Abbey Park - Final piece

This marks a milestone for me - my first ever digital painting that is neither a group of random silohuettes or an attempt at authoring my own textures. This has taken me far too long and has frankly put me off wanting to try anything like this again... I clearly didn't know where to obtain these "brushes" I overhear digital painting enthusiats gushing about in class which would undoubtedly have saved me time. I did however manage to fit the public loos into this piece, which is of some saving grace.

I stuck to the "hard edged brush" as I didn't dare venture away from the default selection. The leaf brush that came with the software probably wouldn't have fared particularly well as it appeared to be a Canadian maple tree leaf.

 

Critiques include: theres no differentiation between the leaves on the tree in the background or the ones closer to the front. The picture has no direct focal point at the end of the path. The front of the picture could use darkenning slightly.

 

Abbey Park - Artwork

I hate drawing trees. They take such an awful long time to render and even when I'm done my work looks like concept art for "Revenge of the Killer Broccoli. Underneath I did some sketches, but I always feel more comfortable working in ink or acrylics.

About as bad as it looks - I really can't render trees very well.

Trying to draw detailed trees doesn't get me much further...

If you hold this sketch away from you it doesn't look bad

Much happier working with a brush; these seem somewhat more aesthetically pleasing.

Don't normally use watercolours, as I'm more comfortable with acrylics. Kinda shows..

 

My tree-drawing skills still need alot of work. I found an interesting page which broke down tree-rendering into primitive shapes and layers of detail: http://sibleyfineart.com/tutorial--draw-trees.htm

Abbey Park - Photographs I took

We visited Abbey Park for our first visual design project. I don't normally enjoy drawing trees as I've always found them tedious, but I figured I wouldn't have gotten away with drawing the public loos instead...

Underneath a selection of photographs I took whilst visiting which I thought were aesthetically pleasing:

I like the way the light came through the back of these trees. Contradicting popular belief; not everything turns silohuette against sunlight. In fact, objects in nature are hardly ever black since black itself isn't a natural colour.

First tree I found that started the transition between seasons. I found this interesting as I'd never really seen this much of a contrast on a single tree.

I liked the areas of dark between the branches of the leaves.

Chinese garden #1

Chinese garden #2