O's Verve Process

I will share my process of learning and creating with verve here. I think it might be something that interests you. I am interested in exploring control/letting go of control and intuitivity/logical understanding in art and life in general. Also I want to learn how I learn

I'm on a very very firs stage of learning a new tool/technique. I still struggle with finding all the buttons and I constantly check verve manual page. I decided to learn Verve in a way that I will look for solutions as I create paintings. So first hot keys I learned were how to pan and zoom canvas, change background colors and lighting.

I'm really overwhelmed by amount of possibilities and effects that can be created, so my expressiveness swings from too expressive to too limited for now. Still having much fun

[Taron]

Oh, that's GREAT! What a wonderful idea, O!
I do believe, this could very well become your gallery thread, which is where we also don't mind talking about process, progress and all of that. It's not always easy to figure out the ideal place for these things. MAYBE I should start a "discovery" or "exploration" sub-forum?! I would certainly love that. Hmmmm...

Anyway, THIS is great and I'm looking forward to watching and maybe even guiding your evolution here. Fantastic!

I can already tell you, while it may seem overwhelming at first, you will soon realize that Verve's particular quality is that you only need to know a few parameters and your journey will never end, regarding what you can achieve with them. You can and will arrive at your very own style eventually, but this style will shine through no matter what techniques you come up with. That is the beauty of creating art - and, well, everything. You manifest your ideas together with those of many more souls around you, including me.

If you ever have any questions, you already know that I'm here for you!

Yeah I didn't really knew where to put this. I've never used forums :p So you can move this thread anywhere you think is suitable!

I find it interecting how digital programs can be limiting because of how many possibilities they give. Also I find it funny that because in digital program I can control everything, it's actually more difficult to control the painting process than in traditional media, where paints have their own life. Verve is a unique program because it combines both feelings

[Taron]

Ah, I so love it to read when somebody understand so well exactly what I felt when creating Verve. There's still a lot to come for it and I do want to expand certain possibilities, but it's of the utmost importance to me to keep that exact feeling, where Verve becomes its own medium, rather than some complex tool hub.

Anyway, I may move your thread to the gallery threads, once I know you know and won't get worried, if you suddenly don't find it here anymore. ...just let me know and I'll do the move, no big deal!

You can move it now

I just realized that in order to create in Verve I have to have no expectations at all. This is very important state of mind in which I try to live more and more and it's cool to train it with Verve. First I kept expecting it to behave like traditional media and then I kept expecting it to behave like digital programs and no expectations worked. Soo.. I had to turn off expectations altogether

I got something of an atmosphere going on here. Still too much stuff going on. I hope I'll feel free with Verve soon What would be the next Verve feature to learn?

[Taron]

Oh, hey, by the way, if you wish to, we can change your forum name, too. I really think you have such a beautiful name, it should be your forum nick, too, Olesya!

Ok, so, you'll discover a bunch of phases, regarding your journey into Verve. Some of them will always come back to you, others you will simply surpass eventually.

• the wild phase (a comeback phase, for sure!)
  This one will have you swirl colors around with a variety of brushes, but likely often Brush #9. Later on, when you familiarize yourself with brush images, you will also include Brush #10 and likely all the others. Not to mention the amazing things you can do with Brush #8 (fractal noise ribbon).
• the "what's that" phase (will eventually go away, but keeps creeping back up every now and then)
  In this phase you start to experiment with brushes and their settings, stumbling across the tiny dials for the curious parameters a brush offers. There's a bunch of magic to be discovered, which even I have to rediscover every now and then myself, haha.
• the careful phase (another comeback phase)
  Here you begin to understand how much control you can gain, when you carefully start putting in color and smudging it with care. You may discover the parameters for fluid smudge and blending properties. Working "slowly" suddenly becomes your path to actually creating what you want very quickly. It's quite amazing when that happens.
• ...a whole bunch of other phases, you may be able to report back to me about, haha!

But, yeah, loads to find out and- as you already said so nicely- especially things you find out about yourself along the way. Like making music, using a tool to create art will gradually activate both parts of your mind only to eventually open up a channel for your heart/soul to start manifesting your ideas and feelings that bring your original being into this world. There is a constant back and forth between the intangible self and the human being you are in this world. Art brings reflections and projections from both sides of yourself to the surface.

But I could get carried away thinking about all this and sharing those thoughts. It's sometimes too beautiful to contemplate it all. But this thread is yours!

[Taron]

A tip: Something I occasionally love doing is to turn the fluids up and lay down two colors, swirling them around a little until I can let the result inspire me. For that I may think of the sky and the ground, having a brighter color above and a darker color for the ground. Then you swirl them with 100% fluids a little bit around. Then you reduce the fluidity or let it dry faster and just swirl that way with a bigger brush size. When shapes start to form that make some sort of remote sense, you then turn the fluids way down, if not even off, and start to work out the shapes you see. You consider a light source (or more) and begin "sculpting" the forms, so to say. I do mean to paint, of course, not to use the "3d like" volume the material creates, but hey, that can be fun, too.
If you want to make sure the 3d doesn't distract you too much, turn the BUILD UP of the brush to 0%. This will not add more material and you can kind of color the existing shapes that way. Can be a very useful thing to be aware of. You then can deliberately choose the amount of BUILD UP you wish to get.

Thank you, Taron! I couldn't change my forum name in the settings, so I just added it in the signature. I don't really know what I was thinking 5 years ago creating this forum name

I really appreciate talking about all these things and I appreciate all advice. To be honest I don't have any artist friends, especially ones with whom to discuss how art can bring our true selves back. I'm using "back", because I'm feeling that I've lost myself, so now I'm in search of it. What a journey, though!

Clearly I'm in the wild phase Also now the process is far more important than the result. I think in a week or two, these artworks will be more like peaces of art and not just a process.

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Looking at this one with an awe