sketch digital painting

One of our tutorial practices was to take a sketch, and then transform it into a painting using Photoshop. After a certain amount of dilemma and consideration, I decided to go with a sketch of this lion:

(source)

And after a lot of layers and shading and colouring and blending the colours together using the smudge tool, this is what I came up with:

And this is how it looked like after I tried the "oil painting" filter: 

 

national visual arts gallery trip

During our class trip to the National Visual Arts Gallery, I saw many different paintings and sculptures that were all unique and really gorgeous. Out of all the different pieces of art that I saw, I loved the ones that were painted in detail, painted with realistic depiction, as well as the ones with vibrant bright colours.

There was one particular painting that captured my attention. It was an abstract painting of the face of a woman, painted in colours such as red, yellow, orange, green, blue and purple. The left side of her face is covered with dripping colours of red, yellow and orange. The right side of her face has a mixture of green, blue and purple, also dripping down from her forehead. The painting is called Tabah Seorang Wanita by Dato' Mahsun Haji Taib. 

I think the name of the painting already very accurately depicts the painting itself. The strong colours of red, yellow and orange show the tough challenges that a woman has to face: carrying a child, carrying out the duties of a mother, having to face discrimination by the general public and all. The bright colours also show how she has to stand her ground to face all these challenges. On the other hand, the colder colours of green, blue and purple show the sorrow of having to face these tough challenges. I believe the colours represent all the negative emotion that she feels: being hurt, upset, sadness, insecurity, frustration and maybe even slight depression. The fact that only one side of her face is covered with purple, green and blue shows that she probably hides her negative emotion. On the outside, she braves her challenges, but on the inside, she is breaking apart.

surreal representation of the mind artwork

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Final step!

  The latest and currently the most complex photoshop artwork we made in class. There are a few bits and pieces that are a bit rough, like the left side of the lady's face, as well as the flying book on top of her head. I really liked how different textures were used that added to the background, as well as the different exposure levels and the brightness. It made such a difference to the picture and it made the picture look more real.