inFLo

This is the first topic that I'm writing about. To tell you the truth, I went to school for graphic design and I have a fair amount of experience in photography. The reason for this photo to the left is to express my first point.

Setting up a pleasing compositon is a very important stage in photography. Imagine there is a 3X3 grid over the image you are considering capturing. For example, if you are taking a landscape, a favorable image would be to have either the ground or the sky to take up 2/3 of the picture. In this example the ground takes up 1/3 and the sky 2/3. The next step is if you have a point in the picture that takes on emphasis, such as the tree, it is visually pleasing to place it a little off center. The tree in this example is on the 1/3 line on the right side. Points of emphasis take on more meaning and interest with them off center.

Know the history. What ever your interested in, it is a wise choice to learn some of the history behind it. Photography has a vast history. Learning of the first cameras and how they worked, and even how they were made, is a very interesting to research. When deciding to learn of photography, it is a good idea to learn of past photographers and their own techniques. Several great photographers never even called themselves professionals. Many never got in to it full time, some didn't think they were good enough. The truth is there are many varieties of photography out there and just because one is different over another dowsn't mean that it is not just as good. In most photographs, a person could point out areas of improvment, but photography was meant to make a person think. Photography allows the viewer a glimps into what the photographer was looking at and thinking about at the very moment in time when the picture was taken.

A quick and easy trick to improve your photos quickly is cropping. This sounds easy and it is, for the keen eye. The main thing to look for are tangents. Tangents happen when an object in a photo is very close to an edge without being cut off at all. Either add some space when taking the picture or crop the object part way off, leaving about half or 2/3 of the object still in the picture, this is called bleeding an object off the photo. A cookie cutter rule (so to speak), it to not good to bleed objects on more then one side. Generally it is nice to figureout a set space and crop off one side, then another side gets 1X of your chosen space between an object and the end, and the side gets 2X the space and the last side gets 3X the space (in no particular order). Looking at the image above. the grass bleeds off the bottom, while the tree has a predetermined space between it and the bottom. On the right the tree is 2X the predetermined space, while top and left are 3X and 4X respectivly.

The next important trick you can use to add interest to your photographs is to explore different perspectives. Don't just take a picture standing straight up. test out what a picture would look like, if you were crouched down or if you were standing up on something tall such as a ladder. Think about if the object or a focus point should fill the screen or if it should be more off in the distance. The best advice take can be give, even ahead of this tips and tricks, is to use your own judgment. Look for pictures taken by pros (stock photos are a good example) and see what they were trying to accomplish in taking the pictures. After that if you think (truely think) that they are along the same level of those pictures, then your off to a good solid start. Even after your established in photography and have a good handle on it, do not be afraid to learn, there is always something new to learn!

For futher learning I would suggest, building a box type model, but it must be open all the way around, so just the skeleton on a box. Once this is accomplished you will need some white or a solid color of sheet to lay over the whole thing. Next you need some lights, to shine through the sheets, this is to tone down the lights to prevent hot spots (bright white spots in a photo). Then pick a good angle and take the picture, hidding the camera and yourself for any reflections in the photo. After this is built just work with it get used to hidding yourself from reflections in shinny objects that your photographing. it hard to master but once it is mastered, the pictures are truely breath taking.

There's no 'pain' in oil painting... okay there is.

Whether you know a lot of nothing about painting, it doesn't really matter, painting is a never ending learning process. Sure a person can get by with a fix amount of knowledge on the suject the the truely great ones will always strive to get better. With that being said, lets get started.

I am going to break this down into two catagories first is portraits. What ever you paint it is true that practice makes perfect and this is definitely the case with protrait painting, First, you must chose your model for which you will be studying ever feature, shape and shadow. I sound like a lot but you will be doing this while painting. Once a model is chosen, the overall shape is to be determined, this step is fairly quick, don't bother trying to get this step perfect, because the truth is, even if you do you don't have a whole painting to show for it. After all, you will be painting over most if not all of this layer. This first step is just to act a a general guide.

For your next step I would advise the people without a steady hand to tackle the background next. The reason for this, is because unless the person is bald, and even if the person is bald, it is easier to coverup the background with the person, because the viewer of a painting is looking mainly at the subject and not as much about the background.

Once the general space of the subject is on canvas, you then start with the dark colors of the painting (shadows, darker skin features, hair, etc.). The reason for this is to define the major shapes right away. Lights go on last so don't get to far ahead of yourself. The correct order of operation, is dark, medium, light, and last the highlights. mediums or half tones as they are commonly refered to as, go next to keep the dark shapes established first in check. This is also the time to start desiding where soft and hard edges are in the painting. Starting to bring it all together you can now add the lights, this will give you something to look at and to see stops for improvement. Do not be alarmed if it doesn't look great yet, relax it's not suppose to yet.

When this layer is done, the entire canvas should now be covered with some color of paint. This means no white canvas spots showing. When that is done, you should let it dry. It shouldn't even be tacky when touching it. Now that it is dry you can start adding more and more detail to your piece, make sure that you only paint what you see, for example, don't paint a whole eye if you only see part of one at the angle you are standing. Another thing to remember is to swint your eyes when looking at the subject, this way, if you do not see something that you otherwise see when not swinting, don't paint it. At points like this is is smart ot simplify, because you must keep in mind that you are going for the look of a painting and the look of a photograph.

When you feel you have a good likeness of the subject, it is time to ad the highlights, these are the spots of almost pure white light reflecting, such as on the tip of the nose, on a pair of glasses, and most importantly in a person's eyes. If this is not added to a persons eyes, you will no get the same lively feeling when observing this painting. Any other finishing touches can also be made now.

The other main type of oil painting is landscape. Learning what looks natural in either type of painting is one of the hardest things to do. A slight breeze blowing through the leaves on a tree, or a water sloshing around aimlessly. Those types of techniques take practice, the more time you spend at it the more natural and free flowing things will look.

The first step is to find an interesting scene. If using a photograph for your landscape, you should probably draw the image on your canvas. This will act as a guide when beginning on your painting. When your image is on your canvas, or if your not going to put an image on your canvas, the next step is to start painting, this first period is used to get your shapes close and to get paint on the canvas. Make sure that you start with tmuche darkest darks, painting from dark to light is the easiest, and most effective way to paint anything. Light colors is much more noticeable and take on more emphasis when surrounded by darker colors, and vise versa, this is one of the more important things to keep in the back of your mind when painting, because some instances need more emphasis and others need to be toned down.

Once you have the first layer of paint down, it's time to start to add detail. I like to relate, painting a picture with taking a picture, in that the first layer, you now have the picture captured, but it is the next layer that you focus in on the picture, because the first layer, looks like the picture your painting, but it is out of focus. For the first couple painting, that you do, you should be more worried about getting the shapes down right, rather than the color. The reason for this is that you will get similarities between your piece and the studied piece, much quick through shapes then you will then by getting the exact right color. Now when I say color, I do not mean tone, and shading. This is just as important as shapes, because shapes are made by the surrounding space. Try looking at the surrounding space around a shape sometime and you will see that paintings and even photographs are like puzzles. Many shapes put together make up our world.

Back to the painting. When you think your done with the second part of adding detail, you must then start adding your highlights. When working with anything living, such as animals or people, you have to add a highlight or two to the eyes, otherwise they just look glazed over. 

There are many jobs you can get from painting or drawing, but you must ask yourself, do you want to have a boss. That's perfectly fine if you do. In painting, you could paint what you want and see your pieces for a good chunk of change, but you must rememeber that if you do that, you will need to relate to the people buying your work by changing what you paint. Because if people don't like what you paint you won't sell many pieces. After all people would live with your artwork in their home.

This is after one three hour block of paintng. I took three breaks, each lasting about ten minutes. This is three hours of just painting. I spent another couple of hours prior to this drawing the image on and oil washing the canvas. Oil washing is done, by using linseed oil and your choice of paint color. The color choice should be the main color in the painting. This helps for the first step, so there is much fewer white spots showing through. In this Old Master Painting I desided to use tan colored paint for my oil wash, not because it's the most used color in the piece but because canvas back when the original was painted was a very similar color to tan. I left an area around the subjects hair, to give a slight look at the oil wash technique. The original artist was Leonardo Da Vinci.

This is the piece when completed. I spent about twelve hours on this painting or four, three hour blocks. After each session I allowed a weeks time for the painting to dry. This is not always needed but in this case it was needed. The reason for showing you this process is to show the steps involved in oil painting, and also to add some credibilty to my past painting articles.

This is the piece after one three hour session. Again, I completed the oil wash and drawing of this painting prior to starting on it. In this piece I tried to just get close to the shapes of the subjects face. This is a self portrait. The oil wash color selected was orange to match the background.

This is the piece after two, three hour sessions. These sessions were about a week apart. This week I added some detail to the face, while ignoring the glasses on the subject. Glasses are much easier to paint on after the rest of the painting is complete and dry.

This is the completed painting, after four, three hour sessions. Remember, take breaks when needed, if you are painting for a long period of time. It is good to stop looking at the painting for about ten minutes, this will allow you to come back and take a look at your painting with a fresh eye. This helps a great deal, because it is mcuh easier to see problem areas and gives you a chance to take a rest from the painting. Practicing painting in sessions like the I just described can really help build your ability to paint.

This type of drawing is not as easy as you would tend to believe. The hardest part is the technique for drawing you need to have. You can’t keep your hand rested on the paper while drawing. Because when you get to an area where there are several lines already drawn, your hand that is rested on the paper will smudge your drawing all up. But you can’t spray it with matte finish right after you drawn apart unless you don’t plan on changing it. So I would suggest you start using a stand, holding your paper up by taping it with masking tape. While drawing it would also be a good idea to start getting used to standing, it will keep you more active and into the piece.

Okay, if I haven’t worried you enough yet, let’s get started. Shapes are key when drawing anything. When starting out on a subject, finding similar lengths using your pencil holding it up like in the picture provided. It also works to use your pencil for angle. Holding the pencil up matching the angle, with your arm extended and locked in place, then move the pencil over to the sheet of paper and make a light quick mark. When the mark is transferred to your paper recheck to make sure it is right. This is a lot to take in all at one time, so take some breaks when needed. It is a good thing to never press down too hard, this will produce a shiny surface and that is not what we are going for.

When your techniques are good, you can now start drawing if you haven’t already. Now that the marks are recorded you can sort of connect the dots, so to speak. Making sure that the angles are right periodically is a good habit to get into. I know it is very easy to get into a painting and forget about everything else, but every once in a while I like to step back and just kind of compare the model with my piece.

As the time comes to start shading, I like to use a cross hatching method, similar to the technique use in the picture to the left. If cross-hatching is done in at least three different angles the graphite or charcoal is spread evenly. Cross-hatching will fill in most of the white on the paper so pressing hard when doing this is not needed.

Chromatherapy is the study of the effects that color can have on a person. Colors have an effect on the way a person feels, on the way they act toward others, and the way they feel about themselves. There are even colors that can affect a person’s appetite.

Colors are very powerful, this is some of the effects that they can have:

White: It’s a mixture of all the colors. This color creates the illusion of space. When in a white room, the room appears larger then what it really is. It gives a relaxing and soothing feeling.

Black: Black is the absence of color, and is just the opposite of white in the affects on a room. A black room feels much smaller than what it actually is. It invokes thoughts of despair.

Red: This color can enhance energy and stimulates the production of red blood cells. The feeling it can give are rage, anger, love and passion.

Orange: It increases pleasure and represents youth and curiosity.

Yellow: This color may have antibacterial qualities. It is also the color of excitement, wisdom, and clarity.

Green: Many times is used to treat bacterial infections, and helps cure stomach ulcers. It is associated with nature, calmness, jealousy, and greed. Since it is in the middle of the color spectrum, it gives a sense of balance.

Blue: Blue gives a feeling of self-assuredness. It is also associated with knowledge. And in some cases it limits the amount of toxins in the body. It gives a feeling of a decrease in temperature. If dieting, it works to eat on blue plates, because the color blue suppresses the appetite. That is why McDonald’s and Burger King doesn’t usually use blue in their packaging. Red and yellow increases appetite.

Indigo: Has a sedative effect on a person, and enhances intuition. It is also a color of inspiration. It invokes thoughts of rage, malice and wrath. But is also associated with knowledge and magic.

Violet: It calms the nervous system and invokes a spiritual awakening, while also enhancing creativity.

It is a great line of work, but you would be best not staying working at any one place for to long (more than 5 years). The reason for this is you can gain lots of experience and than when you move on you will be paid a lot better each time. Otherwise you'd be better off freelancing, for an experienced graphic designer, you could charge a lot. When you first start out expect to be paid between 13 and 16 dollars per hour. But when searching for jobs do not forget benefits. These can more than make up for a couple dollars less per hour. As you move up to better jobs you will make in the 20s and 30s per hour. Good free lancers can make between 100 and 150 dollars per hour. Sounds good doesn't it?