An Island Where No One Lives

Well, after being absent from PaintBlog II for a couple of weeks, I decided to see if I could do something with it. Could I do anything with it? The answer, surpisingly, is yes, but not much. Mostly little ticks of detail without a change in overall direction. None the less, I do like the direction we’re heading with it.

I’m going to present a series of six detail shots first, then finish up with the overall shot. Some of the detail–the latter ones, of course–are a little darker than I like, but one can’t have everything.

Making one plank look like weathered stone:

Doing the same for another plank:

Changing the pole to a more wooden appearance, separating the ladder from it, and joining the ladder to a plank above it:

The top of the red area. You knew I was going to do something like this, didn’t you?

Well, you certainly knew I was going to do something like this. Admit it, now.

Finally, highlights on the metal of the ladder. This definitely needs some more work. Is it both shiney and corroded, or badly made metal, or badly painted painting? Viewer’s choice! Be sure to hand your ballots in by Wednesday.

And here we go with how the canvas looks as of today, at the end of January:

The image is still coming along nicely, I think, but it definitely lacks something; I think that something is drama. We’ll have to wait to see if anything dramatic occurs. It’s a lot like life, isn’t it?

The final offering of older works (until I can find some more) is this one, called “Observation.”

While it might seem to lack detail, I think this one works well all the way through, including the title. The relevant question is, where is the observation taking place? You can probably see the “eye” near dead center. But is it an eye? What are the ghost shapes in the background? And so on. There’s a lot of subtle stuff happening in this one.

Not everyone agrees, of course.

Continuing the series of pre-existing works posted, this one is entitled “The Book” and there are two photographs because it doesn’t photograph very well. It’s a very dark work, as you can see, and one can either have details with some light reflection, or one can have no light reflection and no details. That’s just the way it is, there’s no use yelling about it.

So, what we have below are photographs that have details and light reflection, but the light reflection is in two different areas, which makes the respective details different from each other. Or something like that.

So, using photographs that are lousy in two different ways, you should be able to visualize what the painting kind of looks like.

This was originally going to be a book cover for a project long abandoned. I still think it would be a great book cover, for an anthology of horror stories or something like that. It still could be.

The urge to tinker with PaintBlog III is very strong, but I know it won’t result in anything good. Therefore I’m going to put it out of sight for a couple of days and, for one thing, allow the silly thing to dry completely before I take it out again.

Not much other action on the art front, although I did do a tiny bit–a very, very tiny bit–of detailing on PaintBlog II. So tiny, in fact, that I didn’t take a picture.

Anyway, that’s my excuse as to why this site will be even more boring than usual for a couple of days.

For some reason, my sidebar–which is normally right over there [points], has now sunk to the bottom of the screen, as if the very Moon were pressing down upon it.

Now, I’m not saying that’s what’s happened. That may not be it at all. I’ve asked Blogger for help, and with luck they’ll tell me what I need to do to fix it.

In the meantime, I’m different from everyone else. Sorry about that.

UPDATE: Apparently this only happens with Internet Explorer. Figures….

UPDATE II: Thanks to Greg for figuring out the graphics problem. From now on, I shall only use tables when the graphics are in Portrait orientation. This I do swear!

Lots of work last night, though some of the details may be too small to really make much of an impact in the accompanying photographs.

This is basically what we started with:

I was moved to work on the red and black, again. I started applying some shadows to the right side of the red face, where the greenface would overhang it.

Then, I began detailing the red face. I used small bits of white on ridges and things, which gave the whole thing a wet, organic look. Below, you can see a preliminary version, next to a “final” version. The differences are pretty small (mostly near the bottom of the face), and, as you can see, the image on the right is a bit darker than it ought to be.

Following that, we changed the shading on the tongue-like structure at red face’s lower right (from the point of view of the viewer, not red face) so that it looks like part of the structure that has hatched.

I used more brushes last night than in many a moon; to be fair, though, that’s because I would clean what I had and suddenly think of something else to add.

Sometime today, I’m going to try and update the Index file for these things (as always, it’s over there on the right side).

Spent the weekend doing errands and working some on PaintBlog III. The first thing I wanted to do was to change the green area in the upper right, so that it looked less like a face.

A good rule of thumb for this is, if you can’t dazzle ‘em with design, dumbfound them with details. So, a number of cells were added, and entertwined, and generally made into a confusing mess…which still looks like a face. *Shrug*

Okay, it looks like a face, I thought to myself. Yeah, myself thought back, but then, so does the right side of the red area.

No, it doesn’t, I thought, startled in spite of myself.

Yes, it does. It totally does.Well, this sort of pointless bickering continued for some time, before I thought, well, let’s see if we can do something with this.

Well, this sort of pointless bickering continued for some time, before I thought, well, let’s see if we can do something with this.Let’s say, just as a speculation, that the green face was over the red face originally, and that the red face has, so to speak, hatched, and pushed the green face aside. What would be needed to foster this state further?

Well, we need to make the green face appear to cast a shadow over the read face.

This shadow, for now, only affects the green area near the red face; it will have to be spread over the red face as well, to some extent.

The next thing to do is to make the edge of the green face appear to be a continuation of the green area where the red face is emerging. This is pretty simple, really, we just add some highlights to kinda sorta match the rippling on the green area.

Like so, with the intended effect illustrated with arrows.

Still no black and white highlighting of the green and yellow areas; with this new twist, that’s been put off a bit longer. See you soon with some more results, maybe, possibly, yeah!

Did some work on the red and black area. The green and yellow has to dry a bit more before I’m going to do anything with it. When I woke up this morning, I thought the lower center-left area of the red thing was too bright, so I darkened it up a bit. Photos below.

The green and yellow area is pretty lucky, as it is only those two colors, and it’s pretty easy to blend two pretty compatible colors. That’s why the next step may utterly destroy the work: adding black and white for shadows and highlights.

(As always, when I say “black” I mean “raw umber.”)

One of my associates, who goes by the initials RVH, has sent me a photograph of a genuine cat attack. Apparently the victim survived with minimum physical damage, but psychological counseling may be required for some time before all the true scars have healed. Perhaps even centuries.

I’m going to show you this photograph below, but my legal representative firm has cautioned me that I should not do so without issuing stern warnings to the casually curious and the easily shocked, who may find the image upsetting and/or disturbing and/or endearing.

If you have any doubts about whether you should view this photograph, do not click! If you suffer from any medical condition which requires you to live surrounded by softness, do not click! If you are operating heavy machinery under the influence of alcohol, do not click! If conditions persist, consult a physician while not clicking!

The management assumes NO responsibility for anything that might be anything else.

Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, Jason Voorhees–the stake has now been raised. Do your worst!