Sonntag, 5. April 2015

MARF Productions - Monthly Challenge (April)

This month's topic is: pastel coloured

I went through my deviantart favourites folder and picked some beautiful pastel coloured works to show you and hopefully inspire you, too. Since the colour scheme is what's important this month you are very free in terms of genre, theme and techniques! So... go wild! <3

bilopsis - Pale Blonde
bilopsis - black moor
bilopsis - gardenia
Frederik-Rattzen - Dreamteller 
Frederik-Rattzen -  Kids
mieze018 - CrashReport 
mieze018 - terabit 
gunnmgally - The Anel of Tamaha
gunnmgally - sketch
l0ll3 - f a i r y 
rogner5th - MUSHI-SAMURAI
raynneril - Muy cerce del ocaso
jenniferhom - A Midsummer Night's Dream 
ilikeyoursensitivity - ingrain 
ilikeyoursensitivity - 6696ilikeyoursensitivity - contextualist



Step 1.

At first I searched my mind, sketchbook and internet for ideas. This is something I often do alongside other things not related to the task, and that can spread over multiple days or even weeks, depending on the deadline and workflow. I ended up with a topic related to an assignment from universitiy, a somehow floating, ophelia-like figur. That was the point when I started to make some additinal sketches, trying to figure out the composition.


Step 2.

As soon as the motif was decided I collected my spray paint and a A2 sheet of paper and coloured it in blue, silver and black. I use spray paint for this technique, because you quickly get a smoothe and plain underground that is very tough and resilient. You should however wear a protective mask while spraying and only do it outside of the house.


Step 3.

Then I started to transfer the sketch to the sprayed paper. I used oilpastels and wax crayons from different manufacturers. At this point I tend to use a medium smoothe pen. Later on, when it is important to be able to smudge the colors with your fingers (I am wearing gloves, by the way), I am most comfortable with the very soft oilpastels from pentel, which are very affordable, too. Unfortunately they are so soft, that you have to be very careful not to smudge more, than you want to.

Oilpastel pens are rather thick and you can not get very detailed with them, unless you draw a bigger composition. When I use this pens, I tend to draw very big automatically, which got to be a problem on this one, since there was not enough space for everything. While sketching I really wanted the right arm to be in the picture, so I kept adjusting and fixing till it seemed somewhat acceptabel. I also was pretty sure, that I wanted to work with a lot of textures (inspired by Van Gogh, who's work I adore at the moment), which helps to hide some anatomical or logical flaws.

Step 4.

As soon as the sketch was layed out properly, I picked my softest pens and started to lay down colours. I used mainly white, peach and rosé for the skin, different shades of grey, blue, green and lilac for the background. At this point I do not smudge, but rather draw the colours on top of each other. When I have a colour coat on the whole picture, I start to smudge and adjust. The fun thing about the soft oilpastels is, that you can work them over finished colour coats, creating nice textures. But you have to be carefull, because there is a point, when the paper's surface is closed from the colours and you can not put anithing els on it anymore (similar to coloured pencils, I guess).


Step 5.

When the painting was done I scanned it. Since it is relatively huge and I only own a A3 scanner, I had to make two scans and than put them together in Photoshop.
Then I started to retouch it. There were several flaws I had to correct. The arm was way to short and just looked plain strange, so I pulled it a bit out, and created a better transition from the pink areas to the blue/grey ones. The face looked on the computer monitor very strange so I adjusted the nose, the shape of the face and the eyes. I also corrected the shoulder- and nuchal-area. Oh, and the mouth, to give her an overall friendlier expression.
When that was done I finally could turn to the colur adjustements, which always are a lot of fun. I pushed the blue a bit anddesaturated the pink. I think, I highlited the white, too.
And this is, what it looked like in the end:



I hope, this was helpful for someone. Next months topic will be: pastel