and paste images and photos onto a canvas^ —
as a collage — and that gives me the colour
palette and theme ideas I have for the artwork.
Then I get on to the next preparation before
painting which is to find the main stock image/s
first and then do the sketch based on those
images. I always work in many layers when I
build up the different parts of a painting, so that
I can easily go in and move around the main
parts and change colouring as the artwork
progress. I tend to select a light source very
early on so that when I move from sketch to
more detailing I can get shadows and lit up
surfaces matching.
Once my layout feels balanced and in tune with
what I’m aiming to create, I will start detailing
different areas in several stages. If I’m painting
a landscape I tend to work from the faint
mountains or whatever view is in the far
background first and then move forward to the
foreground layer by layer. Then I go back the
other way around in several passes. For
character artworks that are usually made using
photographs I tend to start detailing the main
person first and then move on to the
environment near the character before I move
on to the background elements. For both kinds
of artworks I always finish off with an overall
tweak of curves, hues and brightness and then I
add final small details such as highlights at the
end.
I find that if I don’t have a clear idea of what I
want to paint, I rarely accomplish it and it gets
very hard to start. So researching and finding
references and visual aids in what I want to
accomplish before I start, helps me actually get
started. I will procrastinate unless I have a
visual goal in mind. Certain days you are just
not ‘in the zone’ and no matter what you try
there is no muse to keep you going or to make
you want to draw. And the feeling at the end of
the day of having produced nothing makes the
procrastinating feeling even worse. For me
personally a few things help. One is to not paint
that day, but to do something else that is
creative such as crafting, doodle with pen and
paper, play around with fractal formulas, work
on something in a 3D program instead or take
your camera and go outside to clear the head
and make some pictures. This helps me with
knowing that at the end of the day I have
actually done something even if it wasn’t that
particular artwork. ‘I still created something’ and
it helps me not feeling overly stressed. I
accomplished something that, in the long run,
can only help my career.
Another tip is to do quick and abstract speed
paints. Just pick a couple of colours, start
blurting them down on canvas with various
brushes to get fun shapes and then erase parts
of it to reveal more shapes, lines and so on.
Paint over with another brush using various
opacity levels. Once you are tired of one just
start another one. It can be quite a release to
just draw nothing at all, almost like nonsense.
There is no pressure or goal with it, but it helps
me release artists block. At the end of the day
you will still have a few or perhaps a whole
bunch of abstract speed paints. These thingstend to get my creative part of my mind to start
up again and I can get going the next day.
DAL: Thanks, that’s great advice. What’s your
own personal favourite image from your portfolio
and why?CL: I’m very proud over my “Element” series,
and especially the “Fire” version. The model is
my sister and I did the whole series based on
her in different poses. I really enjoyed playing
with the illusion of making the person actually
being made up of the element she represents.
So for the “Fire” one I used photos of solidified
lava that I had taken on a recent trip to HawaiiPicture: “Da Andor”, concept
illustration for Arcen Games.