Sekaido - day 1

Day one - just laying the foundations. Getting the perspective down was pretty smooth sailing, pixels up next.

 

Finding a strong foreground visual was pretty tough. Going with the theme of digital dreaming or digital deterioration was always the concept but having a human element always draws the viewers attention.

Ground Up

Trolling the net for BugsEyeView perspective photographs came up blank n so decided to get my hands dirty.

These kinda shots always strike me as perfect landscapes on themselves. 

These close ups are gonna work as foreground perspective initially.

The water droplets make me want to pursue droplets for perspective but we'll see what happens from here.

Sekaido work - week deadline

The previous canvas debacle left me with just 7 days to create a new piece in time for the exhibit. Recreating the same visual on a smaller canvas would've been much simpler but where's the fun in that.

Time restraints led to a limited pallet, meaning black would be taken out of the equation. Initially I wanted a more vibrant bubbly piece anyway since the last had been pretty morbid.

The yellow sky was a base layer to motivate a lighter mood whilst working, but eventually needed to be darkened to balance the shading on the plants.

Sekkaido - Final Sketch

The previous sketch seemed a little too simple, so decided to build more layers and textures.

Also insects are going to break up the colours a little, as will the sleeping women.

 Composition was tough, but once the sketch is there, it's a huge weight of my shoulder. 

Sekkaido entry .. or was..!

The past few weeks I'd been focused on the annual Sekkaido competition (which always seems to sneak up on me somehow).

Still about 12 hours from completion I was quite happy with the direction and colour coding, unfortunatly realised 2 weeks before the deadline that I'd been too ambitious and had been working on an F5 piece when it should've been an F4.

No biggie. It's pretty rare to get the chance to work on something that size, and it was a heck of a learning curve.

 So back to the drawing board!

Jigsaw concept

Pizza last night had me feeling guiltier than usual.. Let's see what we can do with that greasy box!

Using the card as a template allowed for plenty of mock ups of the jigsaw character. 

Working with shading to create a more vivid environment.

Keeping in mind the idea of a childrens story book, at this point keeping it simple is best. Flesh out the story or theme, then build the environment to fit this lil guy.

Pink!

A lonely tube of pink acrylic had been lying the apartment for months, needing a good home.

Sold

Pretty happy with the result ")

Peel

Messing around with the clay earlier this week lead back to some Planet Peel visuals.

After a few months of working on portraits, animals and plants it was about time to go back and see what could be done with the Planet Peel visuals. 

Overwhelmingly these visuals give me a sense of satisfaction unlike the portraits. The ribbon effect is just a bunch of fun, so I'll be spending the next week working on new ides, colours and expanding the world a little.

Acrylics 101

I love simplicity, but it became apparent the past few weeks that in order to really understand colors and  shape, more exploration is needed.  It's something I'd been aware of for a while but had been struggling to actually get it down on paper.

Dandelions

Mushrooms

LadyBirds

A long way to go, but at this point, everything is a learning curve.