General Art Discussion

[Mitsuki]

It's about time we have a general art discussion thread, so here it is. Release your artsy desires and chat with fellow artists. Offer some tips and advice or seek help from others, it's all up to you.

No spamming, please, thank you.

 

[Warbsywoo]

Fine, I'll start something off. >.>

What media do you prefer working with?

I like using pencils a lot since you can achieve a great deal of detail with enough work and imagination. I haven't tried a lot of everything else, but I really like working with oils when we did a project in AP Studio Art.

 

[Mitsuki]

I started off with pencil, so that's always been a personal favorite of mine, although these past few years I've worked with acrylic painting a lot more too. I like it, especially doing some brushing effect on the canvas and mixing colors together. Charcoal is also pretty nice, although I've only tried that a few times. I remember winning an art contest using charcoal as my medium...unfortunately, I don't remember what I did with the picture. It was in a regular-sized poster and we worked on it in school...my art teacher entered it in a public contest and I won. xD Received cash for it too. But anyway, those three are the main ones I use.

 

[Bambi]

I like pencil, thats pretty much all I used until recently..actually it was ALL I used, no colour, just pencil , I cant shade in colour, it looks liek a 3 year olds drawing

I like acrylic too, I d iscovered I liked painting about a year ago, then i went on a bit of a painting roll, AND i can actually paint in colour woo

Probably my favourite thing to draw is motorbikes (in pencil) I love the detailing on them, and I just cant draw people, machinery is so much more interesting to draw, all them nifty parts

 

[Warbsywoo]

I started off with pencil, so that's always been a personal favorite of mine, although these past few years I've worked with acrylic painting a lot more too. I like it, especially doing some brushing effect on the canvas and mixing colors together. Charcoal is also pretty nice, although I've only tried that a few times. I remember winning an art contest using charcoal as my medium...unfortunately, I don't remember what I did with the picture. It was in a regular-sized poster and we worked on it in school...my art teacher entered it in a public contest and I won. xD Received cash for it too. But anyway, those three are the main ones I use.

I can't seem to work too well with acrylics. It's hard to blend unlike oils, so you have to have your palette up and running before you even start painting (at least...much more so than with other painting media). Though the good thing is, acrylics are erasable.

I like using charcoal for portraits; it gives off that nice artist's touch and the ephemeral feel of not having too much detail.

I like pencil, thats pretty much all I used until recently..actually it was ALL I used, no colour, just pencil , I cant shade in colour, it looks liek a 3 year olds drawing

I like acrylic too, I d iscovered I liked painting about a year ago, then i went on a bit of a painting roll, AND i can actually paint in colour woo

Probably my favourite thing to draw is motorbikes (in pencil) I love the detailing on them, and I just cant draw people, machinery is so much more interesting to draw, all them nifty parts

Well that's interesting. I like that you like doing that subject 'cause I've never seen anyone take too much stock in it. It shows in your work too, the amount of detail you put into the parts and everything.

 

[Bambi]

I can't draw in pen, i make too many mistakes, I always have a rubber near by becasue I'm contantly stuffing up, I even have to sketch my imagesin pencil on canvas because I know I'l have to have a few attempts before it goes the way I want it too

 

[Warbsywoo]

I think I've found a soft spot for pens in varying line thicknesses. I use it a lot for architecture design class and I think I've developed some pretty good control over it.
I'm starting to like using Prismacolor double-ended markers because they look like watercolor when you lay it down on paper with the bonus that you have greater control over linework than you do with a brush.

Cool beans.

 

[Mitsuki]

I guess I'll post the idea here and add life to this thread.

I wanna try variety of art style. Any suggestions? I recently just got back to illustrations and such, but I'm still drawn to pencil. I have ways to go, but maybe you guys can help me decide what kind of style or image I can play around with.

 

[Ilyena]

I've always been a fan of surrealism since I did a surrealism drawing in my senior art class. They're a lot of fun and I like coming up with different designs and images in my head.

You could also try a collage painting. We did that in my class last year and it was a lot of fun. Normally, I hate collages but what she gave us a few guidelines and told us to come up with a nice composition. I cut a picture of a skeleton out of National Geographic and put clothes on it, complete with a poofy wig.

After making the collage, we did a full-size painting of it.

 

[Warbsywoo]

We did the collage drawing too.

Makes for an interesting composition for sure. This is all from National Geographic and we had to do it using charcoal.

 

[Howl]

That's really nice, TP! I suck at charcoal. It must be hard to work with, smudging all over the place.

I use watercolor, ink, and 140-300 lb watercolor paper. I have the entire collection of PH Martin's India inks & hydrus watercolors, as well as Daler-Rowney's pearlescent (metalic) inks. Soooooo awesome and fun!

We should have a 'post a picture of your art station' thread.

 

[Galadín]

A lot of people find that art is a great outlet for their emotions, giving them the capacity to express what's on the inside through this external channel; I guess this is why it's used so much for therapy. However, I personally find, that unless I'm in a happy, positive mood, I cannot create anything of quality or sometimes even lose the inspiration and motivation to create anything. If I put pencil to paper when I'm not in the zone, the result ends up looking, at the very best, bland and insipid.

Does anyone else experience this with their art? Does anyone see art as an emotional outlet that can overcome the personal slump or do you find that you need to be in a particular frame of mind to create your pieces; and if so how do you overcome the slumpy days or periods of low motivation?

 

[Mitsuki]

It’s definitely an emotional outlet for me. I can be happy, stressed, sad, etc. It doesn’t matter. I turn to art because it’s a big part of me, and the more it challenges me the more I get attracted to it. I wish sometimes that’s not the case but it is what it is and I guess I’ve come to embrace that aspect of it.

This is a suggestion, but maybe for September we can come up with an art prompt and sketch something according to the days of that month.

Example:
Day 1: flower
Day 2: dog
Day 3: wine glass
Day 5: final fantasy
Day 6: realism


It doesn’t have to be restricted to a particular medium or theme either. That means @Dionysos can join too with his paint skills. Anyone can skip out days if it doesn’t appeal to them.

Thoughts?