Nice still life studies! When you said you're learning the fundamentals I expected something different than what we're seeing here. The way you're avoiding most common beginner pitfalls tells me you're either a fast learner or have been quietly developing your painting and drawing skills for a little while—even if you thought it didn't count because you weren't actively engaged or very serious about it.
The ability to depict minute value changes is extremely useful and you've got a good eye for it. I also like the brushstrokes on the frames edges. Wait, I know it sounds weird hah, but you've got smooth (and well executed) shading so the edges are the only way to assess your natural brushwork. It's promising!
I'd like to see more pieces from imagination between those life studies. One of the best ways to internalize whatever you're studying is to put it in practice, and painting from imagination is also important to "debug" your weaknesses and develop problem-solving skills. Studies are highly mechanical in a certain way, they train your muscle memory and visualization/shading/line skills but they're not quite as good to develop the analytical side of the process. My advice is to sneak small quick pieces from imagination between them—they could be anything, even fake still lifes—to balance out the these two skillsets.
Hi @birb, thank you for taking a look and for responding to the thread. I appreciate your comments about technique, i.e. edges, gradients/shading and brushwork. I hope to improve more on these topics moving forward, while increasing the complexity and removing some of the constraints I put on myself while painting.
Good point about using pieces from imagination to focus on the problem-solving & analytical aspect. That had not occurred to me, but I can see how it would help. I'll continue studying still life and will work to include some imagination pieces as well. I've been working on some human figure and anatomy on the side, and I believe that might be a good fit to boost the analytical side of the process, while not necessarily focusing on the rendering aspect too much. So maybe I'll be back with pencil sketches in between the oil paintings to spice things up a little.
Here's a last painting in grayscale before I move on to something with some color in it. I admit I missed the overall big shape, but it turned out much better than I expected hehe.
Replies
Posting another similar exercise.
The ability to depict minute value changes is extremely useful and you've got a good eye for it. I also like the brushstrokes on the frames edges. Wait, I know it sounds weird hah, but you've got smooth (and well executed) shading so the edges are the only way to assess your natural brushwork. It's promising!
I'd like to see more pieces from imagination between those life studies. One of the best ways to internalize whatever you're studying is to put it in practice, and painting from imagination is also important to "debug" your weaknesses and develop problem-solving skills. Studies are highly mechanical in a certain way, they train your muscle memory and visualization/shading/line skills but they're not quite as good to develop the analytical side of the process. My advice is to sneak small quick pieces from imagination between them—they could be anything, even fake still lifes—to balance out the these two skillsets.
Good point about using pieces from imagination to focus on the problem-solving & analytical aspect. That had not occurred to me, but I can see how it would help. I'll continue studying still life and will work to include some imagination pieces as well. I've been working on some human figure and anatomy on the side, and I believe that might be a good fit to boost the analytical side of the process, while not necessarily focusing on the rendering aspect too much. So maybe I'll be back with pencil sketches in between the oil paintings to spice things up a little.
Cheers!