I began just playing around and an hour (and 20 layers ) later, I had a jack o’lantern. I’m working very loose so I’m not sure How things would go if I was to tighten it up. There are scads of lighting issues, but I was all funned out.
I like the implication that the pumpkin is witnessing something magical just out of view.
Inspired by Jon Burgerman, I started this visual excursion as a linear composition in Illustrator, added some color, some texture, then brought it into Photoshop where the mayhem really began. I stacked about 30 layers of various opacities and blending modes, painted with some handmade and standard brushes (occasionally with layer effects) and generally stumbled around until I had something I liked.
Working organically is time consuming but fun. It’s also a good way to develop an eye for creating focus since one decision or set of decisions can send the composition careening in a direction that lacks punch and emphasis. Rather than doing too much subtracting of layers that were counter-productive, I opted instead to adjust the opacity or blend mode, or just add another layer to compensate and correct.
I’ve moved to the next stage of painting. Not finished, but getting there. Right now I’m not happy with the focus so I may try to spotlight the foreground a little more with some lighting effects. Also the colors are a little to bright so I’ll need to do something about that. Even though I started with an overall cool underlying hue (blue), I want to make the image visually consistent with the first image that had a yellow underpainting.
Here are some process shots for the second gouache robot/guardian-inspired painting. This time I started with a blue ground. Unlike the first one, I skipped a step. Rather than brush ink the figure after transferring him to the prepared page (a la graphite transfer), I decided to jump right into painting after darkening the lines with a ballpoint. I ended up doing ink touchups last time anyway and figured I’d save some time and work. Stay tuned for the finished painting.
Step 1: Free hand drawing with my ink-filled waterbrush.
Step 2: Redraw with pencil, rub 6B pencil lead on the back side of the drawing and trace with ball-point pen to transfer image onto the prepared sketchbook page.
Step 3: Begin filling in flat sections of color.
