Hi,
I noticed that some persons participate more than once. Can we do that or if we are supposed to present only 5 thumbnails for the whole challenge?
Thank you for answering me.
My first 6 attempts of 2"x2" landscape thumbnails. Never worked in such small size. These were created with acrylics, which is drying a bit too fast for this kind of work but this is really challenging and very fun. Trying to work on better readability and better contrast/colour combinations. Maybe I will try 1-2 batch with tempera or pastels, and I definitely want to create 1 digital batch too. This challenge is amazing and helps a lot in grouping values, shapes, warm and cool colours, improves colour choice and keeps fit the creative mind. I know, some of the thumbnails doesn't even look like the reference photo :) but if you have time for giving some feedback or any suggestions how could they be improved, they will be very appreciated. Thank you
Hey! Newbie here. I saw the contest Friday night and started giving myself a crash course in landscapes the next morning.
I've never painted so I decided to shmear charcoal around in the interest of producing something presentable. I do love color though, so I used these snazzy post-it notes. They're about the right size and I think the colors add mood. :)
All comments appreciated!
Here are 7 attempts + photo references , I use only hard brush and try to simplify but...
Anyway this was great to do this. And it's a good way to complete another challenge for me which is to draw/paint every single day during January :)
Ooh I really like the black and white approach. It's interesting to see you see you take advantage of the small scale to do perspective lines - that's a great idea!
My first attempt at thumbnail painting! Simplifying rocks into readable shapes was pretty hard but I tried my best to apply Tiffanie's tips. Please let me know if you have any comments!
I like the brushes as well gives it a nice abstract feeling. I think if you applied some atmospheric perspective, it would look better than the reference.
Hi! Here are my thumbnails: What is working / not working for you? Thanks for your feedback! These are inspired by "Los Angeles 200 A Bicentennial Celebration" by Art Seidenbaum and photos by John Malmin
I like how vibrant the colors are. The cows look like they have been rendered well, but the negative space between the head of the one on the left and the rump of the one on the right feels sharp and a little bossy to me. And the hill behind them is a bit ambiguous, I can’t tell if it’s a mountain, or a shore line. If it’s a mountain/cliff, then a horizon would help unambiguate. If it’s a shoreline, then fading to a cooler tone near the top might help.
i really like the colors on the ships, and the punchiness of the white cloud in the third one. The fourth one feels a little flat, I think it’s because the tree trunk is the same thickness from ground to branches, and the three bales of hay closest to the viewer seem the same size. Maybe exaggerating the size of the nearest one will make the perspective come alive?
The sheep is probably my favorite, though the houses in the distance dwarf the forest, so they feel to be out of scale. Those sheep in the foreground are soft and moody, which I love.
My first 8 attempts, with photo references. I had no idea how much effort this challenge would take, but the process is great fun! Any feedback is much appreciated.
I don’t like these because if you submit them then I can’t even hope to win this challenge. ;)
in the first painting, I don’t think the square tower is needed - it feels contrary to the story of the beach. I think simplifying by omitting it would help.
I absolutely love the second one, though it reads more like rocky ledges to me than trees.
Number three is really fabulous, the way you have rendered the textures, and managed to define the space with the bright white sky, and light blue distant hills works really well. The structure gets a little lost, and I think it’s integral to the story in this one, so maybe try a very light value (or even straight white?) for the roof to see if that separates it from the hillside and really defines it as a building?
Seven is easily my favorite of the bunch. The shimmer you have rendered on the river just works beautifully.
I like these! The sky in the first one is really nicely done, and I like how you simplified the background. The cactus feels rudimentary, I think because of its width, and tone. Maybe using a brown or ochre color instead of green would divorce it from the mental image I have if a cactus? Because it’s dusk (or dawn I guess) the colors would be less saturated, and because the it’s contrajoure (I don’t know how to spell that… because the light is behind the cactus) I think it would be more silhouetted (nope, can’t spell that either.)
EDIT: Contre-jour, that’s what I was looking for, and amazingly, I seplled silhouetted correctly.
I would love any feedback on this, I’m trying to simplify this image in my mind for this challenge. I keep wanting to add the rocks in on the left, but I don’t know if they help or hurt. I’m leaning toward getting rid of them in keeping with the simplification part of this challenge.
Wow! These are so emotive! The aggressive lines and contrasting tones feel visceral and expressive! I love it. Landscapes so often feel trite and dreamy, but you have abstracted them and turned them into something like a landscape that’s ready for a fight. I love it. There is a risk that they have been abstracted to the point where they no longer read like landscapes, but I’m not sure how to fix that while maintaining the terse, scratchy style you have going.
I have already posted these thumbnails today, but I do not see them in this thread. My apology if this is a duplicate post. I created these four thumbnails from imagination, using traditional gouache method, just playing with different color combination.
Hello. This is my first batch of thumbnail paints all done in one session. Had a lot of dissatisfaction and a hard time painting these because of the round brush I use, somehow big to manipulate some shapes and it absorbs too much water that makes a watercolor effect which I'm not aiming for. I can't find the other picture I used as reference, I forgot where I saw it.
My first three thumbnails. I feel like I'm not quite achieving what I want. I find myself being beholden to the colours in the photo which, I'm trying to break out of.
Here are the first two images I've made so far, out of five. The daylight one was tricky, managing the dark and light values of snow, pushing them to the extremes to create that appearance of sunlight.
Image number four painted from life, like the whole series. A gloomy day with freezing rain. I used "mud" (all my leftover palette gouache) to paint this scene. I tried to stage everything so that it reads simply and go for a pleasing abstract composition.
Here is the third image. Twinkling sodium and mercury vapor streetlamps on the hill behind our home. I observed the scene for several minutes from a darkened room, and then painted from memory. The hill and the sky were almost like one thing. The border between them was soft and blurry and I really liked that, as well as the little pools of light spilling through the branches here and there.
One down, four to go! I enjoyed painting this outside for a fleeting ten minutes or so as the sun disappeared and the temperature plunged to 24 F. This is how our chicken coop appeared this January evening as the hens roosted for the night. I love the lighting, which only looks like this for a few minutes before dark. I took the sketch inside, where the paint promptly melted (it was ice) and blurred the scene in an automated wet-into-wet technique. I then came back with opaques and reshaped the forms and colors as best as I could remember. I scumbled and made sure no edges were too distinct, which is the way the scene looks to the eye in real life.
What do you think of this scene, the technique, the story, or the palette?
Hi,
I really like the mood in this piece. what you're doing with your light, especially the way the warm light is coming out from the coop against the cool grays! I would only suggest maybe going darker with some of the values in the background and straightening up the corners. The scene definitely conveys how cold probably it probably was.
Works in Progress
Post your process sketches and works in progress for the challenge here if you want feedback from the community.
Final Submissions
Post final submissions in the final submissions thread
by January 24th at 11:59pm PST.