Essentials Cafe

Here goes. The background was one I had already created unsing Corel Painter X. the rest is in Essentials 4

The Onion was drawn lightly with a 2B pencil adding a little shade to the areas I wanted to darken.

I then chose a limited pallette goverened by the limited range of colours in E4

French Ultramarine, French Rose, Alizarin red, Fire engine red and black.

I put these on the mixer board and created variying shades which I chose as needed with the 'sample colour' tool in the mixer set.

I used wet acrylic in varying opacities slowly building up the colour

One problem was that I found that the lower opacities painted white unless I added pressure and then it was often darker than I wished.

The shadow was much darker than I wanted to I used the freehand lasso tool, feathered to 10, and a soft focus. I wished I could find a blur tool but I don't think there is one.

I am sure there is possibly and easier way of doing things but I have never had any art training so I just keep fumbling along until I get to something I think is acceptable. Any tips on making it more realistic would be welcome.

Awesome!

Much better than my first attempt.

One thing you might like to try next time is to 'anchor' your piece.  By this I mean add a line across the page in the background somewhere so that the elements look like they are placed somewhere/on something and not floating.  I also discovered when doing this on mine that you can then use the fill button on the remaining background and Voila! I hope you don't mind my comments.

You've inspired me Squirrel to go back and have another go.

I don't mind the comments at all Dianne, in fact I welcome them as they are both encouraging and thought provoking. I never thought to anchor the onions but at least the shadow would have something to fall on. We just have to keep practicing, I'm sure it will get easier.

Hi Squirrel,

Yes I'm sure it will get easier if we keep at it.  I remember learning the lesson of anchoring still life well in an art class when the teacher let the whole class know in not the most pleasant manner.  But I have to admit she was correct and I have never forgotten it.

I do still life and portraiture once a week in an art group and just love it, so I need to get up to speed with the Wacom tablet and the programme, but everything takes time of which I never have enough of.

Cheers

 

Hi, Squirrel! Your onion drawing is a good beginning, but don't stop now! The idea of anchoring with a line in the background is correct, but I noticed another item you seem to have missed: a bit of "reflected light" in the shadow area. This could be done with a very tiny soft eraser with minimal opacity, or you could use the "dodge" tool. Also, I was wondering if you might consider adding something to give scale to the piece; say a paring knife that was used to slice the onion? I only mention it because I was having trouble figuring out how big or small the onion is...Otherwise, I like the drawing!

Is this any better. I anchored it on the chopping board .... sorry but I think the knife must be in the dish washer ... (note to myself ... I must practice knife drawing)

Much better! However, your chopping board seems to be floating...is it anti--grav? ;)

No it is not anti-grav, but where do I stop?  If I put it on a table the table has to be on a floor, then a floor has to have some situation too. Dianne suggested we attempt to draw something very simple like her apple, so the whole idea of this was in response to a request to try out the pen and tablet for freehand drawing. I was not concentrating on composition at this point but only on trying to use the tools. I was merely concerned with seeing if I could draw an onion that looked like an onion, the thought of doing a complete picture is a bit out of my league as yet.

As I have said I am an absolute novice with no art training at all and half the time I have no idea what I am doing or how to even approach what I am attempting to do. However I will bear all the comments in mind and hopefully improve. In the meantime I took the easy way out, please accept a crop of the area below the board so it isn't floating.

Very Good! I was not aware that the assignment was to focus on the object; but it looks like an onion to me! Usually, when I wish to focus on rendering a single thing, I draw it big, allowing the object to bleed  over the edges of the drawing; this always gives it an anchor without adding anything!

Hi Squirrel,

I've just been having a peek at your updated freedraw.  For someone who says they cant draw!!! your chopping board is outstanding.  I'm very impressed.

I wanted to clarify what I meant about anchoring your piece, especially after reading some of the other comments.  I was only suggesting a simple line across your background in your picture the same as what I had done in the apple; one to "suggest that the onions were sitting on something.  It does mean however that the lower half of the painting does need to be filled in a different colour to look like another surface (any plan colour would do), otherwise the line doesn't really mean that much.  Your chopping board idea was an excellent one, although without the line anchoring the work to the outside edges of the picture the board still had that floating look.  It is something to consider for next time, unless you are wanting to persue the idea and update with another version  so see the idea thru.

I hope I am not offending in any way by saying all this as I still think you work is by far better than what I produced.  Did you have a look at the  free hand drawing I did this week of my dog.  My second attempt.  I am quite happy with it but I realise now that the background is too light for the subject.  so in the near future I'm going to re-work it to improve.

Keep up the good work.

These are the sort of tips I am looking for. I am pleased with my efforts but know there is a lot to learn so thanks for all the encouragement and the tips to make it 'better next time'

I was very interested to see this, and all the following discussion, it's very helpful to me too, as I have no sort of art training either. I do attempt freehand drawing, which I have no natural gift for, but I haven't dared post any of it on the forum yet! I thought you did extremely well here.

Thanks for the encouragement Anne. I have no natural gift either, but I wanted to give it a go.

The beauty of this program is that when you work in layers, you can delete a whole layer, or erase part of a layer, without messing up the bits you are happy with.

And of course this is what the forum is for, to experiment, to learn, and not to be afraid of getting it wrong sometimes.

I recently posted one of my freehand paintings done in Painter X  (apart from the initial sketch which was a clone) on painter factory. I was personally amazed at my  achievement, but compared to the work of the professional artists there my work is very amateurish, (as indeed it is comapared with some of that shown here) but I think we need to feel free to post whatever we want to post, freehand or cloned. Slowly we can push the boundaries of our own skills as well as those of the programme.

I look forward to seeing one of your creations Anne, come on take a deep breath and dive in.

PS. I'll let you borrow my sunglasses