TENTATIVE Sketchbook of eyrebrush

#1

Hummmm. Don’t know yet if I will be able to do justice to opening a sketchbook thread of my own! Rebecca has been twisting my arm! :scream::smiley: LOL! … well, she has invited me. LOL!

You may know me better as one of your life drawing models! LOL. However, art has been my life career - been teaching it - and various crafts - for 30 odd years! My first experience at MODELLING was when I was a 17 year old student at art school - on one occasion - when the model did not show up for our life drawing class one Tuesday evening. I offered to model for the class. Our tutor ‘umm-ed and ahh-ed’ about this for a few seconds, then said "all right, thank you; best keep your underpants on though! I DO remember, after all these years, feeling a little bit disappointed! There was a girl in the class I was so smitten with; wanted to impress her! LOL!

I have modelled a few times after this, later in life, just a couple of times. I have taken, just lately though, to modelling for life drawing classes, in my retirement, for various art societies and colleges. I’m finding it very rewarding, being back in the ‘art school’ environment, especially where I can interact with the students during rest breaks offering help and advice.

With so many things crowding my life at the moment, in my advancing years - er - prime of life - lol - I’m not sure how much time I will be able to devote to developing a sketchbook thread of this nature. If this were my sole persuit I could really put a lot into this! However …

Digital art is a whole new concept for me, a medium that is alian to me, I have to confess! I’m used to working DIRECT - that is with my fingers working on the surface of a paper or piece of canvass, within the same field of focus, where my eyes can concentrate on the tip of my pencil or brush! Working with my fingers on a digital tablet with my eyes elsewhere (on a computer screen) I find frustrating and handicapping! I might be swishing my brush around freely - as I do in reality - to often discover my fingers have wandered off the edge of the tablet! AHGGGG! It takes some moments to re-locate the cursor in the right place! These ‘interuptions’ to my flow of thought are a serious handicap for me.

Having said all this, I hope you will bear with me. I COULD display many drawings that I’ve done in the past few years. These, though, are readily available on my own website:

http://www.eyrebrush.free-online.co.uk

I’ve opened up, just, a link there to my digital art - which is non-existent yet, on my website: just a view of the brushes that I have at my disposal using Coral Photopaint, which I am not sure is suitable for this specialized purpose. I show it here: Ronnie …

#2

Ronnie, welcome ‘aboard’! :slight_smile: Glad to see you’ve started up a sketchbook!

I think with respect to digital painting, the key thing is that you don’t need a ton of brushes - just try the round soft and hard brushes, that should be plenty to get you started. Using the tablet takes some getting used to. This thread may be of interest to you:

Digital Painting: Tips and Techniques for Beginners With David René, Matellis, LotekK
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=199&t=369421

Hope to see some of your traditional and digital work here! Your contributions as a model are most appreciated. :slight_smile:

#3

Hi…Ron…:slight_smile:
GREAT to see you starting a sketch book thread…:thumbsup:
You’ll get used to that tablet…Just kick back in your chair,…a couple of feet away from the screen,…rest the tablet on your lap,…that way it is out of your line of sight, and mind.
Just don’t look at it while your painting, pretend it doesn’t exist…just look at the screen is all you have to do…:scream:
Your mind will ajust to the boundries of the tablet…just like a blind person knows how many steps there are from the front door to the curb kind of thing…:slight_smile:
I think you will do great drawings and paintings, once you find and settle on the tools that fit your need…most of them are pretty close to the real deal, as far as when you apply pressure on your pen and tablet…there are only two brushes that I use on a regular basis in my paintings, one gives a very airy or atmospheric stroke when the brush size is made large…I use it largely to just block in the colors, lights and darks, then make the size of that same brush smaller as I go for the details…same brush goes all the way down to a very fine line. The other brush I use is just a soft blender, to smooth out some of the rough edges were needed…I just vary the size of that blender brush the same as the other brush according to the size of the area that I want to blend…The painter #9 program that I use, has some fancy colored spotlights in it…don’t know if your program has them or not…I use them as a tinting method, instead of brushing on a tint with a brush, works the same basically…:slight_smile:
ANYWAY…GREAT TO SEE YOU IN HERE …RON…LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOUR JOURNY AND ADVENTURE IN DIGITAL…:thumbsup:
TAKE CARE
Glenn

#4

Ron fantastic!! Having seen your sketch before I’m really looking forward to what you’ll post here!

#5

looking forward to see your sketchbook develop sir…

#6

Wow. Where do I start? You’ll have to forgive this ol’-timer, new to this sort of thing! (I’m 70 next month! - perish the thought!)

First, thank you Rebecca for your invite to open my own sketckbook here, and the link to “Tips and techniques for beginners”! (for digital stuff). I will take the advice offered here as I can.

I’m only afraid I might not be able to do justice to this new venture. Thank you, Glenn, for your encouragement and advice. In response to this I have TRIED to have a go this morning to develop something, using the tablet and the brush tool. Not sure if the software at my disposal is ideal for this media. The ‘brushes’ that I’ve used SEEM to be ok at this stage. Having said this, I’m really only scratching the surface of Coral Photopaint! For want of having something to have a go at, on trial, at the spare of the moment, I’m using one of my OWN poses, :scream: Ahggg! Sorry for this!

Thanks, also, to Magdalena and Johan for your welcome and encouragement!

Johan, less of this ‘Sir’ stuff! LOL! I’m just as much as a novice with this digital stuff as YOU are to drawing and painting! It does not matter at what stage of life we are at - we are ALWAYS learning! I shall probably make a right ‘show’ of myself with this new medium!

Yes, I’ve had a go at viewing your OWN - and other’s - sketch books! I have to say that some of them are NOT easy to navigate! The ‘field’ is SO vast! I feel like a bather, in my swimming trunks, paddling about on the beach - and suddenly losing contact with the sand below me! There is SO much to take in!

Anyway, here’s my first effort with this digital stuff:
Trial, stage one … first stage.

#7

Ronnie,

Pretty great for a first effort! :slight_smile: Must be fantastic to have a great model, lol! Hope to see you do more of this if you enjoy it. :slight_smile:

#8

:smiley: Thanks, Rebecca. I’ve tried to develop another stage with this today. I’ve saved it and uploaded it to my webspace in order to provive an URL to it. However, I’m finding this part of the proceedure extaordinarily difficult! I’ll suss it out, EVENTUALLY! LOL.

Ronnie.:scream:

#9

Heh, no worries Ronnie - here’s the link to the image posting tutorial: :slight_smile:

New to CGTalk? Learn how to post IMAGES here!
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=177&t=267088

Looking forward to seeing your update!

#10

I’m a little puzzled here, Rebecca. Your links refer to photobucket. They don’t allow nude images, Do they?

#11

Ronnie,

See these posts specifically:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2541098&postcount=6

[http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2541101&postcount=7](http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2541101&postcount=7)

You don't have to use photobucket as an image host - it's just the example I used in the tutorial. ;) Since you have your own web host, simply copy paste the image URL as shown in the above links. :)

So, for example, the URL of the first image you posted was:

http://www.eyrebrush.free-online.co.uk/Photos/Digital%20Art/TrialA.jpg

Just post that URL into the yellow mountain / sun icon when you are creating a reply, then your image will appear. Just be sure to give your new jpeg image a new name so you do not overwrite the first image. :slight_smile:

#12

Thanks, Rebecca. However, what you are referring to is not the problem that I have. It’s actually creating the URLs themselves on my webspace that I’m having difficulty with! It’s proving a long laborious process! It’s a problem I have to sort out for myself. The images I upload to my webspace just don’t appear if there is the SLIGHTEST mistake: it might just be a capital letter somewhere when it should be lower case!

Be patient with me. I’ll get used to this procedure, eventually! LOL.

#13

Ah, gotcha, no problem. :slight_smile:

When naming your images, you can’t use ; ’ [ ] or any unusual characters. If you have a space in the name, for example, Test 1, try naming it Test_1 instead. I have a feeling it’s something to do with the characters you are naming your files with. Let me know if you have additional problems, and I will try to help. :slight_smile:

#14

Hey Ron! Its great to have you here!!.:applause: looking forward to lots of great stuff from you!:bounce:

#15

At last! Got myself sorted - I think:bounce: LOL!
I’ve tried using thin lines to consolidate the drawing - well, I’ve made a start in the time that I had today. I find it very weird drawing with this instrument. However, no doubt I’ll get used to it. The one annoying problem is my chair. It’s comfy enough; it swivels and it tilts back; BUT it has arm rests. The one on the right is perfect for giving my working arm support while working my roller-ball mouse. (Don’t like the normal type of mouse. Keep running out of space on the table, which is irritating, and can’t get the same amount of fine cursor control). However, to use my drawing tablet in the same manner as I would with a pencil on a sheet of paper I need free arm movement. This arm rest restricts my elbow, and I have to lift the pen off the surface, leaving the cursor where it is, and relocate further over to the left on the tablet. When drawing with fine lines the cursor is impossible to see as it is the same colour as the background and is so small!

Anyway, here is my second stage, using the fine lines. Thought I would use a light colour. I think I’ll work into this now using a dark colour.

Hello, anandpg. Thanks for your welcome.

Ronnie.

#16

You could try putting a few mouse pads under your tablet. I’m not sure that you’d have a lot of extra mousepads laying about (as you’re not likely as firmly ensconced in the geek camp), but maybe a large book would work. If you put something under it would it give you a few extra centimeters to clear the arm rest and get the motion you’d find comfortable?
(A great use for an encyclopedia brittanica in this wikipedia age ;)). The bit with the cursor sounded a bit odd; is your tablet mapped to the tablet, or set up to mimic a mouse?

Working digitally requires a huge expenditure of patience early, mainly when you’re learning to do the same thing you could do traditionally and it takes 3 times as long. It does pay off though. It’s a truly non-linear medium, with an incredible number of approaches to any visual problem – well worth the time, but a bit of a pain to (re)learn.

Lovely life and energy in your piece so far. With a start like that I imagine it’s going to feel natural for you very quickly :).

#17

Hi Ron!

First, thank you for the anatomy references you have provided to this community. I’m glad to learn that you’ll be participating in the painting side of things as well! Your traditional art experience already shows in your earliest digital efforts, I can’t wait to see more!

Working on a wacom should feel fairly natural soon enough! I have no tips on the arms of your chair and lack of space, but I will acknowledge the fine balance between comfort and functionality! Personally, I can’t stand my wacom in mouse mode, I keep it in pen mode where the upper right portion of my wacom tablet is mapped to the upper right corner of my screen.

Keep up the good work!

-Adam

#18

Ron ,You will be up an running with the wacom,I predict, in a week at most! I think Knilblink made a valid point regarding the mouse and pen mode in wacom.
And the approach u mention is the exactly the approach how it needs to be done,(along with free elbow movement!)
Also try and make sure u have all the drivers set up correctly,I think the white lines dont have opacity jitter,
What software do u use ,You can choose your cursor to be visible like a brush icon or something, most softwares have such options!
Wacom has wacom properties settings where u can customise the settings for each application u use.

But having said all that the pencil is the pencil!

Cheers and Welcome!:slight_smile:

#19

Ron (everyone seems to call you Ron so I will too :smiley: )

check out your chair… you might be able to remove the left chair arm.
It’s imperatave that you have no restrictions whatsoever concerning movement of your arm and hands. If you feel uncomfy when moving your arm/hand in certain directions or ways, you will subconciently adjust your arm/hand position, which is the exact thing to avoid, even if it is only the slightest change.
The thing is this causes extra pressure/stress on tendons and muscles.

Believe me, a comfortable position to work is so very important to stay healthy.

About the image hosting problem you seem to have:
sometimes when you resize images (eg in ACDSee), the .jpg file extension might suddenly be transformed into .JPG
Case sensitivity can be a pain sometimes but as you said you’ll get used to it :wink:

About your painting:
man it really shows you have a history in traditional media.
I don’t know if this photopaint software supports layers but if it does you could add your lines to a different layer and lower the opacity of it or change the blending mode, so the lines blend in a bit more.

Here’s a tutorial on how to use layers in case you are not familiar with it. It’s for photoshop but the principe is the same…

http://www.le.ac.uk/webcentre/downloads/advanced_graphics/advancedgraphics_pdf5.pdf

#20

Hi Ron
I visited your website - really good work!
Looks like you have got a really full life with lots of activities happening :thumbsup:
IMHO - Getting a really good tablet is essential to do drawing in CG. I hummed and hawed over getting a 9"x12" wacom intous - I will never regret that decision - the bigger the tablet area, the more like traditional drawing it is. Good luck - I will be watching this thread.

Gord