Sunday, December 27, 2009

Swedish season greetings

A little late, because of some last details I couldn't finish before Christmas, here comes a first attempt to paint a character completely digital, without a previous sketch. This time I could use both mouse and Wacom pen.
It is a traditional Swedish tomte, a kind of funny and not so fair Christmas elf.
The picture could be used as a quite kitch X-mas card; it was painted with different layers for text, skin details, red details, beard, sky and wood.


Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Another oil copy

I did not practice so much with digital painting in the last weeks, since I had another urgent project to complete.
This summer, my mother-in-law became 70 and was asked about a nice birthday present. Her wish, a painting to their flat, turned out to be one of the works of the spanish artist Ramón Pujol, who usually paints very beautiful coastal landscapes from Mediterranean. Unfortunately, such a painting can cost around 3000 €, which is quite above our budget, and we agreed that I would have tried to paint it as a Christmas present instead. I chosed to reproduce "Harbour at last light", which is a picture of Portofino, because of the pleasant bright palette and the many elements present in the composition (sea, mountains and buildings). This would have also been a good exercise for me to practise landscape, water and reflections effects on it, and a little perspective.


(picture taken from the Internet)

Here comes the result of my attempt to reproduce this painting (since it is a photo the colours aren't the same as in my painting) :

As a disclaimer, the latter cannot be considered a false, since it is quite evident that proportions, colours and especially the quality of the work are not close to the original.
I'm not really sure if I'm really satisfied with this work. Perspective at the boats is not correct, and the copy do not show the same clean realistic touch which can be admired in the original of Pujol. Some of the houses on the left side are not really parallel with the coast line! On the other hand, it is just my second oil painting after many many years. And, my mother-in-law has not the possibility to directly compare my work with the original one, so I hope she will not notice these details...