Art Nuggets

This week we started to use colour. I’m afraid I only got three of the five images done this week. It seems to take me ages to get the image to a point where I feel like I’m liking it. Added to this is the fact that when I had to rush an image a couple of weeks ago just to fill out the assignment, the critique centered on the rushed image, rather than the two more finished pieces, thus covering a lot of things I might have attended to, had I given the image equal time. For this reason I have only submitted images that I have given fair attention to.

However, I did really enjoy this week’s assignments a lot more than weeks 1 to 3, which were a real chore, if I’m honest. I think this is because I started to use the lasso. I liked what I got out of it on the first image so much that by the third image I was using it for a lot of the image making, and doing very little actual painting. As you can probably tell, I’ve been looking at Robh Ruppel’s blog a lot recently.

There is a definite progression through the three images, the first being quite basic, while the last is comparatively rich. I’m learning a lot from the class, but what is becoming most apparent to me is less about the technique and skills, and more about my attitude towards environment design. When creating environments before I would get frustrated that the image wasn’t looking decent from a fairly early stage, and as a result I would get disheartened and this would put me off. Now I am forcing myself to get environments done and to a state where I’m happy with them, in the process learning that it takes time, but also proving to myself that I can do it.