Saturday, January 28, 2012

A Geek's Guide to Making Art

I was educated as a scientist, and came to art very late in life. I like to experiment with different approaches and media. Lately, I have been playing with watercolor. I love the luminosity of the pigments in watercolors. My favorite teacher, Emma Skurnick, has been guiding me in the layering of watercolor and various pencil effects.


I am not very good at drawing, so I use photographs to help me get the basic dimensions down on paper.
Here are the steps that I took in creating a painting of a fellow artist's wonderful horse. Click on the images to see more detail.
First I took a photo of her.






I also took a picture of a window in the barn on the property.












In Photoshop, I combined the two shots into a basic composition.









I printed the combination photo and, using a light box, traced the basic design. After scanning the traced image, I printed it on watercolor paper.










Using watercolors, I blocked out the basic planes of the painting.









Finally, I added details with colored pencil, watercolor pencil and pastel pencil.
I call the piece Homebody.

3 comments:

Maggie Z said...

Wow! You have come a long way baby! You are getting that software down pat! Am very jealous!

Forrest C. Greenslade, PhD said...

Thanks Maggie -- This is important to me coming from you!!!
Forrest

Sue Castaldo said...

You amaze!!