"ZJ Takes a Painting Class" Thread!

[ZJ]

Hello Art Forum homies!

I recently started a "Beginners Painting" class in Maryland (It was one of my New Year's Resolutions) and have been sharing my progress to various people. While showing some of the pieces to @radiodark, she suggested that I make a thread here to get some feedback and suggestions on how to improve as an artist in this medium. I thought that was a pretty dope idea, so here we are!

I am open to ANY and ALL criticisms, but please remember that I'm just starting out as someone who considers himself to not be much of an artist. I'm sure that any regular in here is 10,000 times more talented than I am, but I'm eager to learn and do better!

Here's what I've created thus far in my first three weeks of the class:

[LennyFaceDraws]

I’ve got to be honest, I’m the last person you’d wanna ask for meaningful criticism. But I wanna say that the starry painting is really well done. I love how the moon is brighter near its right edge. It also has the best tree in all of the paintings IMO, so you should try to draw more like that, I guess. I also love how the clouds in the second painting look. The way they fade in from the bottom is extremely pleasing to the eye.

I don’t know much about painting, so I couldn’t give you any specific advice about the medium. But, I think it’s important that in the future, you shouldn’t stress over plateauing or not being good enough or any of that stuff. It’s a lot better to just keep on making artwork than to worry about all that. You’ll improve a lot faster that way.

Good luck on your painting endeavors. I hope to see some good discussion in this thread!

[kidray76]

Keeping in mind that this is a beginner course, these are very well done.

First picture

Really basic. However, eventually you'll learn how to mix colors to not make it seem so monotone. The sky and water mesh pretty bad. I would advise making one lighter and possibly mixing some green or maybe white in the water.

Second Picture

The blending is really well done. Issue I have is the shading of the tree and the shadows just feel off.

Third Picture

My favorite out of the bunch. Looks like you had fun doing it.

[Luwano]

Hey there!

Looks like acrylics to me. The moon in the 3rd pic is „bleeding out“ a little. Maybe you could have given it a sharper edge. The fuzzy edge works well for the field on the ground though.

The clouds in the second pic are very enjoyable. In that same pic the highlight on the tree is coming straight from the left. You should consider adding a darker tone on the very edge of the highlighted side next time. It looks more natural usually and the shadow / highlight angle would be more in line with how you did it on the clouds.

Notice how on the top cylinder in the centre (Fig. 47), there is a slightly shaded part on the left?

Good progress so far.

[ZJ]

Thanks to all of you for the feedback you’ve given me thus far. I’ve carefully read over it and plan to Implement the suggestions into my next few pieces. Shading and edges are definitely on my list of things to work on.

Here’s what I did for last night’s class. It’s called “A Skyline of Hope”.

[kidray76]

At 2/6/20 01:06 PM, ZJ wrote: Thanks to all of you for the feedback you’ve given me thus far. I’ve carefully read over it and plan to Implement the suggestions into my next few pieces. Shading and edges are definitely on my list of things to work on.

Here’s what I did for last night’s class. It’s called “A Skyline of Hope”.

Woe. Your technique is light and day. I love it.

[ZJ]

At 2/5/20 01:36 PM, Luwano wrote: Hey there!
Looks like acrylics to me. The moon in the 3rd pic is „bleeding out“ a little. Maybe you could have given it a sharper edge. The fuzzy edge works well for the field on the ground though.

The clouds in the second pic are very enjoyable. In that same pic the highlight on the tree is coming straight from the left. You should consider adding a darker tone on the very edge of the highlighted side next time. It looks more natural usually and the shadow / highlight angle would be more in line with how you did it on the clouds.

Notice how on the top cylinder in the centre (Fig. 47), there is a slightly shaded part on the left?

Good progress so far.

Thank you for this positive feedback! That goes for everyone else in this thread that also replied, too.

Shading is definitely something I need to work on. I'm aware of it, but I always seem to struggle with getting it just right. It has helped my work to consider WHERE the light source would be and how that would affect an object's shadows, so it feels like I'm on the right track. I guess I just need more experience and time spent actually creating to improve, though.

Here's yesterday's piece. It’s called “Golden Hole #11”. Our instructor challenged the class to do a piece that only used three colors of paint: Black, white, and a primary color of our choice. I went with yellow and decided to do a golf theme. Not the best I’ve done (I wish I had made the putting green distinct from the rest of the course), but I am pleased that I managed to do it with the restrictions placed on me. Mixing colors into the right shades (particularly for something approaching green when you're starting out with only yellow) was a bit tough, but I think I did something that KIND of resembles a golf course. I dunno. I welcome any feedback that y'all wanna give me. ⛳

[Luwano]

At 2/13/20 08:22 PM, ZJ wrote:

Here's yesterday's piece. It’s called “Golden Hole #11”. Our instructor challenged the class to do a piece that only used three colors of paint: Black, white, and a primary color of our choice. I went with yellow and decided to do a golf theme. Not the best I’ve done (I wish I had made the putting green distinct from the rest of the course), but I am pleased that I managed to do it with the restrictions placed on me. Mixing colors into the right shades (particularly for something approaching green when you're starting out with only yellow) was a bit tough, but I think I did something that KIND of resembles a golf course. I dunno. I welcome any feedback that y'all wanna give me. ⛳

The lake kind of looks off to me. The way it bends could work if it‘s just expanding away from our viewpoint, but the waves also bend up and that’s where it starts to get hard to interprete its position / perspective. Of course the real point of this challenge was to practice mixing colors and that worked put, but I thought I should note that part anyways. I also would suggest adding some yellow highlights into the water too, next time. The dark black with just white waves doesn‘t work that well.

I like the distant trees and the texture that indicates grassy ground. I really don‘t know what the setup of your lessons is, how much time you have for every painting and how much work you do in class or at home, but if possible I would suggest that you look up references for future drawings. Just typing in „golf course sunset“ gives you several images that could be realized with just three colours. And trying to „draw what you see“ is a good practice usually. Of course you had a good idea here already, I am just saying it could help you with the planning and the composition before you start.

Looking forward to your newer stuff.

[Lillendandie]

Painting from life or finding photo references can really help your work. For example, if you want to paint a tree spend some time googling trees. Try to find a specific type of tree to inspire you. You don't have to paint everything from your mind alone, especially when you are just starting out.

[ZJ]

At 2/27/20 02:52 PM, Luwano wrote: Looking forward to your newer stuff.

At 2/27/20 07:15 PM, Lillendandie wrote: Painting from life or finding photo references can really help your work. For example, if you want to paint a tree spend some time googling trees. Try to find a specific type of tree to inspire you. You don't have to paint everything from your mind alone, especially when you are just starting out.

Thanks to both of you for your kind words! I've definitely used reference photos in said class before, particularly if I'm struggling with the shape or exact look of an object, but I probably should use them more. They're really great for seeing how light and shadows interact with certain objects.

Luwano, to answer your question: Our classes last two hours. I hypothetically could work on one painting for more than one class, but I want to maximize my time with my instructor by having him critique multiple pieces with various landscapes and objects in them instead of focusing on only a handful of designs.

Here was yesterday's painting class effort. It’s called “Sky Sailing”. The prompt was to only use blue, white, black, and brown paints in the composition. It’s not perfect, but I really like this one. Only wish some of the sky blended a tad better. I find myself painting something like grass or sky and then noticing there's still some small unpainted parts of the canvas in those areas which leads me to cover them up in a color that looks off compared to the original blend I had. Frustrating. I guess the solution is to just really make sure the background layer is totally completed before moving onto the foreground elements.

🎈

[TomFulp]

At 2/27/20 09:11 PM, ZJ wrote: 🎈

I don't have any particular painting expertise but it's fun to watch your work evolve with each new painting! It makes me want to take an art class. The balloon one feels the most refined so far.

[kidray76]

@Zj

Stop being a cock tease, posts more.

[ZJ]

At 3/11/20 04:46 PM, kidray76 wrote: @Zj

Stop being a cock tease, posts more.

Here's one from my last class. It's called “El Faro”.

My thoughts on it: Probably could have done more detailed work on the lighthouse, but I’m super stoked at how the cliff and water look. Really glad the instructor took the time to advise me on how to make the waves crashing onto the rocks appear in an authentic way.

💡

[kidray76]

At 3/11/20 06:16 PM, ZJ wrote:

At 3/11/20 04:46 PM, kidray76 wrote: @Zj

Stop being a cock tease, posts more.

Here's one from my last class. It's called “El Faro”.

My thoughts on it: Probably could have done more detailed work on the lighthouse, but I’m super stoked at how the cliff and water look. Really glad the instructor took the time to advise me on how to make the waves crashing onto the rocks appear in an authentic way.

💡

You're blending of colors has gotten better. The colors between the background and foreground are now complimenting each other. Nice job.

[ZJ]

At 3/6/20 08:28 AM, TomFulp wrote:

At 2/27/20 09:11 PM, ZJ wrote: 🎈

I don't have any particular painting expertise but it's fun to watch your work evolve with each new painting! It makes me want to take an art class. The balloon one feels the most refined so far.

Thank you! I agree about the balloon painting.

At 3/12/20 04:03 PM, kidray76 wrote:

You're blending of colors has gotten better. The colors between the background and foreground are now complimenting each other. Nice job.

Yeah, I feel like learning to blend and focusing on shadows/lighting in my works has really helped me as an artist. I certainly feel better about my paintings now than I did when I started.

Here's this week’s painting: This one is called “ELK Bridge”. I do like how the water and bush in front turned out. I'm NOT wild about how the bridge looks. This will be my last one for a while as tonight was the final class of this session. I’ll probably do more in the near future, though!

Feedback welcomed.

[LegolaSS]

Been following this through facebook and would like to say there has been a massive improvement since your first picture.

Keep at it, we all had to start some where.

[Luwano]

I agree with the others that each new painting shows improvement. Given your explanation on the time you have for each painting, it’s also explaining why parts of each painting are more detailed and others less. For example the balloon in that one painting is shaded well and pops out, while the mountains appear pretty much flat. Keep at it and soon when you look at your paintings from weeks or months ago you‘ll be excited by your progress.

Hope you can still practice on your own during all this pandemic shenanigans. If the workshop has stopped already you can also ask your questions here. Some of the art regs, art mods and forum mods are very experienced with traditional media and could surely answer all questions.

[ZJ]

Dusted off my equipment to take a virtual class. Basically watched a recorded video and made this painting of a Brazilian Porcupine from scratch using chalk and acrylic paints.

Feedback welcomed.