Eurydice

Eurydice
1920 x 1600
SketchBook

Lately I have been feeling somewhat lousy about a couple of things where painting is concerned. At least with my last piece of work (my first for 2023), I realised that I have heavily regressed to purely working instinctively again, and in struggling to bring the piece to life, it has made me realise what I might still need a great deal of work on: composition, tone and perspective. 

So I went in search of an instructional video on composition -- which I really should have done in the past, or if I did, probably should have paid more attention -- and I found this one, which helped a great deal. 

I do highly recommend this video. Do check it out, if you haven't. The explanations are delivered quite well, and there are pretty solid examples given in here too. I haven't seen the rest of the series, but I plan to continue (hopefully). 

Anyways, having seen the video, I took out my stylus and phone and started making a sketch, very reminiscent of some of the examples you will see in the video.

I was surprised at the sense of depth this sketch was able to achieve, and I felt quite happy about it, even without any sort of details on it. This was... I think... my first conscious experience of this particular aspect of making art. 

After the sketch, I went straight into painting and adding in the details almost very instinctively -- which was fine seeing as there was already work done for the foundation, and I didn't have to guess how the picture would generally look like anymore. 

Once again, a solid foundation makes for a more fulfilling and satisfying painting process. And fun too. 

Anyways, here's the close-up of our little 'Opheus' character. Why Orpheus? Because as I filled in the details, I began to realise that I may have been subconsciously inspired by SONG OF ORPHEUS from THE SANDMAN graphic novel.