General chat 3 # Ashridge blue bell forest

At the start of my Easter holidays I went to Ashridge blue bell forest which is near where I live. As you can tell from the image we had amazing weather that day, I took my sketch pad and my camera and enjoyed sitting in the sun sketching away. When I got back home I decided to do a digital paint of the forest, I really liked the composition of one of my sketches so I used some of the photos for reference and started to paint. I really enjoyed painting this scene because I really enjoyed that day because of the weather. 

I decided to revisit the paint after a few crits from people on my course and from my own thoughts. As you can see I decided to add some darker tones and strengthened the trees as their opacity was low. Really pleased with the final outcome and it might even be put on my wall.

General chat 2 # Hayling Island

I went to Hayling Island (near Portsmouth) yesterday (19/04/2011), it started out to be a very nice day and then towards the evening some clouds started to form in the sky. I was down there visiting family but I decided to take my camera, laptop and graphics tablet just in case I had some free time to wonder around, which I did. I went along to the beach front and had a walk around and went to the beach huts as they are quite iconic of the English coastline. I decided to draw a quick sketch to get the correct positions of the huts and sea level and then when I got back indoors I decided to do a paint over. There were some people flying some kites on the beach so I also took photos of them and decided to paint them in to add some fun to the piece.

Then later in the evening as we were leaving the island we pulled over at the docks I did a quick sketch and when I got back home painted the rest of this piece. There was a bridge supposed to be in this paint but I thought it would detract from the piece and I also didn’t draw about 5 other boats as I thought the scene would get over crowded. I really like this piece due to its realism and the way the water came out as I found it hard to get the right colours and highlights but I think I’ve done well here.