Here’s the latest watercolor painting for the Gex book:
As you look at this painting, imagine turning round to your left and a few paces back down this same street, then you would see the view of the Gex Town fountain, which is in a small square to the left of this street. You can see the painting of the Gex Town Fountain in the previous DweezelJazz blog post.
Yesterday I finished another painting for the Gex book. Walking uphill on one of the main streets in Gex, there are wall-to-wall two to three story buildings hugging the sidewalk on either side of the street. So it’s quite unexpected when, on the left, a small square opens up, and it’s possible to see the Jura mountains in the distance and in the square there’s a fountain with running water.
I finally succumbed and tried Corel Painter 11, and this scene is painted with Corel Painter watercolor brushes. It is really a very nice way to paint digitally. I don’t find it easier than painting with normal paint brushes and pots of paint. In fact for the style I’ve used in painting the Gex fountain, I find it’s much more time-consuming to paint digitally than with watercolor on paper.
This is the photo used as reference:
Gex Town Fountain
The ability to experiment without worrying about the cost of materials or if the painting will be ruined, allows much more room to let it flow and try different things. I tend to spend more time going after colors and light that I want to see in the painting.
It’s very nice not to have washing or clearing up afterward. This makes it much easier to start painting even if there is only a short interval of time available for painting. I’m much more inclined to turn on the computer during those times than I am to dig out all the paints and brushes for a painting session.
When painting digitally, I paint pretty much how I would on paper, building up from washes to more detail. I saved backups when I finished an area, so it doesn’t demonstrate much gradual buildup within any given area, but below is a sequence showing the progression in terms of which sections I tackled in what order (click on image to enlarge).
I highly recommend Corel Painter 11 for anyone wanting to paint digitally. It’s potential seems limitless, and it’s very interesting to experiment to see what can be done with it.
Do you like digital artwork, or do you prefer traditionally created artwork? Which do you prefer to see? Which do you prefer to create? Why? I’d love to know your thoughts.
Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until it was superseded, in the 1500s, by oil painting. Egg tempera paintings are extremely durable, and don’t darken with age as oil paintings do. Evidence of egg tempera’s long-term durability can be seen in ancient paintings we still have today. It was used by ancient Egyptians on sarcophagi and portraits; it was used by the ancient Greeks; all the surviving panel paintings by Michelangelo were painted with egg tempera.
DweezelJazz Art Egg Tempera Gallery Page 1
A few days before Christmas I experimented with my egg tempera paintings to see how durable the method is when painted on paper, a process I’ve described in detail in How To Paint With Egg Tempera. I tested around 7-10 paintings, ranging in creation from several years to 6 months ago.
I found that for any painting over a year old it was possible, without damaging the painting, to:
I wouldn’t recommend rubbing hard or wiping the painting with a very wet cloth in general, but it was a great way to find out if the paintings were durable, even if it was a somewhat risky test!
I also pushed my nail on the surface of the paintings and dragged it a centimeter or so, and to my amazement, no paint came off. There was a small indentation on the painting where the nail had pressed hard into the surface, but it was otherwise untouched and the image was unblemished.
I discovered that it isn’t possible to do any of these things, without damaging it, to a painting that is less than six months old. Within six months of completion, it’s very easy to scratch or remove paint from the surface by rubbing it hard.
Luckily, it’s easy enough to fix scratches or blemishes if an accident occurs, by applying more paint, so that no damage or touch up is visible.
This turned out to be a very good thing one time when Jazzy, our african grey, decided she wanted to take a visit to the Maldives beach and finally (after many foiled attempts) managed to land on the painting when I wasn’t looking.
Jasmine took her job seriously as DweezelJazz Art mascot and she evaluated each painting. She clearly had her favorites, because she would sometimes become obsessed with getting close to some of the paintings in particular, the Maldives beach being one of them! She skidded across the surface and created quite a bit of damage only a week after I had finished the painting. Fortunately, I was easily able to fix it and there are no traces of birdie tracks in the sand.
The length of time it takes for an egg tempera painting to become durable will vary depending on environmental conditions. The best approach is to allow a year for the painting to ‘cure’ and set into the durable, long-lived, bright images that egg tempera paintings are renowned for.
