Artist do not just conjure up images from nowhere. Most of the time these images even if it is a figment of the artist's imagination but there is often some incorporation of something that the artist has seen. It is not always easy to see something that is not physically near. For instance, if an artist is supposed to draw the arctic landscape, it would be quite impossible for him to have sight of the arctic before he can start painting.
This is one of the skills that I have tried to master, it may not be perfect and I still try to improve on my time. I do speed painting and I try to keep my drawing and painting works to less than 60 minutes. This painting was done in less than an hour. In speed painting, one of the key element that will be missing will be the small details. I know that 60 minutes is not impressive and I am still trying to do my best to improve on this timing.
Pick a landscape. This particular location is at the North of Malaysia and the South of Thailand. The location is in Perlis, Malaysia. This place is well known for its paddy plantations.
Sometimes, you can even incorporate two different location into one scene for better effect.
Here, I use an image that I found on the web and incorporate the two. The painting process takes place henceforth.
First Step
Basic shapes and base colour. Usually it is the distant object that we focus on.
Then we start adding details. Different tone, different temperature.
I usually start adding the sky once the basic shapes are in place. You can see the brushes are usually course and it has no detailing.
This is the part where I start adding the shades and coloration. This part is the most time consuming part. If I can shave off some time doing this, my entire speed painting process could have been completed faster.
This is where I start to add the sun. If the sun is in the picture, the part of the painting that is in direct contact with the sun has to reflect the same, hence hues of the sun's coloration is added to the different parts of the painting. At this stage the finer details are still not in place. The work is still rough and has edges.
This is the part where I put in touches of realism. It has to feel as though the audience is there in the picture looking at an actual landscape. You can see where I added the ray of sunlight and added some finer details to give it finished look. This is usually where every individual artist would stamp their style.
For purposes of reference, I would want to share the source of my google map picture.
https://www.instantstreetview.com/@6.543919,100.247396,304.58h,4.02p,1z
I hope that you had a fun time doing this. Part of the challenging thing about doing this is the speed of getting it done from the initial part to the finished drawing.
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