Tuesday, September 9, 2008

No Fish

Brilliant! No nasty fishy burps from my Sainsbury's Crumpets.
They must've changed the recipe.
I'm now looking forward to my breakfast in the morning.

Over recent days I've been practicing drawing characterful faces. For some reason they've been coming out long and thin, but they've been fun to work on.
I decided I'd like to add some colour digitally and wanted to try an idea I had.
When I paint with acrylics, I lay down a block of colour of the darkest tone of the subject, then progressively bring the tones up to the highlight - the opposite of working in watercolour where white paper is progressively overlaid with colour to arrive at the darkest tone.
I wanted to try the acrylic method digitally.
I scanned my drawing and created a separate layer in Photoshop to apply colour and went for it.
I deliberately kept the brushwork loose because I was just doing this to explore the process and didn't want to overcook it. I like art that keeps a look of energy, which is often lost on highly finished pieces.
I started a few days ago and showed my progress to my good friend James Ryman (www.jamesryman.com). At the time I'd used a purple secondary light from the right of the image and he advised I make it warm. So, tonight I continued with the image, taking James' advice. It works. He's called 'The Worrier' for obvious reasons.
I'm pleased with the result and will definitely explore the method further - when I get the opportunity.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Glad you have found a crumpet that doesn't give you fish burps. Must say it has never happened to me personally!!!

Love 'The Worrier' - it's like looking in the mirror...with hair. LOL

Peter Underhill said...

Mike, do you mean you've never found a crumpet that didn't give you fishy burps or that you've never experienced burps with fish flavour?

Do you wear a green tank top when you look in the mirror?

Unknown said...

Oh I have fishy burps...normally after eating fish mind you.

As for the tank top, I may of had one as a kid, but alas no more. Green is not my colour. And neither is fuschia pink before you ask!