“What’s Missing?” WIP by Helen E. H. Madden, 23 March 2011
I’m still at work on this one, putting down as much paint as I can to cover the canvas. The actual image is VERY large, something like 3000×4000 pixels, which is the largest I think I’ve ever put together. I’m having problems recreating the technique of the artist inspired this painting. This was originally from a tutorial on ArtRage in Digital Artist magazine. I was able to get the drawing down the way I wanted it and the underpainting, but when it came to putting down the oils, I’ve had less that stellar results. The original tutorial showed the brush settings at instant drying, non-cleaning, very low thinners. I’ve had to change that to 50% things, non-instant drying. Plus I can’t use the full metallic effect of the paint. I’ve had to reduce that to 50% as well, otherwise it just get’s overwhelming.
And none of this makes any sense to you if you haven’t used ArtRage before. Suffice to say, ArtRage simulates oil painting and metallic paints, but the tools in the program have a wide variety of settings that will achieve various effects. I’ve been having to play with all of them to get what I’ve got so far. Most of the blending has been achieved with the palette knife tool, which I had hoped to avoid, but hey, it gets me the effect I want, so I won’t cry about it now.
Anyway, I’ll keep working on this one. Wish me luck!
