Manzanillo Beach - Landscape Complete!

Here is my completed Colour Pencil Landscape of Manzanillo Beach on A5 Sketchbook Paper.  

I am pretty pleased with how this has turned out, although of course there are areas I would like to improve.  My rock drawing skills are not the best, so I think they let it down - especially at the bottom edge of the land mass we see in the distance.  I struggled with that!  However, I love the water and how I managed to get a reflection of the light down the middle, and I rather like the leaves (especially the main one with yellow veins) in the bottom left of the picture.  I also had fun discovering a way to show trees growing on the hills in the distance - by drawing tiny circles with a blue pencil on green shaded hills.  It worked really well I think! 

So my Landscape skills are steadily improving, and no doubt the more I practice them, the more they will improve.  I just find them so challenging! 

Thanks for looking, and please feel to leave and tips and suggestions for improvement in the comments below!

Landscape WIP - "Manzanillo Beach"

I have now decided to focus on Fine Art and Illustration, it is what I love the most.  No more design courses for me.  I want to be a Fantasy and Science-fiction Artist, creating as realistic art as I can in graphite and colour pencil.  I have managed to free up my time to concentrate on my Art every day.  Providing I can stick to this, you should see a lot more of my art appearing on here.  Today I have been working on a Colour Pencil Landscape of Manzanillo Beach on Margarita Island, which is part of the Wetcanvas May Landscape Challenge.  I am really enjoying this one, it doesn't feel like a chore, and I am really enjoying creating the ocean.  I may discover a love for landscapes after all!

Trees Landscape - Complete!

I finally completed my landscape! It's been difficult working on this one, but I am so glad I finally completed it. It was worth finishing as now I am proud of it! There are still areas I need to improve on, I am a fledgling landscape artist, I do need to improve the contrast and make the picture darker in some areas. But this is a good start I think with a difficult reference image (see previous post). Thanks so much to Retha for offering me so much help and support - without you and would not have completed it!

It just goes to show that it is worth finishing your pictures, no matter how badly you think they are going - they do improve once completed, and you have something to be proud of!

My Landscapes Need Help!

This is a work in progress (WIP) of the landscape I have been trying to complete. It's Colour Pencil on A5 sketchbook paper. I don't think I am a natural landscape artist - I am struggling! I never seem to manage to complete a proper landscape. I think the main problem is I don't know how to do the texture and detail in landscapes, I am completely at a loss. For some reason Still Life drawings and close up details of images I can see the details. But doing a Landscape, with grass trees, etc. I can't seem to manage at all. I would be very grateful for anyone to give me some help and advice!

Here's the reference pic I have been working from:

Landscape Practice

After yesterday's abysmal landscape, I decided to spend today's sketch time on trying to improve my landscape skills. So today I worked on my grass, and a tree sketching. I think my grass is looking quite good in the end, I do need practice putting it in a scene and making it look real. At least that's the idea! I'm also hoping to improve my trees, these are a start.

An Abysmal Landscape!

Today I think I have relearnt how much I need to work on my landscape drawing! I know my landscapes aren't usually the most detailed, and now I think I can see why! I tend to shade the grassy areas smooth, I don't think I am good at adding the detail yet. This sketch is approximately 4 x 3 inches, done with a blunt 2B pencil and a B pencil. I really need to practice my grass and trees!

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!

Sketch a Day Game - Tree Stippling Practice

I just discovered a Sketch a Day Game challenge on Wetcanvas, where they challenge you to do a sketch a day, numbering each one you do, and having to revert back to #1 any time you skip a day! It's ok to not upload every day, so long as you sketch every day, and upload them after. Let's see what number I can get up to without missing a day!

Today I start on Sketch #1 - a practice at Stippling foliage for bushes and trees. I usually just do the shading as on the first couple of shrubs and trees on this page, the stippling definitely doesn't come naturally to me, but I'm hoping they resemble trees and shrubs!

My 2011 Art Goal: Create Beautiful Art

I think this year I want to concentrate on creating beautiful art. I have been trying to do concept sketches, and am embarrassed by how badly my art looks without reference images. This year I want to really work on my art and improve it. Perhaps rather than trying to create amazing original sci-fi and fantasy art, I should concentrate on doing art from reference images and creating beautiful art. Obviously improving my skills in the process.

I think I am afraid to try creating art that I cannot see clearly in reference pictures before I start the final piece. I don't think I have ever tried to draw lizards or snakes before, and believe I should try to do that before I try to create a lizardlike creature from imagination. I remember seeing fantasy artists sketchbooks in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Science Fiction Art Techniques, (one of my favourite art instruction books), and it showed many drawings from life as well as some flights of fancy. The more I practice doing art from reference images the more skilled I will become, and can adapt that skill into fantasy work.

I think this year I just need more practice, work from reference images, and build a portfolio I am proud of. Then I can try more fantasy art. Or perhaps trying some flights of fancy in between? Especially in the Boris Vallejo book, Fantasy Art Techniques. He shows you how to work from reference images of the various elements, and put them all together in one painting.

Reference images is definitely the way for me to go, and I intend to work at them and create beautiful art this year.

Art - Teaching Myself

"Frozen in the Moonlight"

I am a self-taught artist, and still in the process of improving my skills. You can see a sample of my art in the header of this blog, plus some of my works I have uploaded here. Just click on an image to see a larger version of it.

"Gargoyle"

"House"

"Spider"

I haven't done much drawing in a while, I like pencil and colour pencil art - that's what I do best. I'm just not skilled with a paintbrush, probably due to a little too much playing and paint fights in school for me to learn much!

I want to be a fantasy art, I was first inspired by Boris Vallejo, I got a calendar of his back in the 90's, and it kicked off the fantasy art bug in me. I've since sought out new fantasy artists to add to my inspiration, I moved on to the works of Chris Achilleos, Luis Royo, Clyde Caldwell and Greg Horn. I would love for my meagre art talents to reach these standards, then I would be so proud of my work!

So what do I need to do to improve? All the above artists tend to focus on people in their artwork, very realistic figures. My figure drawing leaves a lot to be desired (in my humble opinion), and I want to be able to do amazing and realistic figures. I also don't have a lot of experience doing fantastic creatures, monsters or dragons. I would also love to do more backgrounds to my images, so landscape, and most especially cityscape, I would love to improve on. The simple answer to this - Practice! Now I've figured out what I want to imrove upon, I need to find reference images for these types of images, and practice them over and over again until I improve! So here's a simplified list of what I want to improve:

- Figure Drawing
- Fantastic Creatures, Monsters & Dragons
- Landscapes (Greenery)
- Cityscapes (Buildings & Architecture)
- Still Life (Weapons, Fantasy Objects)

For the fantastic creatures, monsters and dragons, I will need to collect reference images of animals, both furry and reptile animals, to be able to draw fantasy creatures. Once you can draw realistic normal animals, you can learn to draw fantasy animals really well. I've added still life as it occurred to me I don't have hardly any practice of drawing weapons, and the few I have done, have not been very good at all. So it's time to improve on them as well.

If I stick to this plan with my art, and work on these various subjects, by the end of this year I should be able to do these subjects with much greater ease, and be much more able to produce high quality fantasy art of my own. Wish me Luck!