“How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I am partial to landscape painting, but this one breaks the usual mold. It is more cartoony in style and fits perfectly with my cartoony disposition this week. This landscape was created with tools from my digital arsenal and even though I did not expect a cartoony style to predominate, it emerged as a natural extension of my mood.
This painting is a continuation from my last post.
After getting my fill of fresh air, I went home to my dimly lit studio space and got to work digitally remastering the landscape painting.
I thought the painting was pretty complete as it was, but I felt could adjust a few things digitally for the better.
The Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden was a pretty cool place to paint and I can’t wait to go back soon.
“There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.” ~Josephine Hart
This landscape I painted at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden. The moment I saw the location I knew I wanted to paint it. The spot was shaded and the tree canopy created a nice contrast between light and dark. The opening of light created a perfect frame for the landscape painting.
This is another digital landscape that began as a analog painting. I painted the original at The Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge, CA. I woke up at 8:00 in the morning on a Saturday and in a stuper threw some paint on an illustration board.
It was a pretty foggy morning, but you could see the sun shining through the fog like beams of light. The goal of the early morning painting sessions was to get the essence and mood of those early hours which is why the original painting is a bit rough. I then turned to my digital arsenal to refine the painting and provide greater definition.
One of the cool things about digital paintings is the capacity to pick colors from you original painting and tweak them to achieve a desired effect. It is nice to already have a palette to work from.
I thought it might be interesting to see an intermediary step in digitization process of the landscape.
One of my general goals was to make this painting look as much like a real painting as possible without that “photoshopped” look. I hope you see the contrast between this piece and the previous landscape.
This is the final digital painting of the previous post, “Analog Landscape Painting.”
Digital paintining is not that much different than regular painting. Of course, there are a few extra tricks here and there. I thought you guys would enjoy seeing the painting develop from analog to digital and that this shows how regular ole painting still pulls its weight in the digital world.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.” ~ Robert Frost
I went out on location at Cal Tech and painted this landscape while I was there. I took certain liberties, but I used the location as my inspiration. It is my intention to digitize this painting soon, the process of which I will share with you.