From a thumbnail view I almost thought this was a photograph o.o

Huh. It works, though- reminds me of the Impressionists from the late 1800's.

this is just too awesome!!!

that glass looks great

I agree, rendering of clear stuff is for the win.

I'm compelled to ask whether that glass, a staple of art and raytracing, was indeed naturally on the deskspace ahead of time. :)

Neat idea, hope the insight pays off!

It was. In its rare empty state.
The props weren't arranged; that's just how they were on the desk.

if I were drunk this would look very realistic. just a tad and a smidge of intoxication and voila: realism! But seriously it's not a bad attempt for what you said in the description. Had I done something like this I would be way too tempted to add a filter or do some kind of of lasso magic or something. Good job all told

How observant.

I have the exact opposite… um… feature (it's not really a problem): I've gotten pretty good and painting and drawing fast, but when i try to go slow I get frustrated and impatient. ^^ I should practice painting slowly… but I don't have the time!

This friend of yours sounds like a real jerk. ;)

Heh. This image really carries what I was talking to you about. There's so much feeling in it. And that's something that tends to fade in paintings which have been worked on for countless hours.

As the laborious detail and precision goes up, the life spark tends to fade. And so there is good reason to find balance between technical excellence and speed of creation.

I have been finding in my own works that... while I feel this need to apologize for the ones I made quickly... they actually tend to be the ones people like most. I sort of want people to like the ones I labored on for countless hours better because I spent so much time on them, and they are better in a technical sense.

But in reality, appreciation of art is more emotional than technical. In the end, the life spark in a piece is more important than any other factor. As artists, we spend so much time practicing and honing our technical skills that we can easily lose sight of that truth.

I'd say the next challenge for you and me both is to get over the need to apologize for making something like this. We feel this need to make excuses for a piece we created quickly. We fear that our technical proficiencies will be unfairly judged by our least meticulous works. When the quicker pieces may, in fact, be some of our best works because they tend to carry the most life energy and emotion.

And anyway, despite its simplicity and quickness, this piece you've posted speaks volumes of its creator's technical prowess.

You don't need to include a little note with it that points out it was made quickly as an excuse. The nature of the piece is self evident and beautiful.

It's so inspiring to me that it is now my desktop background.

Thanks for posting this.

I've noticed actors struggle with a similar concept:
They know that the best acting appears natural, appears effortless...
and yet it's a real challenge to get up on stage and be that genuine. Their natural inclination is to try to get up there and "act" ;
the result of which comes across as phony. Like those bad Shakespearean thespians you see in comedies. That impresses nobody.

It's, like you've described, an example of trying to hide behind parlor tricks.
I attended a gallery show some years back that featured 30 silvertype photographic portraits of a wide range of people, each one eating a tomato.
The photographer had given 29 of the subjects instructions to eat the tomato as seductively as possible.
The 30th subject was simply instructed to eat the tomato, and nothing more.

A poll was taken at the exhibit, and by a large margin, the 30th photo was voted the most erotic.



And there. The description has been edited to give you proper credit.

I can't help but think that little raptor likes to steal your martini olives c:

Set up surveillance to catch him in the act, I must!

Quite the neat exercise indeed. I really like the surreal look of it to be honest.

Gives the appearance of seen through coarse plate glass... the kind that isn't fully transparent, rather it distorts light. Hard to tell if that lizard actually is alive, but if so, those eyes are PURE EVIL!

Your martini needs a refill, btw.

That's a plastic deinonychus figurine. Such things'll become clearer with practice.
Salud!

That is just pure awesomeness. I recently started doing speedpainting myself, used a couple of photos for reference. It's rather exciting!

It all depends what you want to achieve (or whatever your task/job may be), you can be slow and thorough, or you can be fast and descriptive. Just do whatever you're comfortable with or whatever it takes to meet requirements.

exercise is good :)

Speed drawing/painting is awesome to watch. You ever think of doing it live online? :)

-J

Can I play with your raptor figurine when you're done drawing it? :D

This picture and the description that goes with it is so inspiring that I'm tempted to try this out myself. It sounds like a challenging but neat exercise. I'm curious as to how it would benefit my works the more It's done <3

Perhaps the "Iron Artist" sketch series is something you should do as a private exercise. Draw at least one complete pic a day, perhaps on a time limit.

You're drive to expand upon your abilities is really inspiring.

If you do more of these, please do show. It would be fascinating to see. If you have a laptop or are happy to just scribble on paper, go out and just draw crap all over your sketchbook, it never looks good but afterwards you always draw better.