Following on from my last post, here's the last few studies I came up with over the Christmas period. Moving on from the digital paintings I tried my hand at some drawings and graphic art with the same subject matter of clouds and wide open spaces.
The above image is my first attempt at breaking down the silhouettes and volumes of clouds and the quality of light. For step 1 on the left I picked 4 tonal values and by eye attempted to reproduce a photo using these limitations, aiming for accuracy. The end result unfortunately looks like a photo put through a Photoshop filter, despite being drawn by hand. My solution was step 2 on the right where I simplified everything, concentrating on composition influenced by, but not reproducing, the original image. A big improvement to my eyes!
I followed this up with the following set of studies:
I was looking for a middle ground between the accurate reproduction of the outlines of the photo and a more stylised approach. I never got to a point with this image where I was satisfied but I did like the final steps use of line work against large blocks of colour.
So these two steps of studies led to the image at the op of this post and the one that ends it - playing line work and solid volumes off against each other with a bit of care and attention paid to atmospherics without distracting from the underlying drawings.
