Digital Art; Master Studies.

Lesson 4, Term 2 of Concept art. 

Taking a break from our main project of adapting the opera 'Bluebeard's Castle,' we began concentrating on master studies; analysing the work of master artists. In this case, John Singer Sargent, William Merritt and Rembrandt. 

Through different pieces, we were challenged in a variety of ways to explore colour and composition, either through taking away usage of the colour picker tool or solely focusing on working in black and white. 

The piece pictured here is a self portrait by William Merritt, (top left) that I chose to study for both the colour and the consistency of the brushstrokes; a sketchy/ impressionistic style I really liked. 

The techniques I learnt in this lesson that helped me to attain a good interpretation where:

1) Flipping the image vertically. This took focus away from what the piece was supposed to look like, (a portrait) and made me look at form and placement instead. This was very effective for me, as I no longer viewed it as a face but as shapes to concentrate on. When re-flipped, I could then adjust and neaten, then flip back to the upside down position and carry on. 

2) Black and white filter. This took concentration away from tone and meant I was able to focus on shading, whether something needed to be lighter or darker, and again drew more attention to shape and composition than drawing in colour would have done. 

The finished piece; I'm really pleased with how the tones came out seeing as I didn't use the colour picker for this piece. The only thing I would change is the angle of the head, and maybe thinning the face out a bit too. Overall, I'm happy with this outcome as it's also one of the first portrait pieces I've copied rather than drawn over/ traced a base shape from, so in practise of composition I feel this exercise was very valuable.