My first crayon: Springflowers

[Bumble]

Beautiful Flowers...DoodLS

[arenhaus]

It does look like a photo because it has the color signature of a photo.

What the camera registers is patently not what the eye sees. When you look at a photo and paint what you see, well, you get a painting of that photo, not the photographed scene. Which is what happened.

To make it look like a painting, you have to look at real flowers and paint what you see. :) Or at least learn to infer that from a photo - which is a monstrously more difficult task.

[screenpainter]

I would have to disagree. It looks like a painting to me. A photo would not have those subdued colors and artistic renderings. It is just perfect.

[Nika]

I have to agree with Arenhause. This pic is closer to a photo. Knowing basic rules of painting every artist has to consider a pespective not only in landscapes. Your background doesn't have any depth. The colours of the flowers and vase are the same all the time. These all gives a phtotgraph effect.
I think this picture will be great in monochrome technique due to its perfect play of light and shadow.

[Caesar]

I can't imagine what would happen the with the second and other forthcoming crayon!! Very good not only for a start!!

[tinzo]

Hi DoodLS, first I must say that this is a terrific effort for your first go.

The problem I see is that you painted your work a little too large, which is not a problem really, as most current internet artists paint large then reduce on purpose. That's because that reduction clean up their artwork, making lines thinner, softening out blurs etc.

Just imagine if it were the other way around, say your original was 800x600 pixels and you then enlarged it to (56cm x 45cm @ 82 dpi). Just imagine the mess then.

Don't forget we are all limited by the size of these computer screens and the JPEG file format that most internet artist have to use to show our work.

My advice would be, don't paint too big, find a size that suits you, then refine the wonderful tools in AR to accommodate your technique.

[jacktar51]

DoodLS.....I dont care if this is a traced photograph or not...they are both terrific paintings,...excellent work.....Jack.

[DoodLS]

RobertSWade, danbo, Peter, ddavis, Caesar: Thank you for you sweet comments.

D Akey: Thank you for you comments and tip. It's an interesting idea. Is it me who decide what style to use, or does the scene 'dictate' a certain approach? I recon - the better one get, the more one controls style.

gzairborne: Glad you like it. The planter was surprisingly easy to paint. Just blend and a little reflection and, your brain does the recognition by itself.

pai: Thank you. Yes to the layers. Actually I am using an obscene amount of layers (14). Mainly because I'm new and used various approaches for the painting of the individual flowers. I thought I could easily merge the layers together afterwards - but with accumulative merge modes I couldn't get it to work.

Bumble: Was hoping you would like the flowers - I know you have a soft spot there.

Happy
DoodLS

[DoodLS]

arenhaus: Thank you for you honest comments. I bet this is a subject that would get a lot of debate - so maybe we should start it in another tread?
My #1 problem is time. I had to snapshot the flowers, since they last only for a couple of days and with my current skills, and lack of time, it takes me weeks to paint.

Nika: Thank you for the tip on perspective. Obviously I cut it short there, not knowing what to make of the background. The photoref was a quick snapshot on a hectic day, so the background is dark and no-good. I have done some reading lately, and I know now that when it comes to painting - the same care should be put into the choice of background as the choice of foreground.
As for the colors - I had put great effort into those, but obviously I'm not good enough.
I had a lot of trouble choosing the right colors (I didn't pick them off the reference - I mixed them by trial and error,
and looked a lot on the colors of the flowers IRL).
But colors are difficult. They change all the time. In direct sun the flowers would appear one way,
in shadow another. The way the flowers point (into/away from the sun) also influence. The leafs are semi transparent,
also making it difficult. The flowers that are sprung out have are more yellow than the more green not sprung out flowers are. Also I made the mistake of using a gray background to start with. Once I started adding background the actual background colors - the yellow/greens changes appearance. So difficult colors are.

I will try to do my best
DoodLS
next time. . .

[DoodLS]

jacktar51, tinzo:
Thank you for your comments. Very encouraging words from true masters as yourself. Your works are setting the standard of what is possible to do with ArtRage.

Size matters. Size troubles.

I am confused about size in real life vs. a computer screen.

I paint on a canvas factor 1,5 (1920x1371 pixels), to be able to get the details right. On a 1280x1024 canvas the crayons seemed too big. But maybe I was wrong - having tried crayons lately IRL, the size probably is correct.

I suspect that one problem is the size of my monitor. I believe ArtRage works towards a standard 72 DPI display (the old kind, max 15" in size). On my newer 19" LCD monitor, things appear so big - like A4 vs. A3 (if I measure the thing, a19" is close to 82 DPI).

IRL I have never approached anything more than A4, so the size of the thing is intimidating. Maybe I should take your advice and go lower for future works. Thanks.

DoodLS