09 June 2010

Another attempt at painting backdrop

Last week I did another try to paint the sky on the backdrop. During last weeks I searched on the web for some how-to's and tutorials on how to paint realistic sky and clouds. I found many interesting sites and video. One I remember is the YouTube channel from Tim Gagnon where I found some well done videos on that subject.

Unfortunately, what seems easy and straightforward for Tim and artists in general turned out to be very hard for me. Anyway, I'll keep trying maybe I'll get something acceptable.

So far, I tried to paint a fading blue sky where the top is deep blue and the bottom fades to white in order to give the idea of the haziness and humidity that's more concentrated on the lower layer of the atmosphere. I think i did better that the first attempt but there's still a lot of space for improvements.


First time I used a whiter blue on top of the flat paint already dried out. Now, I used the whiter blue on top of a still-wet blue paint. It's better but still not much sense of deepness. Maybe I should use white paint instead of a whiter blue paint in order to have a greater difference in color between the top part -that's blue- and the bottom that's should be almost white. Let's see how it goes next time.


I also painted my very first cloud. To me it is awful. However, watching at Tim's videos once more I realized I had to wait for the first layer of white paint to dry before adding the additional layers to create brighter areas and shadows. May be next time I'll get something better.


See you soon...

3 comments:

Enzo said...

Hi Ricky and my compliments for your effort! I agree: watching a painter do the job ... it seems easy, but do it yourself can be frustrating! I only can image as I have to start mine! (this was one of the reason I've settled for a picture on San Francisco in the City area!)
Anyway.. Keep the good job progressing: my motto is "Experience IT" you know?
Ciao
Enzo

Tom Conboy said...

Your basic background looks good to me. Clouds take time and practice, so don't give up! One way I like to paint clouds is to paint wet-in-wet. I repaint the area where the cloud will be located with blue paint and then stipple white paint onto the still wet blue paint. This helps to blend the colors. You can then add highlights to the cloud after the first layer of paint dries. If you mess up, repaint it blue and start over!!

Keep up the good work!
Tom

ricky4208 said...

Thanks guys for the encouraging words. Believe me photos are very forgiving of my work (and that doesn't mean I'm a good photographer).

Anyway, as Tom said, I can always paint it blue again a start from scratch, can't I?

R