Lagoon

I wanted to do some kind of landscape study, but didn't really know what to do.  I started searching for references and came up with this:  (it is a free wallpaper from somewhere)  I liked the composition and the rocks were great!

ohh also I discovered an amazing 19th century painter by the name of Thomas Moran, who painted absolutely beautiful landscapes.  anyway:

reference -->

after spending a long time trying to just get a basic black and white value base down I got to this point:

Obviously I wasn't painting it to be exact.  I really enjoy finding out where the process takes me.

like this!  I thought that the rock coming up out of the water looked like a skull of a dragon or a dinosaur.  so I added more jagged rocks protruding from the water below.  The rocks are feeling pretty bland at this point. I have't built up the technique of rendering rocks quite yet, although I have some basic blocky values that I like.

one of the things that has helped me the most (as I've mentioned in previous posts)  Is watching Feng Zhu render paintings.  he will always "push"  back the background to lower values and make the foreground elements pop more.  I think it gave my painting a really cool feel there in the back so far.

Because the rocks were feeling dull i placed an AWESOME  rock texture over the whole piece and then masked out the areas i didn't want masked out.  and then for the back ground i masked it out a little bit more so it showed up less.  I'm excited to see where this one takes me in the next couple of days.  I should be done pretty quickly.  there is something missing and I'm not sure what it is.  I'll figure it out seen enough.

Landscape - Fields of Gold

This one took me longer than 1 hour.  maybe about 1 hr 20min.  I struggled with how to render the field.  I had done a long grass brush, but it felt too textured, and I felt like I wasn't painting it so mush as the brush was.  It wasn't working anyway.  So I decided to try and make it more like a flowing block.  I have seen fields rendered that way before.  I think parts of the study were successful, but still not to the point where it is successful as an illustration or painting goes.

Anyway, This one was probably one of my more challenging ones, so I think I will try another field scene soon, and look up some ideas on how to make it work better.

hidden cave

I struggled with this one.  originally I wanted to just do a wide open cave that was jagged and had a bright light pouring into the mouth of it, and had an additional idea (as I imagined the scene) that there would be some kind of expedition team just inside, with a monster peaking in on them from outside the cave.

As I started to paint in the scene I wasn't paying much attention to my reference and ended up scattered with my values as well as perspectives.  turns out there is still plenty of perspective to be had in a cave.

this took me 2xs as long as my other landscape paintings because of that.  anyway, I ended up making this out of the mess instead.  There is a lot I like about it, minus the issues stated above.
This reminded me of a scene in a book that I read, and started painting it to represent that scene.  Since I was having issues with my final illustration project this one will be my final.

Also I missed yesterday's daily landscape.  :(  is there any excuse for that on a Saturday?!

a landscape

this one didn't turn out as well as I imagined.  my fault, however, because I didn't look at any reference.

I should probably do something other than forests and green thick foliage.  Im sure there are other things out there.  I just really like the textures and shapes that it creates.

landscape

todays landscape took longer than one hour because I was at my folk's house with siblings.  it took longer for me to figure out where I was going with this one.  This isn't totally what I had in mind, but kind of.

it also looks good in black and white i think

bridge landscape

todays Landscape again 1 hour.

I didn't get to finish it all because It took me too long to render the rocks so that part is sloppy on the foreground side.  I would have liked to add twigs and branches as well.  Ultimately, I envisioned a traveler of some kind on a horse but that would have taken me 5x the time.  

studies in landscape

I've never been real interested in landscapes.  It has hindered my artwork so I've made an effort to try and do a 1 hour painting every day from reference.  I don't copy them perfectly, but I try to get the basic idea.  These 3 were done pretty far apart, so obviously I haven't done one a day :P
they are fun to do tho, and I am learning a lot, which is the whole point.

and my latest that I did today.  much better :)

oh and these are 1 hour studies.