Monday, January 12, 2009

Comissioned painting of a lotus. Stage 2. Can't find stage one, but will keep looking. 

9 Comments:

Rome said...

I am digging that! i love how it fades back into the dark

Rome said...

It might look even more interesting is you were able to intensify one or two of the highlights, so that you have some really bright notes, sicne you have a lot of darkness, the lights will really stand out. But be careful it could get hairy

Rome said...

the point is to go "beyond" your reference, everyone knows u looked at a photograph but you don't want to remind them of that, you want to put in elements that visually stimulating and correct but are not neccessarily included in your reference, though could be. Remember that time on ferry when I was drawing a guys a face and I drew the highlights on his face more intensely then they were?

Alias said...

That's the plan.I'm being carefull with the highlights. Slowly accenting it as I go along. The centre of the lotus will be shimmering, and some of it's light will bounce off onto the petals. I'll post stage 3 tomorrow night and you'll see what I mean. I hear you on "going beyond the point of refference". I actually did in a few areas. the highlights I'm applying to it are more subtle. I'm not focusing so much on changing the composition of the flower, but rather the mood via, softening areas where I found to be a bit too respendent, and shifting a few petals here and there. the background I also fabricated and will make much more of it that you can see at the moment. Thanks for the feedback though.

Rome said...

Just remember Picasso's quote:
A simple person paints a complicated painting, but a complicated person paints a simple painting.

When you have many ideas in your head, the challenge becomes to choose which ones to bring to the surface..

Rome said...

also, in order to go beyond your reference you need to understand it well, without that it is very possible to achieve naivity. Some naivity is good, but that's another story eh?

Alias said...

I trust it will turn out fine. Don't want to put too much energy into this piece. I rather be like Nike, and... "just do it". Rather stay true to the refference by about 60-70%. This will ensure a more adequate grasping of the nature of the refference as is, so that in the future I could more confidantly take it somewhere else. By the way...I began a portrait of Sigmund frud last night...will post tomorrow.

Peace in the middle east,

-Pablo Cordero

angie b. said...

Hi, Pablo!
I tried to comment on this one from work when it was first posted... but I just ended up getting our site blocked at work :(.

Anyway... I wanted to say that I liked the lighting. The deep tone of what, appears to me to be a hole, contrasts against the flower in such a way that it, like, makes it sparkle. The blue used as the shadows underneath the right petals is luminescent. To my eye, this causes it to feel like the light is passing through the top petals. I think it is quite effective.

Are you using oil paints? Roughly how large are your pieces?

Alias said...

Thanks for noticing these details. Yep,I'm using oil paints. My paintings range from 16/20" to 48/70" in dimension.