Click here to see all the New Year's Resolution submissions.
Showing posts with label Project Onomatopee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Project Onomatopee. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Project Onomatopee: "New Year's Resolution" (Jan 2011)
This was my January submission to Project Onomatopee for the theme of "New Year's Resolution".
Click here to see all the New Year's Resolution submissions.
Click here to see all the New Year's Resolution submissions.
Thursday, 18 November 2010
"Easier-to-see" versions of Project Onomatopee "Future" image now online
I've just uploaded a sequence of "easier-to-see" images that gradually reveal the hidden picture from my submission for Project Onomatopee's "Future" theme [my original submission is below].
These new "easier-to-see" images can be found at the bottom of my previous blog post [there's a link included below]. But if you are going to check out these new images then please scroll down slowly so as to not spoil the surprise of the hidden picture. (The new uploads are relatively small and as you scroll down the hidden picture will become more and more obvious).
If you want to check them out then please click here to go directly to the blog post with new images.
These new "easier-to-see" images can be found at the bottom of my previous blog post [there's a link included below]. But if you are going to check out these new images then please scroll down slowly so as to not spoil the surprise of the hidden picture. (The new uploads are relatively small and as you scroll down the hidden picture will become more and more obvious).
If you want to check them out then please click here to go directly to the blog post with new images.
Monday, 15 November 2010
Project Onomatopee: "Future" (October 2010)
For October's Project Onomatopee theme of "Future" I decided to try something really conceptual; but before explaining what it is, here is the image that I submitted:
[Addendum - 18/11/10: If you can see NOTHING other than text in the image above then please read the rest of this article before investigating the "easier-to-see" images that I've added to the bottom of this blog post... I've added these new "easier-to-see" versions of the image in order to compensate for the contrasting colour/brightness settings of different computer screens. Please scroll slowly between each image so as to not spoil the surprise - because the hidden picture becomes more and more obvious the further down you scroll!].
What you should see at first glance:
You should be seeing a black page with some white text at the top and bottom, as well as a very dark grey rectangular box surrounded by a thin white outline.
If you cannot see the very dark grey box you may need to adjust your computer monitor slightly until the black/grey colour difference becomes vaguely visible.
So the image suggests that the future is a big black hole?:
Nope, it's a bit more complex than a simple image like that... To discover the message you will need to click on the image for the full-size version, and then, depending on whether or not the dark grey box is completely visible on-screen (or half hidden off-screen) you may need to scroll down a bit. Once you have the dark grey box completely visible on-screen simply stare into it for a few seconds and all should slowly be revealed!
What should happen?:
As you stare into the dark grey box you should gradually begin to notice various grey dots appearing out from the darkness. As your eyes get more accustomed to the darkness, you should begin to see some patterns forming from the grey dots, until eventually you see a little drawing appear on the right-hand-side of the box alongside a short message on the left-hand-side of the box.
How is this relevant to the "future" theme?:
This is where the image gets conceptual. Rather than being a simple image where the picture displays a clear message, this image is more experimental and requires both interaction and a bit of time to become understandable... So in this regard, the "future" theme of the image is not simply that the future is a mysterious black hole, but rather that you have to look into the image and wait until the near future [in real-time] before you can see the full image!
How was this image inspired?:
It was basically just a quick experiment (which wasn't quite as quick as I originally anticipated) that I was curious to discover whether or not would work.
It's based on eye sight, the night sky, and optical illusions. For example when you look at the sky on a clear dark night you originally see only a few bright stars, but as you stare into the dark sky for a longer time your eyes slowly adapt to the darkness allowing you to see more and more stars.
With the creation of this image I wanted to test whether or not a similar effect could be achieved digitally on a computer screen. I had thought about creating something similar to the Ishihara Test for colour blindness (the circles made of coloured dots that contain a hidden number or shape), however the success of such an image would depend greatly upon a number of variables including: the colours used, the colour calibration of different computer monitors, and the potential colour blindness of my audience. Therefore it was very likely that such an image would be visible to most - if not all - people, and require no time at all to become fully visible, which misses the point of the future-themed image.
For the simplest, and hopefully best result, I stuck to simply using black and grey tones (similar to the night sky and stars) to test my theory about whether or not the experimental image would work.
The image was easy enough to create, and certainly on my own computer it seems to work, however I still have my doubts about whether or not it works properly: Is it too dark/hidden? Is it too bright/obvious? Can other people see it all or only part of it? How long does it take to see it? Is the end result worth the time?
Perhaps this style of image would work better when printed - where it looks relatively consistent for everybody; rather than on a computer screen where the brightness/contrast, surrounding lights, and viewing angle can all affect how the image appears.
I don't know if I'll try doing more advanced work with this technique, but it'd be useful to hear whether or not the image worked properly for you and what you thought of it.
Sorry if it hasn't worked and it only wasted your time!
[Addendum - 18/11/10]
Here is the "easier-to-see" sequence of images that gradually reveal the hidden picture within the original image. Please scroll down slowly so as to not spoil the surprise:
[Addendum - 18/11/10: If you can see NOTHING other than text in the image above then please read the rest of this article before investigating the "easier-to-see" images that I've added to the bottom of this blog post... I've added these new "easier-to-see" versions of the image in order to compensate for the contrasting colour/brightness settings of different computer screens. Please scroll slowly between each image so as to not spoil the surprise - because the hidden picture becomes more and more obvious the further down you scroll!].
What you should see at first glance:
You should be seeing a black page with some white text at the top and bottom, as well as a very dark grey rectangular box surrounded by a thin white outline.
If you cannot see the very dark grey box you may need to adjust your computer monitor slightly until the black/grey colour difference becomes vaguely visible.
So the image suggests that the future is a big black hole?:
Nope, it's a bit more complex than a simple image like that... To discover the message you will need to click on the image for the full-size version, and then, depending on whether or not the dark grey box is completely visible on-screen (or half hidden off-screen) you may need to scroll down a bit. Once you have the dark grey box completely visible on-screen simply stare into it for a few seconds and all should slowly be revealed!
What should happen?:
As you stare into the dark grey box you should gradually begin to notice various grey dots appearing out from the darkness. As your eyes get more accustomed to the darkness, you should begin to see some patterns forming from the grey dots, until eventually you see a little drawing appear on the right-hand-side of the box alongside a short message on the left-hand-side of the box.
How is this relevant to the "future" theme?:
This is where the image gets conceptual. Rather than being a simple image where the picture displays a clear message, this image is more experimental and requires both interaction and a bit of time to become understandable... So in this regard, the "future" theme of the image is not simply that the future is a mysterious black hole, but rather that you have to look into the image and wait until the near future [in real-time] before you can see the full image!
How was this image inspired?:
It was basically just a quick experiment (which wasn't quite as quick as I originally anticipated) that I was curious to discover whether or not would work.
It's based on eye sight, the night sky, and optical illusions. For example when you look at the sky on a clear dark night you originally see only a few bright stars, but as you stare into the dark sky for a longer time your eyes slowly adapt to the darkness allowing you to see more and more stars.
With the creation of this image I wanted to test whether or not a similar effect could be achieved digitally on a computer screen. I had thought about creating something similar to the Ishihara Test for colour blindness (the circles made of coloured dots that contain a hidden number or shape), however the success of such an image would depend greatly upon a number of variables including: the colours used, the colour calibration of different computer monitors, and the potential colour blindness of my audience. Therefore it was very likely that such an image would be visible to most - if not all - people, and require no time at all to become fully visible, which misses the point of the future-themed image.
For the simplest, and hopefully best result, I stuck to simply using black and grey tones (similar to the night sky and stars) to test my theory about whether or not the experimental image would work.
The image was easy enough to create, and certainly on my own computer it seems to work, however I still have my doubts about whether or not it works properly: Is it too dark/hidden? Is it too bright/obvious? Can other people see it all or only part of it? How long does it take to see it? Is the end result worth the time?
Perhaps this style of image would work better when printed - where it looks relatively consistent for everybody; rather than on a computer screen where the brightness/contrast, surrounding lights, and viewing angle can all affect how the image appears.
I don't know if I'll try doing more advanced work with this technique, but it'd be useful to hear whether or not the image worked properly for you and what you thought of it.
Sorry if it hasn't worked and it only wasted your time!
[Addendum - 18/11/10]
Here is the "easier-to-see" sequence of images that gradually reveal the hidden picture within the original image. Please scroll down slowly so as to not spoil the surprise:
Monday, 13 September 2010
Project Onomatopee: "Culture" (August 2010)
Project Onomatopee's theme for August was "Culture", and below is my submission.
This image was more-or-less made at the last-minute, and if I had spent a bit more time on it then I'd probably have made the layout more minimalist in order to make the message clearer. But you learn from your mistakes I suppose...
From the moment the theme was announced (at the beginning of August) I always planned on doing something about the death of culture by making something like:
- a collage of corporate logos;
- a picture of the solar system with a massive McDonald's sign sticking out from Earth;
- a photoshopped picture of people from less-developed countries fighting over second-hand designer clothing;
- or simply a text-based poster saying something like "Kill Culture - Just Do It" to portray how big corporations and the rise of the Internet have made almost everything seem local in the 21st Century.
Despite all those ideas, I never felt entirely happy about what the finished image might look like, so I constantly delayed the project until the last couple of days - at which point I felt as though I just had to get something, anything, done.
At that late stage I decided to see what a Google Image Search made of the term "culture"... The results seemed very random and not at all like I had expected, which actually turned out to be quite useful!
It seems as though Google, for the past decade or so, has had the answer to anything you could ever think to ask: But if an Image Search for "culture" didn't produce the results I had expected then perhaps I was correct to think that culture is dead (or at the least is dying).
From this I remembered about the infamous Racist Google picture that appeared last year showing a Google search result for "White People Stole My Car" returning the query "Did you mean: Black People Stole My Car?"
I decided that for my Project Onomatopee submission about culture I could create a similar Google picture, whereby a search result for "What is culture?" asks if you meant "What WAS culture?"... The theory being that my "culture is dead" statement from earlier would now be 'proven' by an omniscient Google that doesn't recognize the present tense of the question "What is culture?" because culture has been dead for a long time and would therefore be correctly asked in the past tense of "What WAS culture?".
I probably prefer that final idea to any of my earlier concepts, however my rushed execution of the imagery has resulted in a poor final product - one where the message gets lost within a bunch of random images from the Google search result.
Were I being boldly artistic, I would have made my submission a plain white page with only the Google logo, the search box (containing the phrase "What is culture?"), and the Google query ("Did you mean: What WAS culture?"). However as usually happens, I was not brave enough to stick with that bold image, and ended up keeping the realistic image of the full (albeit cropped) screenshot from my Google search.
This image was more-or-less made at the last-minute, and if I had spent a bit more time on it then I'd probably have made the layout more minimalist in order to make the message clearer. But you learn from your mistakes I suppose...
From the moment the theme was announced (at the beginning of August) I always planned on doing something about the death of culture by making something like:
- a collage of corporate logos;
- a picture of the solar system with a massive McDonald's sign sticking out from Earth;
- a photoshopped picture of people from less-developed countries fighting over second-hand designer clothing;
- or simply a text-based poster saying something like "Kill Culture - Just Do It" to portray how big corporations and the rise of the Internet have made almost everything seem local in the 21st Century.
Despite all those ideas, I never felt entirely happy about what the finished image might look like, so I constantly delayed the project until the last couple of days - at which point I felt as though I just had to get something, anything, done.
At that late stage I decided to see what a Google Image Search made of the term "culture"... The results seemed very random and not at all like I had expected, which actually turned out to be quite useful!
It seems as though Google, for the past decade or so, has had the answer to anything you could ever think to ask: But if an Image Search for "culture" didn't produce the results I had expected then perhaps I was correct to think that culture is dead (or at the least is dying).
From this I remembered about the infamous Racist Google picture that appeared last year showing a Google search result for "White People Stole My Car" returning the query "Did you mean: Black People Stole My Car?"
I decided that for my Project Onomatopee submission about culture I could create a similar Google picture, whereby a search result for "What is culture?" asks if you meant "What WAS culture?"... The theory being that my "culture is dead" statement from earlier would now be 'proven' by an omniscient Google that doesn't recognize the present tense of the question "What is culture?" because culture has been dead for a long time and would therefore be correctly asked in the past tense of "What WAS culture?".
I probably prefer that final idea to any of my earlier concepts, however my rushed execution of the imagery has resulted in a poor final product - one where the message gets lost within a bunch of random images from the Google search result.
Were I being boldly artistic, I would have made my submission a plain white page with only the Google logo, the search box (containing the phrase "What is culture?"), and the Google query ("Did you mean: What WAS culture?"). However as usually happens, I was not brave enough to stick with that bold image, and ended up keeping the realistic image of the full (albeit cropped) screenshot from my Google search.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Project Onomatopee: "Summer" (July 2010)
Here is what I submitted to Project Onomatopee for July's theme of "Summer".
Having kinda mocked England and its World Cup hopes for my June submission, I thought it only fair that I mock the stereotypical summer weather in my home country of Scotland. Therefore the caption (which I decided to write in Dutch because Project Onomatopee is from the Netherlands) translates as: "In Scotland even the sun goes away for a summer holiday".
The image that I've drawn is a portrayal of Edinburgh, looking from Waverley Station towards the National Gallery (with the Royal Mile on the left hand side and the Castle in the background). But unusually for me I composed the entire image from my mind/memory, while using reference material only for the green Waverley Station pillar. As a result all the buildings look a bit wonky, but I expect that they are still recognisable saying as that part of Edinburgh is full of rather unique architecture.
I had originally planned on painting the image with Photoshop to continue developing my digital painting skills, but due to being short of time I decided just to whip out the trusty old watercolours. Unfortunately the painted colours did not turn out as I had intended: Although they're not too dreadful...
After submitting the painted image at the end of July I found myself with a lot more free time, so I've spent a fair bit of this month working on an alternative version of the image within Photoshop (below).
I'm much happier with the darkness of the sky (as caused by an absent sun) in this version than that which I achieved with my watercolour version; and Photoshop worked a charm for creating the lighting effects as caused by the lamp atop the Waverely Station pillar: Overall the Photoshop version is just a much more atmospheric image, which I'm chuffed with!
Having kinda mocked England and its World Cup hopes for my June submission, I thought it only fair that I mock the stereotypical summer weather in my home country of Scotland. Therefore the caption (which I decided to write in Dutch because Project Onomatopee is from the Netherlands) translates as: "In Scotland even the sun goes away for a summer holiday".
The image that I've drawn is a portrayal of Edinburgh, looking from Waverley Station towards the National Gallery (with the Royal Mile on the left hand side and the Castle in the background). But unusually for me I composed the entire image from my mind/memory, while using reference material only for the green Waverley Station pillar. As a result all the buildings look a bit wonky, but I expect that they are still recognisable saying as that part of Edinburgh is full of rather unique architecture.
I had originally planned on painting the image with Photoshop to continue developing my digital painting skills, but due to being short of time I decided just to whip out the trusty old watercolours. Unfortunately the painted colours did not turn out as I had intended: Although they're not too dreadful...
After submitting the painted image at the end of July I found myself with a lot more free time, so I've spent a fair bit of this month working on an alternative version of the image within Photoshop (below).
I'm much happier with the darkness of the sky (as caused by an absent sun) in this version than that which I achieved with my watercolour version; and Photoshop worked a charm for creating the lighting effects as caused by the lamp atop the Waverely Station pillar: Overall the Photoshop version is just a much more atmospheric image, which I'm chuffed with!
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Project Onomatopee: "Nightmare" (June 2010)
To expand upon my previous post about Project Onomatopee, I'm now gonna write about the production process for my submission to the "Nightmare" theme from June.
Looking at the drawing above, do I hear you asking what the English Media and the World Cup have to do with Nightmares?
No!? In that case I guess you must have seen how much of a laughing stock the team were at the World Cup, and therefore think you understand this drawing completely - but you are wrong!
- I came up with this idea long before the England team arrived in South Africa;
- Had drawn David James as the goalkeeper several days before Robert Green became America's favourite English comedian;
- And had began the digital colouring process way before sections of the English media began subjecting Germany to even more unwarranted racial hatred.
From those statements it is hopefully clear that I had no intention of insulting the English people (if they take my drawing that way), and that I began this project with no knowledge that England would play so poorly... The actual intention of this drawing was to take a light-hearted dig at the England-based media that for many weeks has been suffocating the entire United Kingdom with its non-targeted, overhyped output about the chances of the England team this summer.
There's nothing wrong with the media getting behind its team, but broadcasting its hysteria so regularly not only isolates the non-English population of the UK; it puts us off their products; becomes very repetitive; and ultimately frustrates us even more than when we see our own teams fail to qualify for major tournaments as a result of last-minute cheating by the opposition. (Here's looking at you France! And Italy...)
In the weeks leading up to the World Cup (the same time that the "Nightmare" theme for June was announced) it seemed as though every English newspaper and every advert on British TV was united with England in the belief that they could win the 2010 World Cup: And certainly with the team having had such a strong qualifying campaign they had every right to believe they could be potential winners again. But what I found frustrating about it was that they wouldn't stop referring to Bobby Robson; 1966; THAT goal; Geoff Hurst; this being the last chance for the golden age of English international football (which I think was at least 4 years ago!); and their group stage being full of really easy opponents!
As such, the media seemed certain that England were going to be unstoppable in storming through the tournament to collect the trophy - and this is what inspired my "Nightmare" drawing for Project Onomatopee. (My nightmare being the hysterical media rather than the prospect of England winning the tournament!)
If the media was to be believed at the start of June, then it was guaranteed that Gerrard et al. would become national heroes just like Hurst and his gang 44 years ago. I therefore thought it would be apt to portray the 2010 England World Cup squad in a picture that imitates the 1966 squad: But for a bit of artistic freedom I decided to try caricaturing the players.
I started drawing the caricatures as an initial sketch on cheap printer paper (expecting to require several attempts at getting the caricatures half decent). But after partially rendering most of the characters with pencil I realised that tracing the initial drawing onto good quality paper (in order to paint it using watercolours) would be too time consuming - so I stuck with the initial drawing and altered my plans for the colouring stage.
I had to rule out traditional painting techniques as a means of colouring my drawing because I feared the printer paper would just crumple and distort when paint/water touched it. However I was intrigued by the prospect of attempting some serious digital painting for the first time (previously I've only ever done flat digital colouring for animation), so I scanned my drawing into the computer and got cracking with Photoshop.
After testing a selection of base coats [above] to give a rough idea of the colour schemes, I decided to scour the internet for some relevant digital artist research/influences/resources. My first port of call was to Charlie Parker's excellent Lines & Colors blog where, amongst many other types of artists and art forms, I've discovered a lot of interesting digital artists, notably:
- Francois Baranger
- Tuomas Korpi
- Jason Seiler
- Michael Kutsche
- David Jon Kassan (painting from life on an ipad).
I downloaded a number of digital brush sets for Photoshop from Brusheezy.com, which was easy to use and very useful. And Finnish artist Tuomas Korpi [listed above] has made his extensive Photoshop brush set openly downloadable from his website (on the sketches page), which I've appreciated using so far.
As this was my first attempt at digital painting I was quite content to simply test out different brushes and use a rather basic 5-tone colouring technique so as to not get caught up in realism or little details.
After laying down a mid-tone red colour for the England kit that all the players are wearing, I worked my way through the painting process in little stages:
1) Starting with Steven Gerrard (the central character who holds the trophy aloft), I filled in his skin & hair using personalized mid-tone colours, before working my way outwards to all the other players. (A minor note of interest here is that each player in the drawing has his own individual colour scheme based upon my photographic research).
2) After laying down all the base coats, I went back through every player and coloured relevant areas with a dark tone of each base colour.
3) After the dark tones were down, I again went back through all the players, this time colouring relevant areas with a light tone of each base colour.
4) Once I was happy with the range of tones in my digital painting I went back through it all and added in-between tones wherever necessary.
For the whole painting process I used a relatively small selection of brushes (always at varying sizes), and I usually had the opacity set to about 20%-50% in order to build up subtle layers of colour that would help add to the overall tonal quality of the image. I was also painting entirely with my computer mouse because I don't have access to a tablet pen.
When I was happy with the colouring on all of the footballers I turned my attention to the stadium in the background.
Working on a separate Photoshop layer from the footballers I initially scribbled various patches of colour to reflect the real colours of the Soccer City stadium (host of the World Cup Final on July 11). However this looked rather garish and troublesome, so I desaturated the stadium layer (to turn it greyscale), and as a replacement added an orange filter of varying strengths over the whole image [the experimental images below].
After I had chosen my favoured image (from the four above) I considered the drawing/painting to be finished and ready to submit to Project Onomatopee... But having forgotten that images need to be in the portrait format rather than landscape format, I added the black surround and golden-coloured text [as seen at the top of the blog post] to make my artwork compatible with the submission guidelines.
...Then days later England got knocked out of the tournament, and the potential reaction to this image completely changed!
NOTE:
You can see all the submissions for the "Nightmare" (June) theme of Project Onomatopee by clicking here.
Looking at the drawing above, do I hear you asking what the English Media and the World Cup have to do with Nightmares?
No!? In that case I guess you must have seen how much of a laughing stock the team were at the World Cup, and therefore think you understand this drawing completely - but you are wrong!
- I came up with this idea long before the England team arrived in South Africa;
- Had drawn David James as the goalkeeper several days before Robert Green became America's favourite English comedian;
- And had began the digital colouring process way before sections of the English media began subjecting Germany to even more unwarranted racial hatred.
From those statements it is hopefully clear that I had no intention of insulting the English people (if they take my drawing that way), and that I began this project with no knowledge that England would play so poorly... The actual intention of this drawing was to take a light-hearted dig at the England-based media that for many weeks has been suffocating the entire United Kingdom with its non-targeted, overhyped output about the chances of the England team this summer.
There's nothing wrong with the media getting behind its team, but broadcasting its hysteria so regularly not only isolates the non-English population of the UK; it puts us off their products; becomes very repetitive; and ultimately frustrates us even more than when we see our own teams fail to qualify for major tournaments as a result of last-minute cheating by the opposition. (Here's looking at you France! And Italy...)
In the weeks leading up to the World Cup (the same time that the "Nightmare" theme for June was announced) it seemed as though every English newspaper and every advert on British TV was united with England in the belief that they could win the 2010 World Cup: And certainly with the team having had such a strong qualifying campaign they had every right to believe they could be potential winners again. But what I found frustrating about it was that they wouldn't stop referring to Bobby Robson; 1966; THAT goal; Geoff Hurst; this being the last chance for the golden age of English international football (which I think was at least 4 years ago!); and their group stage being full of really easy opponents!
As such, the media seemed certain that England were going to be unstoppable in storming through the tournament to collect the trophy - and this is what inspired my "Nightmare" drawing for Project Onomatopee. (My nightmare being the hysterical media rather than the prospect of England winning the tournament!)
If the media was to be believed at the start of June, then it was guaranteed that Gerrard et al. would become national heroes just like Hurst and his gang 44 years ago. I therefore thought it would be apt to portray the 2010 England World Cup squad in a picture that imitates the 1966 squad: But for a bit of artistic freedom I decided to try caricaturing the players.
I started drawing the caricatures as an initial sketch on cheap printer paper (expecting to require several attempts at getting the caricatures half decent). But after partially rendering most of the characters with pencil I realised that tracing the initial drawing onto good quality paper (in order to paint it using watercolours) would be too time consuming - so I stuck with the initial drawing and altered my plans for the colouring stage.
I had to rule out traditional painting techniques as a means of colouring my drawing because I feared the printer paper would just crumple and distort when paint/water touched it. However I was intrigued by the prospect of attempting some serious digital painting for the first time (previously I've only ever done flat digital colouring for animation), so I scanned my drawing into the computer and got cracking with Photoshop.
After testing a selection of base coats [above] to give a rough idea of the colour schemes, I decided to scour the internet for some relevant digital artist research/influences/resources. My first port of call was to Charlie Parker's excellent Lines & Colors blog where, amongst many other types of artists and art forms, I've discovered a lot of interesting digital artists, notably:
- Francois Baranger
- Tuomas Korpi
- Jason Seiler
- Michael Kutsche
- David Jon Kassan (painting from life on an ipad).
I downloaded a number of digital brush sets for Photoshop from Brusheezy.com, which was easy to use and very useful. And Finnish artist Tuomas Korpi [listed above] has made his extensive Photoshop brush set openly downloadable from his website (on the sketches page), which I've appreciated using so far.
As this was my first attempt at digital painting I was quite content to simply test out different brushes and use a rather basic 5-tone colouring technique so as to not get caught up in realism or little details.
After laying down a mid-tone red colour for the England kit that all the players are wearing, I worked my way through the painting process in little stages:
1) Starting with Steven Gerrard (the central character who holds the trophy aloft), I filled in his skin & hair using personalized mid-tone colours, before working my way outwards to all the other players. (A minor note of interest here is that each player in the drawing has his own individual colour scheme based upon my photographic research).
2) After laying down all the base coats, I went back through every player and coloured relevant areas with a dark tone of each base colour.
3) After the dark tones were down, I again went back through all the players, this time colouring relevant areas with a light tone of each base colour.
4) Once I was happy with the range of tones in my digital painting I went back through it all and added in-between tones wherever necessary.
For the whole painting process I used a relatively small selection of brushes (always at varying sizes), and I usually had the opacity set to about 20%-50% in order to build up subtle layers of colour that would help add to the overall tonal quality of the image. I was also painting entirely with my computer mouse because I don't have access to a tablet pen.
When I was happy with the colouring on all of the footballers I turned my attention to the stadium in the background.
Working on a separate Photoshop layer from the footballers I initially scribbled various patches of colour to reflect the real colours of the Soccer City stadium (host of the World Cup Final on July 11). However this looked rather garish and troublesome, so I desaturated the stadium layer (to turn it greyscale), and as a replacement added an orange filter of varying strengths over the whole image [the experimental images below].
After I had chosen my favoured image (from the four above) I considered the drawing/painting to be finished and ready to submit to Project Onomatopee... But having forgotten that images need to be in the portrait format rather than landscape format, I added the black surround and golden-coloured text [as seen at the top of the blog post] to make my artwork compatible with the submission guidelines.
...Then days later England got knocked out of the tournament, and the potential reaction to this image completely changed!
NOTE:
You can see all the submissions for the "Nightmare" (June) theme of Project Onomatopee by clicking here.
Monday, 5 July 2010
Project Onomatopee
Project Onomatopee is an online monthly drawing project created earlier this year by Nicole Volbeda.
The project was set-up to provide artistic inspiration and encourage regular drawing, which is achieved by offering participants a themed project every month. For example at the start of June the theme of "Nightmare" was announced and participating artists had the remainder of the month to interpret that theme in any visual manner they desired. At the end of the month all the submitted drawings were uploaded to the Project Onomatopee website, where participants could also discover the new theme for July.
The Project Onomatopee website (written in both Dutch and English) displays all the drawings from the most recent theme/month on the homepage, which allows visitors to instantly sample an entire theme without having to trawl through numerous links to get to the good stuff. And to view drawings from older themes/months, the relevant links are easily accessed from the top of the navigation bar on the right-hand-side of the webpage (under the header that says "Inzendingen / Contributions")... Previous themes include: Best Invention, Heroes, Sex Education, and Honey.
Visiting the website can be a rewarding artistic experience because the participating artists come from a range of disciplines and backgrounds, meaning that the art on display is guaranteed to portray a broad spectrum of influences and technical approaches.
Originally the project was entirely in Dutch, but it was later developed for the English language as well, which has increased the international appeal of the website. In June several UK-based artists (including myself) were invited to join the roster of Project Onomatopee artists, which demonstrates Nicole's interest in developing the project further - and as the expansion continues, the visual appeal of the website will undoubtedly grow further.
If you'd like further information about the project, or are interested in joining, please visit the Info page on the Project Onomatopee website (if you can't read Dutch, you'll need to scroll halfway down the page for the English version).
The project was set-up to provide artistic inspiration and encourage regular drawing, which is achieved by offering participants a themed project every month. For example at the start of June the theme of "Nightmare" was announced and participating artists had the remainder of the month to interpret that theme in any visual manner they desired. At the end of the month all the submitted drawings were uploaded to the Project Onomatopee website, where participants could also discover the new theme for July.
The Project Onomatopee website (written in both Dutch and English) displays all the drawings from the most recent theme/month on the homepage, which allows visitors to instantly sample an entire theme without having to trawl through numerous links to get to the good stuff. And to view drawings from older themes/months, the relevant links are easily accessed from the top of the navigation bar on the right-hand-side of the webpage (under the header that says "Inzendingen / Contributions")... Previous themes include: Best Invention, Heroes, Sex Education, and Honey.
Visiting the website can be a rewarding artistic experience because the participating artists come from a range of disciplines and backgrounds, meaning that the art on display is guaranteed to portray a broad spectrum of influences and technical approaches.
Originally the project was entirely in Dutch, but it was later developed for the English language as well, which has increased the international appeal of the website. In June several UK-based artists (including myself) were invited to join the roster of Project Onomatopee artists, which demonstrates Nicole's interest in developing the project further - and as the expansion continues, the visual appeal of the website will undoubtedly grow further.
If you'd like further information about the project, or are interested in joining, please visit the Info page on the Project Onomatopee website (if you can't read Dutch, you'll need to scroll halfway down the page for the English version).
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