hi steve,

... confession: I have never been a true watercolorist, and I was a contrarian in oils, painting very thinly, using very little pigment suspended in lots of thinner, varnish, dryer, etc, building up texture through brushwork done mainly in the surface that was being painted on ... I guess that carries over into my digital style, where I prefer a very thin drybrush oil technique, yielding effects often indistinguishable from watercolor ...

... typically I paint right over what I don't like, but I did preserve a closer view of the distant iris on not-so-greyish paper, the attached may give you a better idea how I was using the Nomad brush for sticker spray effects on the flower (left side) and also to lift out pigment (right side) -- admittedly, what I posted may have gone too far in subduing the colors, but it does look a little crisper on my iPad, and anyway at some point I decided the visual center of interest was the stem, not the flower ... I realize from your comment that if the goal was to illustrate sticker sprays, that image was a poor choice, but in a weird way it saved me from pretending I had anything important to add to your discussion :-)

... of course, on the iPhone there is no watercolor or sticker spray, so in the second image I was trying to illustrate in digital oils what I learned from your video -- some of which I'd already put to use in earlier paintings, without thinking of it as sticker spraying ... as far as I know, on the iPhone you can't "Save As" the current image, and if you are working quickly and constantly revising on the iPhone, as I often do, the last version is the one you get, and that is the image I posted (slightly resized) ...

[eighty+]

Yep still reading trying to understand trouble is brain is having spasms SLAINTE

[Steve B]

M Aster- I think a lot of your work looks very much like natural media. I don't find much particularly "digital" about it, and it follows a whole host of natural media techniques. And yet, I don't find your work lacking in the least, nor do I think it looks like a sad copy of natural media.

Last time you popped in here, you shared some wonderful links to other digital artists. I also liked them, but also thought they looked rather a lot like natural media as well. You then shared links to natural media artists, which were also wonderful. However, I felt like they didn't offer much that I couldn't relatively easily replicate digitally either.

I don't think Artrage is like a "poor cousin" to natural media, if you know how to use it and know it's limits. You clearly do, on both points. I would say I do as well. I think I'm misunderstanding what you consider a "digital" look and what you consider a natural media look, because your examples look very much the same to me.

[chinapete]

m aster ... thanks for the link to skip allen ... his "chinese" things are very tight, over-controlled, they look like illustrations of chinese painting ... he favors the "gongbi" (line drawing) over "xieyi" (free brushwork), and for good reason, "xieyi" is difficult to imitate in digital, and he apparently hasn't thought it important to achieve a certain freedom in spirit before brush is set to paper, or digital pen to pad ... in my calligraphics thread, I set for myself the modest goal of attempting freedom of brushwork in digital media in two dimensions, varying line thickness and opacity in a single stroke ...

edit: ps, I think pursuing freedom in brushwork is very much in line with what steve b is presenting in this thread and in his videos, so that's why I mention it ...

[Steve B]

Re: Skip Allen and Painter specifically-

I took some classes with Skip on Painter 11 at the Digital Art Academy, and I think you're misunderstanding Skip-- I pretty much totally disagree with you on what I think he's trying to achieve. My memory is that he very much likes to separate digital watercolors from natural media. He doesn't like to equate them, IMO, and didn't like the idea of trying to replicate one with the other, whenever I brought that up.

Much like you, in truth!

Honestly, I've seen some beautiful digital images made with Painter 12's wet watercolors and flow maps, where the intent is to have the computer move the paint for you on the canvas. However, I've not really felt like any of them looked much like what I've done with natural media. They're their own beautiful, different expression, IMO-- even though I know that ironically the intent is to mimic natural media, I think Painter gives too much control over the computer and doesn't quite succeed in that goal. That's why I like what Artrage is doing more.

So, no, I don't think Artrage is really going to morph into Painter over time, if that's your question. I don't think Painter is taking the right approach for watercolors, IMO. I think Artrage is doing that. However, I __do__ think Artrage is intended to mimic and recreate the experience of painting with "real world" watercolors, and I would only imagine it will slowly approach that more with time. If you dislike that notion, that's a shame perhaps.

Have you tried Painter 12's watercolors? In some ways, it really agrees with what I think is your watercolor philosophy M.Aster.