I've been trying some new stuff and copying techniques this weekend (James Paick-http://scribblepadstudios.com/home.htm - and Gustave Courbet) to try to get better at both environments and painting in general. Not perfect, but a good start. I'm also working on what Ed Li (Disney Studios) spoke about in a class I took recently, specifically dark over light and light over dark (check out NC Wyeth). I'm finding that you can have a fg, mg and bg, but two of the three should be similar in value. The mg can have more texture or less texture to separate it. Any combination of those seems to me to be a winning formula.The two sketches took me maybe an hour as I have a baby behind me demanding attention by destroying our apartment, throwing our clothes in the garbage and etc.
The grey scale was done with marker and a General's charcoal white pencil. The color was done in Photoshop using an airbrush for the original Turquoise wash and then a wet brush for the warm compliment (learned that from a James Clyne Gnomon video). The greyscale darks are a 7 for the overall dark value with 8, 9, and 10 used to carve out darker shapes and shadows. The background is marker values of 2, 4, 5 with 5 creating the silouhettes and give me atmospheric perspective. In other sketches I did I used a Faber Castel "F" pen to knock out more, smaller shapes.
The class, "Sketching for Environment" was held at the Concept Design Academy in Pasadena. Cool place, cool people.
