Painting WIP

I said I would start photographing the painting process, so here it is. As I try to finish the next chapter, the list of what's needed keeps extending. The most pressing gap is a couple long paragraphs of exposition that really need a good illustration to accompany them, so I rushed an additional painting. 

I've found that my illustrations benefit greatly from numerous revisions at a sketch/pre-composition phase, with additional time figuring out the color palette. It isn't ideal to skip all of that. But this specific painting is the same as all the stuff I did for the first chapter, so most of those technical questions already have answers and I felt confident to just move on. I did one really lame thumbnail sketch.

A lot of my working method is not best practice for watercolor work. This is an element to be scanned into Photoshop for further work and not a finished piece. So I don't feel like stretching my paper or cleaning my desk. 

Painting these aquatic plants up close is methodical work. And when I work very slow and controlled I can feel the spontaneity draining out of my art, which is awful. To keep things loose, the first step is I load up a mop brush with extremely dilute paint and quickly lay out forms with the kind of loose expressive movements my brush can't make later. It may be in my head but it helps my compositions feel less rigidly planned.

Sorry it's hard to see. I tried to boost the contrast to make it more visible but this just looks like I urinated on it. Which isn't my sort of art, that's passé in my opinion.

After identifying where stuff goes, I fill in from light/background to darker/foreground. I'm working on a way to do atmospheric distance that gets more painterly as things recede, but this is all just more close up stuff. More on that in the future.

As you can probably see, I'm approaching the painting in discrete sections without much layering or overlapping. For these detail shots I want that feeling of focused, anatomical precision in all its natural imperfection. It is a science documentary so the fun for me is realizing weird stuff with exactness.

Here's a screenshot of the scanned work.

It's what it needs to be. I'm not unhappy with it. There are intentional gaps in the composition which is where the line art and cell shading will be placed. I'm also going to drop in a blue wash for the ocean water. In my head it will balance out. This painting is halfway there, but the watercolor is the more fraught half. There is an undo button and save states available for everything afterwards.

If you are following South Scrimshaw or just looking at it for the first time then thank you. It's a labor of love and it really means a lot to me when anyone checks it out. I am still working to get the next update completed this month.

Edit 9/23/20 - Recent forecast has changed abruptly and a new front of paid work might be rolling through. This will slow personal work for the duration but it's ultimately a very good thing. I will keep my 2 followers posted as things develop.