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Description
Ah, it's good to be back on my drawing track and draw more and more Northern Lights

In case you haven't noticed, it's something I do again and again every once in a while.
Also the chance for it to happen prominently increases anywhere around trips to Norway :3

But let's get to business. That's a scene I've wanted to paint for a looooooong time now, ever since I saw a pencil drawing of that scene, waaaaaay back. Yeah, I can be sorta competitive-ish like that. More like, it's the feeling of, "Oooh, that's so nice! Now, let's see what I can do!" So I got to that finally. Actually I started it before the trip, but was a tiiiiny bit short on time to finish. So here we go, last night I managed to put it together - actually while talking to Jayme (because multitasking of webcam and drawing is a huge tradition where Jayme is concerned, and it's sort of contagious and I'm afraid I've gotten it too XD ). Truth be told, I'm quite pleased with the result. But when I say put it together, that was a process. A process that this time I made quite fun, I learned a lot from and like that really enjoyed.

You know, in my latest works of Northern Lights (all after photos of, honestly, one of my favourite photographers - Trichardsen ), I've been trying to advance my technique in several ways. For one thing, I am learning this and that of the shapes the Northern Lights form.... well, in fact, I learn just how hugely difficult it is to reproduce these shapes in a natural way, somehow. But more importantly, I focus on how the colors change and flow through the lights. In art, I've discovered, there's much more science and complexity to colors than it may seem to anyone who never really tried to get deep into it. For most of my life as a (sort of) artist, my technique, at least digitally, has been very simple regarding colors. I tend to use very small number of colors, and yes, sometimes I manage to match them in a pretty way, but they generally lack the richness of palette, the many shades and hues that naturally occur and blend together even in the simplest setting. The reason is that as I draw and blend colors I build a palette and sometimes I don't even move away from it. I quit that habit for the last two Northern Lights works, I moved out of what is familiar and cozy, and I tried to mix colors more boldly and freely, just by sliding those three pretty little sliders on the color tool of Photoshop. And you know what? It works. It requires a lot of insight on how colors work (especially when working on a layer which is set to Screen, because that affects a lot how the colors work), there's a lot of trial and error, but in the end it pays off because I learn how these colors form, how they interact with each other and how one and the same shade can look very different depending on where you put it in relation to other colors. Long story short - I am slowly getting to understand on my own what they probably would have taught me if I had actually studied to become an artist XD But that doesn't matter because yeah, sure, they can teach you how it works, in theory, in the end of the day, when you grab the pencil brush, it's you alone and I believe what comes next is not even about knowledge as much as it is all about feeling. Theory alone cannot paint a picture for you.
Speaking of learning.... I discovered a new trick on Ps that I am really happy with. Now, you may laugh - and honestly you'd be very right to do so, lol - because my drawing technique in Ps is RIDICULOUSLY simple. Most of the time all I use is the most simple round brush (because it's the closest to the feeling of pencil drawing that I can get), and just simple painting. The only "trickery" I use on a regular basis is layers and where light and shadow effects are concerned, I tend to use some crafty blending options to make light really appear as light and shadows do some cool stuff to the layers underneath. And that's all. Last night, a bit accidentally, I discovered a new one. Actually I just saw it sitting there and I was like, "Hey, does that do what I think it does?" And I tried it - and it did. It was - you can start laughing now - the blending mode of the brush. That's right, I only now discovered the brush itself can apply the same effects I use layers for, on the go. No need to say I spent the rest of the evening (drawing) using almost exclusively that new very nifty trick and reaaaaaaally enjoying myself, lol. It did solve some problems and removed a bit of frustration because I suddenly had a way to change the color of the Northern Lights stripes WITHOUT changing anything else about it. AND THAT WAS AWESOME!!! Then I realized I can also use the luminosity mode and thus gained better control on the brightness and shapes. SO BLOODY COOL! Alright, stop laughing now. I'm just sincerely enjoying this little advancement of my technique and to be perfectly honest, my naivety about how to paint digitally has a charm. And laugh or not, but as Jayme said, to be able to draw somewhat decently using such very very basic set of tools IS a skill. I'd much rather start from there and gradually advance and better my technique, than jump in the middle of the power machine that Ps really is and base my shaky skills entirely to its graphic tools and potential.

Ah well, that was a lot of spam. I was excited last night, so I felt like sharing. The rest is.... Northern Lights. Skål

Reference by :

Ps CS6 with Wacom Intuos4.
Original size: 2400 x 1600 px.
About 4 - 4,5 hours.

Featured:
Collective Feature #30.
Treasure Trove #212 From the Depths

Description
Ah, it's good to be back on my drawing track and draw more and more Northern Lights

In case you haven't noticed, it's something I do again and again every once in a while.
Also the chance for it to happen prominently increases anywhere around trips to Norway :3

But let's get to business. That's a scene I've wanted to paint for a looooooong time now, ever since I saw a pencil drawing of that scene, waaaaaay back. Yeah, I can be sorta competitive-ish like that. More like, it's the feeling of, "Oooh, that's so nice! Now, let's see what I can do!" So I got to that finally. Actually I started it before the trip, but was a tiiiiny bit short on time to finish. So here we go, last night I managed to put it together - actually while talking to Jayme (because multitasking of webcam and drawing is a huge tradition where Jayme is concerned, and it's sort of contagious and I'm afraid I've gotten it too XD ). Truth be told, I'm quite pleased with the result. But when I say put it together, that was a process. A process that this time I made quite fun, I learned a lot from and like that really enjoyed.

You know, in my latest works of Northern Lights (all after photos of, honestly, one of my favourite photographers - Trichardsen ), I've been trying to advance my technique in several ways. For one thing, I am learning this and that of the shapes the Northern Lights form.... well, in fact, I learn just how hugely difficult it is to reproduce these shapes in a natural way, somehow. But more importantly, I focus on how the colors change and flow through the lights. In art, I've discovered, there's much more science and complexity to colors than it may seem to anyone who never really tried to get deep into it. For most of my life as a (sort of) artist, my technique, at least digitally, has been very simple regarding colors. I tend to use very small number of colors, and yes, sometimes I manage to match them in a pretty way, but they generally lack the richness of palette, the many shades and hues that naturally occur and blend together even in the simplest setting. The reason is that as I draw and blend colors I build a palette and sometimes I don't even move away from it. I quit that habit for the last two Northern Lights works, I moved out of what is familiar and cozy, and I tried to mix colors more boldly and freely, just by sliding those three pretty little sliders on the color tool of Photoshop. And you know what? It works. It requires a lot of insight on how colors work (especially when working on a layer which is set to Screen, because that affects a lot how the colors work), there's a lot of trial and error, but in the end it pays off because I learn how these colors form, how they interact with each other and how one and the same shade can look very different depending on where you put it in relation to other colors. Long story short - I am slowly getting to understand on my own what they probably would have taught me if I had actually studied to become an artist XD But that doesn't matter because yeah, sure, they can teach you how it works, in theory, in the end of the day, when you grab the pencil brush, it's you alone and I believe what comes next is not even about knowledge as much as it is all about feeling. Theory alone cannot paint a picture for you.
Speaking of learning.... I discovered a new trick on Ps that I am really happy with. Now, you may laugh - and honestly you'd be very right to do so, lol - because my drawing technique in Ps is RIDICULOUSLY simple. Most of the time all I use is the most simple round brush (because it's the closest to the feeling of pencil drawing that I can get), and just simple painting. The only "trickery" I use on a regular basis is layers and where light and shadow effects are concerned, I tend to use some crafty blending options to make light really appear as light and shadows do some cool stuff to the layers underneath. And that's all. Last night, a bit accidentally, I discovered a new one. Actually I just saw it sitting there and I was like, "Hey, does that do what I think it does?" And I tried it - and it did. It was - you can start laughing now - the blending mode of the brush. That's right, I only now discovered the brush itself can apply the same effects I use layers for, on the go. No need to say I spent the rest of the evening (drawing) using almost exclusively that new very nifty trick and reaaaaaaally enjoying myself, lol. It did solve some problems and removed a bit of frustration because I suddenly had a way to change the color of the Northern Lights stripes WITHOUT changing anything else about it. AND THAT WAS AWESOME!!! Then I realized I can also use the luminosity mode and thus gained better control on the brightness and shapes. SO BLOODY COOL! Alright, stop laughing now. I'm just sincerely enjoying this little advancement of my technique and to be perfectly honest, my naivety about how to paint digitally has a charm. And laugh or not, but as Jayme said, to be able to draw somewhat decently using such very very basic set of tools IS a skill. I'd much rather start from there and gradually advance and better my technique, than jump in the middle of the power machine that Ps really is and base my shaky skills entirely to its graphic tools and potential.

Ah well, that was a lot of spam. I was excited last night, so I felt like sharing. The rest is.... Northern Lights. Skål

Reference by :

Ps CS6 with Wacom Intuos4.
Original size: 2400 x 1600 px.
About 4 - 4,5 hours.

Featured:
Collective Feature #30.
Treasure Trove #212 From the Depths