Majestic Monster
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I saved this painting for last. I hoped that with all the trial and error and practice with my first six paintings that this painting would turn out just as I imagined. For my last painting, I did a dragon! Dragons have been my favorite thing since grade three. I read a book series called The Last Dragon Chronicles and since then, I’ve absolutely loved dragons. I wanted this painting to be perfect.
The sketch for the dragon wasn’t originally made for the painting but just as an idea I had for my sketchbook. It was the first traditional drawing I’ve done in a while that I was extremely happy with. So I took a photo of my art and put it into my digital art program and started outlining and fine tuning the sketch. I did end up carrying on and making a full digital piece but I only needed the outline for the painting. After getting the sketch down on the canvas, I got to work on the background. I wanted the theme to be green and purple so I started on making the whole background to shades of purple. It was a very simple background, but I really wanted the dragon to be bold and pop. I started on the tail and worked through the rest of the body with painting it green. The green paint dried extremely dark so I used it to my advantage while shading. I added white and blended it into the green and created a 3D look. I added purple and gold spots all throughout the dragon's body to add texture once I had the general color done. I really liked how gold worked with the green and purple and decided to use the gold for the stomach and in the wings. For the wings I used different colors and different shades of each color to show the different layers of feathers. I used purples greens and gold to get the look I wanted. My Phoenix painting is still by far my favorite, but overall I’m still quite happy with how this painting turned out. Although after looking at it more closely after I was done, I realized I probably should have added more features to the face. That is something I will either fix or do better on If I ever decide to paint a dragon again.
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This painting turned out to be my absolute favorite so far. I have always struggled so much with drawing birds and understanding their anatomy, so the end result of my Phoenix painting definitely came as a surprise to me.
This painting started off stressful while I did the background. I wanted a fiery background, but I knew that the Phoenix would blend in if I didn’t do some super cool color tricks and shading. I pulled off the fiery look and painted the whole background in oranges and yellows as well as a bit of black to add a charred look. When I started on the bird I didn’t do a digital sketch beforehand, I looked at different pictures of birds and different people artwork of phoenix's and tried my best to get the anatomy while stylizing it. For the most part I think it turned out pretty good for the design. Despite the odd legs which I struggled with. When it came to the colors and actually bringing it to life, I ran into the problem that I knew was coming. This bird is made up completely of fire so it just looked like the background but with eyes and a beak. So I looked up phoenix drawings as well as different color wheels to try and figure out a solution. I decided to add very light blue accents and work them in throughout the painting and all around the border of the bird. It worked amazingly well. I was so happy with how it turned out. The blue made it pop and the color worked so well with everything. So despite running into a huge problem I learned from my mistakes with the alicorn and worked harder to find a better solution. I have finally finished all of the paintings that have been somewhat within my comfort zone. I started painting my skinwalker. This was an interesting painting and instead of drawing up an outline, I ended up free-handing the whole design on the canvas. I wanted this painting to be very dark and mysterious and I think I got a pretty successful outcome.
As usual, I started with the background. I often do a wash before I start painting and with this painting, I really loved how the wash looked. I painted most of the background black and dark brown, leaving everything very dark. For the area where the trees were, I used a dark green for the wash. I was very happy with how the wash for the trees looked so I only added a bit of light and dark green paint on top to add more depth but otherwise keep the look. I don’t often let much of the wash show through so this painting was interesting with the lighter spots showing through. I was really nervous when I started painting the skinwalker because it was a very dark painting but I had to make sure it was light enough that the details showed through. I painted the body very dark with some highlights and let the bottom slowly darken into the background. I liked the way the shadows worked and was glad I could use highlights to pull the subject from the background. I personally think the head ended up way too light but I was so happy with the shading and blending of the paint that I didn't want to do too much to change it. Despite it being too light for the lighting of the painting it really helped get across the point that the head was an animal skull. I also really liked the floating glowing eyes which made it creepier. After I finished the main subject, I added some bushes around the skinwalker to make it seem more like it was hiding or watching. I added some white and yellow highlights in the background with teeth to make it seem like there were more watching more hidden. This definitely wasn’t my favorite painting, but I’m still very happy with the outcome. It was outside my comfort zone and it was a challenge. But this is why I wanted to do this painting series. To push my limits and try new things. This is by far my favorite painting! For as long as I can remember I have always loved mermaids and sirens. They are so cool and the designs people have come up with are absolutely amazing. I did a bit of research for this painting and took a few different reference photos when coming up with my design. Part of why I love this painting is because shortly before I created my design I was doing a bunch of sketches and found a very different style that I now love to use when drawing human or human shaped creatures.
I as usual started out with drawing up my design and copying it onto my canvas. I decided to be a bit more creative and slightly outside my comfort zone with this one and tried to create a mermaid/Siren hybrid. So some of the more human features were more pointed and elegant. This will come back into play when I start talking about the color choice. I was hesitant with the background because I don't really have any experience with making water in any medium. So I started with a base color that was a greenish blue. It was a darker color because I wanted the mermaid herself to stand out. I didn’t want to make the same mistake I made in my last painting. I added a few bubbles and strands of seaweed in the background as well as a single fish.. I decided to add some brighter highlights coming down from the top of the canvas almost like a spotlight on her. I thought it would add a bit of character and help lead the eye through the painting. The rock she was sitting on was fairly simple to paint although I wish I'd added some blue to it to help with the illusion that it's underwater. Besides that I think it turned out very well. Lastly! My favorite part! I chose three colors for the body hair and tail. Red, Green and purple. I started with the tail and painted it a solid purple. I painted a green outline for the fins and used watered down green pink and white to add a transparent look to it. Once I shaded the tail I felt something was missing and added some lighted watered down lines through her tail instead of scales to add subtle texture. I then moved onto the body which I painted green. I wanted the bright color instead of skintones to add more to the idea of her alson being part siren. (See I told you i would bring up the mermaid/siren hybrid later;) ) I used a more mint green for the overall color than used different hues and shades to add detail and depth. When I first started the hair I used a very bright red intending to darken it and leave some lighter highlights. I ended up really liking the bright red and decided to keep it bright. I did add darker and lighter parts to add texture but still left it much brighter. Once I finished all the fine details I went back and touched up some spots I wasn't as happy with and decided to finish it off with some white highlights. This painting was so calming to do and made me very quite happy especially with all the trouble I went through with my Alicorn painting. In this blog post I’ll be going over the most challenging part of my painting. I struggled a lot towards the end of this painting and I’m not gonna lie, it was extremely frustrating and disheartening.
The three main colors I wanted in this painting were blue, pink and purple. Now at the time, just three colors sounded great, but then I realised just how difficult that was going to make the whole process. I had to think alot about color placement and even when I thought I chose the best placements, it still went wrong. I made the sky blue with pink, purple and white highlights. The cloud underneath was pink and her mane and tail were purple. But now that I had all three colors surrounding the body, I had to figure out what color was going to work best. I eventually decided to go with blue as it was the color that had the least amount of contact with itself. So I got to work painting and when I was finally happy with it, I took a step back to see it a bit better. I was so frustrated because the blue on the body blended right into the background despite the shade and hue being different. I had to repaint the body about 4 times before I was satisfied with it. Even now I’d still like to change some things, but I need to make sure I stick to schedule and get all of my paintings done. If I have time when I’m done, I will go back through my paintings and try to touch up some stuff I may not be very happy with or just want to improve. As for my alicorn, I ended up adding some darker shades of blue as well as some hues of pink and purple to try and bring it forward from the background. But with that being said, I still think that from a distance, the body and sky clash with each other. My third painting has been by far the most difficult. I've been having a lot of doubts and am struggling a lot. This is my first painting of some sort of animal instead of my specialty human figure. I started painting the alicorn for this painting.
I wanted this painting to be very bright and fun, so I started painting the background with bright blues and softer pinks. When I picture a flying colorful unicorn I picture it up in some magical clouds so that's what I attempted. I started off doing really well with the sky by blending colors to make the sky have a more magical look to it. But when I started on the clouds underneath the alicorn, that's when that confidence started to fade. I tried to go for a cotton candy look and started with a pink base. I decided to make it swirly for depth and texture but wasn’t happy with how it turned out. I painted over it about three times and eventually settled on that pattern and shading I had. I finally started the base color to the alicorn. I struggled finding the right pattern so none of the colors blended into each other. Since the sky was mostly blue, I had to mix the blue to make a more teal color for the alicorn's body. I loved to color so much and the paint went on very evenly. I wanted to leave it like that but there was no shading at all. I worked on the main and tail using purple. The mane was much easier than the tail because the way the tail waved was much less exaggerated than the main. I ended up really liking how the colors worked together for the mane. I will continue to work on the body and make sure the background and body run smoothly together and don't go into each other. I started my second painting in my majestic monsters series. I painted a female Oni, even though they are mostly depicted as a male. I decided to do this one next as it was still within my comfort zone. This painting felt like it took forever with no progress up until the last 3 days when I finally started the main subject, the Oni herself.
I started on the background and mixed red, orange and yellow to get a fiery looking background. This was pretty easy and satisfying. The process only took me a class and a half before I started on the surrounding rocks. Once again the outline was pretty vague and the background was improvised as I went. When creating the outlines I just want a rough place to start. I wanted the Oni to look like she was standing in a cave with the world burning behind her. This part was a bit tedious when It came to the shading and trying to have a dark cave but add the highlights from the fire behind the rocks. I used watered down paint on the already dried black paint to add shadows and highlights to the rocks. After what seemed like weeks of working on the rocks, I finally started on the Oni herself. This made me want to tear my hair out. Not literally, but I did have a lot of difficulties with this part. To start, the red paint I started using for her skin was very watery and transparent. I was getting very frustrated as I had to wait for the paint to dry before I could put another layer on and it kept looking streaky. I eventually started painting her stalking's because it wouldn’t interfere with the skin. I seemed to have similar issues with this part. I wanted a metallic blue but the silver pint was very watery. I quickly decided to add more blue and it made it thicker. This seemed to fix the problem. I really loved the metallic look and decided to add more of it into her outfit. I finally had to go back to painting her skin and decided to look for different paint. I found a darker red that was much thicker and continued mixing different shades to get the shadows and highlights correct. Her clothes were so much fun to paint. I really enjoyed the colors I made and used. She was very dark and metallic with the exception of her hair which is a silvery white. Overall I liked the way I added my own artistic flavor to how most people see and Oni. This painting turned out quite well and I am so happy with the colors. The colors have given me some ideas about how I am going to paint my other creatures. I cannot wait to paint my phoenix and add gold paint. After waiting all summer I was finally able to start my V.A.M 30 project! I was very excited to be able to start painting all of my creatures. I started on my painting of a fairy. I figured this was a good way to ease myself into the project as I have more experience with drawing the human body than with drawing things such as dragons. Animal bodies have always been a struggle to me so I figure this would be a good way to start.
I started off my project by drawing up an outline for my canvas digitally. I left the outline pretty vague so I could have more options when I started painting. For example, I didn’t draw clothes or hair and added them later. As usual I started my painting from the background and worked my way forward. I wanted to go for a fairy garden look so I made sure to add lots of plants and colors. My first issue I ran into was trying to find the right blue for the sky. I wanted a bright blue and was attempting to mix white and green into a dark blue to get the color I wanted. But no matter how I blended the colors, they just weren't what I wanted. I did a bit more looking and found a color closer to what I wanted and managed to mix the paints and get a beautiful color for the sky. From there on I didn’t have any more major issues with the background although I did go over certain areas many times to get it to meet my own standards. When I thought I was almost finished I realized how empty the background looked. As much as I didn't want a flashy background that drew attention away from the main subject, I knew it needed more than a sky and simple forest look. So I added a ton of bright pink, yellow and orange flowers. It was simple and easy but definitely made the background look complete. I started the next part of the painting which is the mushroom the fairy is laying on. This was honestly the easiest and most satisfying part of the painting. Everything was blending so nice and I was able to add shadows with ease. The mushroom only took me one class to complete but I was so happy with the outcome. Now as I said, I left the outline pretty vague which definitely made the fairy more difficult to paint. I started on the parts further back and worked forward. The skin and dress was definitely the easiest part to paint with little to no issues. That being said, the hair and wings were a little bit more tricky needing to add texture. The wings were fun and I loved the colors but the feathery texture was difficult to achieve. Overall, the painting wasn’t too difficult and it was a great way to ease myself into this project with most of the creatures being outside of my comfort zone. I’m excited to test my abilities and work with different colors. |
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January 2022
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