Some thoughts on painting...

If I can even call myself either (which is pretty pretentious already), I prefer think of myself as a painter rather than a drawer.

On lunch break at work (which is pretty much one giant lunch break, lolinternship), time for me to wax poetic.

What I like about painting:

Traditionally
-The smell of acrylic paint fresh out of the tube
-The little furrows left from a square brushhead in wet paint (goddammit I love square brushheads so freaking much, with nice stiff bristles)
-Getting so wrapped up into defining the shape of a patch or polygon of color that I completely forget what purpose it is supposed to serve, only that I want it to be pointed so and angular here
-Mixing colors on the canvas: blending two slightly wet edges, blending an unlikely blue into a warm, or vice versa
-Running my fingers over the curious smooth surface of dried acrylic
-Pushing patches of color to the edges; the little ridge that forms makes it feel like you're actually crafting a shape out of nothing but canvas and paint, making empty air and material on a flat canvas
-Taking the palette knife and smoosing on a nice flat plane of unbroken paint, so delicious and butter-smooth when it's wet, the delightful crinkle at the edge of this mark
-The texture! Painting at school, not worrying about waste, just layering it on thick and creamy 'till it looks like a spider web or stucco or a cupcake frosting
-The intermediate stage between the initial mark on blank canvas and the final refining stages: blocking out areas onto the rough sketch, not being afraid to mess up because hell, acrylic dries fast and I can cover it no problem
-The odd satisfaction of having little flecks of color all over my hands and nails

Digitally
-Paint Tool Sai: complete infatuation. Can't live without the amazing blending power of just the brush tool. Blend blend blend, blend blue into yellow and orange and red, put some grey in that warm and what the heck, even though it's grey it looks like blue.
-Zooming in: it's even easier to get into that weird shape-oriented state, where this patch of color is somehow meaningful despite being just a bit of shoulder or leg or something.
-Undo! An obvious one.
-Flipping: great for quality control. Happily, I've noticed over time that my drawings/paintings look less deformed when flipped now.
-Layers: some mixed feelings here; it's easy to get so wrapped up in each individual piece and forget the whole, but then again, the convenience!


Things I don't like about painting:

Traditionally
-Cleanup. The big one.
-Mixing paints. One of the problems I have is getting too lazy with this and reusing the same five colors until it all becomes a soupy grey mess.
-When the paint just won't listen to you and stubbornly refuses to get into that shape or texture
-When the white paint is contaminated and becomes that weird yellow-green-grey
-Transportation/storage. T______T I do love working large, but it is such a pain...
-The last stage of detail refinement: I love love love the middle refinement, but gosh I hate the tiny part.
-When the picture in your head doesn't match...

Digitally
-I need a better way to angle my CINTIQ so I don't break my neck.
-I don't bother too much with textures and filters, but I really should. It hangs over my head.
-No matter how amazing Sai is, it still just can't replicate the physical feeling of brush putting paint on canvas. An unfair observation.



TL;DR - Painting is fun and I need to do more of it before summer is over.

Sketches from my trip down to the San Dieguito Wetlands.

What, non-fanart from me?!

Anyway, last Friday I took a trip with the other interns down to the San Dieguito Wetlands restoration project down in Del Mar/San Diego.

Cool stuff man! I am glad I brought my trusty DS + Colors along for the ride.




Top is a view of the large saltwater basin.
2nd down is the (rich!) houses of Del Mar, stupidly built on sandspit...
3rd down is a view of the Wheeler North restoration kelp reef (haha, it is that darkish blob on the water).
Last is some random bit of SoCal industrial park that I passed riding the MetroLink.

(I have to say, these looked better on the teensy DS screen, but ah well. It's the speed-paint practice that counts.)

Anyway, 'twas an enlightening day for me. Helped me remember why I wanted to be an environmental engineer and all that jazz, something I lost sight of this past year through all my numerous early life crises and school-stress.

I really love the natural landscapes of Southern California. Yeah, it's dry and dessicated and brown, but powerfully so. I like stark things like rock and coast and grass sun-dried to gold. :)

Splurging, Spending, Squeeing

So usually I'm pretty frugal... until it comes to art supplies/stationary. :( (I have a really unholy fetish for such things. Stick me in an art supply store, hell, even an Office Max! and I can wander around for hours on end.)

I finally cracked and bought an R4DS for my Nintendo DS just so I could paint on DS Colors!"

First painting, and it's a Dragon Age fanart. Figures!



Also, with Colors you can make videos of the drawing process... it's really quite cool.

And so I uploaded my first YouTube video ever...



Then I discovered this website and splurged $60 on sexy sexy sexy waterbrushes, watercolors, dip pens, waterproof ink... oh guilt! I had better actually use all this stuff instead of just packratting like I usually do...