Digital Drawing/Painting

Getting around to it

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I started this digital painting near the end of October 2020. I fiddled with it some more in 2021 and thought I was finished with it in 2021 and signed it. I had forgotten about it then rediscovered it in 2022 and decided to add some more detail to it. I decided to leave the signed date as 2021. I was poking around in some folders on my tablet recently and here it is.

Spooner’s Cove No. 01
Infinite Painter 7 | Galaxy Tab S7 tablet | 3000 x 3000 pixels
Spooner’s Cove is located in the Montana de Oro State Park on the California central coast, San Luis Obispo County.

Blackie and Bluey in Progress

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I saw this little bird outside a delicatessen in Cayucos a couple of years ago. It was perched on a metal post about three feet away from me and took a couple of pictures of it looking around. I thought it would be a good subject for some experimentation with abstract colors and background textures.

Every digital painting is an experiment and learning experience. Sometimes it they are exercises in letting go and breaking out of creative ruts and blocks.

So far most of the colors are solid. I’m working with some textures in the darker green at the bottom and the darker red at the top but haven't change the colors to bring out more of the texture. I have used a combination of Old Inker, Proko Pencil, Castell, and Old Oil brushes throughout the painting.

The finished painting with more textures added and emphasised and a few more details added. I tried something different with the texture in the red at the top by making lots of tiny circular strokes with the Old Oil brush using the same red as the fill. I used a darker shade of the red and the fill tolerance set to 2. Because of the tight texture the fill turned out unexpectedly uneven which made for a more interesting texture.

3000 x 3000 pixels, Infinite Painter 7, Galaxy Tab S7 tablet with S-Pen

Reworking Spooner's Cove No. 02

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I recently took another look at the Spooner's Cove No. 02 picture I created last year and decided to make some changes to it. I wanted to add some more detail while keeping the abstract theme and retaining the flat colors.

I didn't want to add texture to the colors like I have been doing by brushing over colors with the “Old Oil” brush using the same color which creates slightly darker and lighter streaks then filling it with a darker shade of the color. See the picture below for an example.

The original painting. It didn’t seem as finished as I thought it was and I wasn’t happy with the foreground.

I began by changing the foreground by adding some more shapes and modifying a few colors.

I added some more colors to the foreground and made some changes to the sky, the beach and the small section of waves and rock at the left of the picture.

Using the “Old Oil” brush this texture was created by brushing random strokes over a block filled with yellow using the same yellow color. This created some very light marks. Using the Fill tool with a tolerance setting of 2 or 1, the yellow block was filled with a darker color bringing out the lighter marks.

In the Pink or on the pink

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I'm working on a pink version of the orange colored recliner in our living room. I'm trying to figure out what object to put on the seat or one of the arm rests and so for I haven't come up with anything.

I’m thinking of adding this to a series of the same chair in different colors and poses or various kinds of chairs.

The actual chair is orange. I chose to do a pink version with some other unnatural colors surrounding it.

How I start a picture

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I thought I would show a picture of how I start a digital painting.

I start out by drawing black outlines of objects and shapes in the picture then quickly add flat colors to the shapes. These colors are starting points that I will add textures to and change colors by painting over them or refilling them with other colors.

A Bakersfield Hills painting progress 4

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I made a few color changes to this painting yesterday morning as you can see in the before and after pictures. I rather like both versions which presents a slight dilemma. Which one to keep? Or is it finished?

Before changing a few of the colors in the pyramid hill, deep shadow at the bottom of the hill and some of the oranges in hill and above to the right.

After making the color changes.

Subtle changes

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I recently received some kind words of critique from a fellow Infinite Painter user of a painting I posted on the community forum. After following his advice I made some changes to it and decided to do the same with this one by toning down the greens of the hills to add some depth.

The painting before reworking the hills.

After: I faded the hills and some of the trees in the background by making the colors not so vivid to help make them recede and give the picture a bit more depth. I also changed the greens in the foreground. I need to do a bit more work on it before I call it a day.

A Bakersfield Hills Painting Progress 3

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In this post I’m showing how I change colors slightly after adding some texture with the Old Oil brush I made a slight modification to. Infinite Painter gives one lots of options to make changes to brushes or create a completely new brush.

Detail of the top right corner of the painting showing texture created by brushing over areas with the same color. The Old Oil brush leaves streaks of light and dark versions of the color as you can see in the blue purple color.

I typically use the fill tool with a tolerance between 1 & 3. This time I set the tolerance to 1 so it would fill only the closest matching color that I choose to click on. This brings out a bit more of the brushed textures. Overall the color changes may appear to be rather subtle but compare the darker blue areas.

A Bakersfield Hills Painting Progress 1

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Here is a real sneak peek at a new Bakersfield Hill painting I started last recently. The outlines have been drawn and I will fill the shapes with solid colors after which I will add textures using various brushes.

I start out with a basic drawing then add solid colors using the fill tool in Infinite Painter before using various brushes to add textures.

Another Bakersfield Hills work in progress

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I need to do some more work on the sky and clouds. There are a few other things with foreground and the purple hills in the back that need a little more work.

See the finished painting in the “recent work” gallery of this site.

This will be Bakersfield Hills No. 13 when it is finished. Based on a photo taken in July, 2022. The hills of California are forever brown in the summer.

Back in the saddle again

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I haven’t done any art work for the past couple of months mostly because of some needful distractions and partly because of a creative slump. I decided I needed to get myself out of this creative fear. So having been inspired by places seen during our recent trip to California, I’m back in the saddle again with some digital painting. Here is a sneak peak at something I started working on today.

All of my digital land and seascape paintings have been squares (3000 x 3000 px). This time I thought I would do a size that I hope will fit a more standard size frame such as a 16 x 20 inch and be easier to frame.

Update August 3rd
You can see the finished piece in the “recent work” gallery of this site.

Bakersfield Hills No. 11 | This one is from a reference picture I took out the car window while my wife was driving east along Hwy 58 through the hills above Bakersfield, California on our way home from Cayucos on the central coast a week ago. It’s late July and the hills above Bakersfield are golden and brown with punctuations of green.

Infinite Painter v7 on a Galaxy Tab S7 | 2880 x 2304 px