Intars' gallery

Today i was reading an article about 4-colour theorem in graph theory and thought that i will paint in verve
something on topic. Somehow i couldn't force myself to stay in 4 colors. Maybe next time.

[Taron]

Yeah, those are fantastic exercises! I remember reading about old Rembrandt techniques, too. I did a few experiments like that with Verve.

An update / new concept drawing for my art project "Heartcrab", again with the help of verve-painter. I am testing out, conceptualizing a swamp scene which kind of a should be
as if real and surreal at the same time in its properties, dimensions. Speaking in analogies, you can imagine this scene as being like sort of last boss level in a game where you
meet the final events.
Verve helped me to quickly prototype and experiment a basis for further ideas and thoughts on this scene later on. Here i really harshly brushed, smeared and worked with brushes 9, 8, 7 and 3.

[Taron]

You've achieved some exciting textures in the swamp's ground. The trees suggest that it somehow had burned recently. It feels more like a burned field which now got flooded to top things off.
The clouds feel like there was a regular wriggle or turbulence going throughout the entire sky. That's a little off-putting. I would try to avoid such regular distortions and at least try to alter the rhythm, if you know what I mean.
But the colors are really interesting all around. It's muted, but colorful...a curious sense of rott, which feels utterly intended and that's a mark of an artist (showing intention)!
Great stuff, Intars!

Very peculiar deconstructing of the drawing; thanks, Taron. As being a conceptual scenic place in a mentioned story's imaginary world, it means the scene will change its looks steadily.
Good to see what people read from this. I must confess that it slipped from me that those broken trees and their trunks will push on associations with disaster fires, which in its turn, in
a chain of emotions (as i see now thanks to you) might push viewer even further to conceive image as a place of active/recent disaster. Admittedly, the flooding look also helps to convey
that feeling. But to my little disappointment in one sense for sure - in a sense of quickly getting to were i was with this scene in my imagination originally, i did not made it there because
it was intended to look more like surreal / super-static / like as if anciently old / nightmarish swamp from another dimension, like in a dream-nightmare world. As for rot - that thing indeed
was totally aimed for because i need it there conceptually. The scene certainly is intended not to be a Laguna beach for story characters

So, how i ended up almost completely in opposite direction, in a dynamic swamp - i don't know . Lets put a blame for a moment to verve-painter which easily carries away the painter

[Taron]

If anything is a wonderful blame, hehehe!
Yeah, what makes a swamp look like a swamp? Hmmmm.... certainly there are different kinds of swamps. For example "The Swamp Thing", which is more like a forest like swamp, having massive, drooping trees, thick moss and the likes as opposed to the sort of open swamp with hardly any trees, but loads of swamp-grass, all rather flat. Well, just type "swamp" in google and see what comes up. Then imagine what might've happened to this environment!? Was there a catastrophe that killed the trees, or has nature simply grown out of control and is massive and lush, partially rotting, but renewing itself again? That's where your imagination can really go wild. Or maybe it wasn't swamp at all, but somehow water and organic growth took over, sinking into it all that was there before with only bits and pieces still reaching up from the ground. Substances mingle, some of them molding, some of them growing other things on them and others just totally dead... so much to imagine. I know you love to get carried away by such fantasies and so should you!

Ah, I found one that may go somewhat into your direction:

And there are a bunch more that also remind me of your take on it...
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-mountain-river-summer-surrounded-by-642071842

Yes, i certainly think i won't pull-off swamp scene for this "Heartcrab" art project without references because my imagination while do see it almost complete, with all specifications that i want
there to be in full res, it still evades and becomes extremely elusive whenever i sit down and try to bring this vision 'down to earth'. Especially an intended, somewhat surreal parts of it. I soon
will make other new concept verve-painting for one of such surreal aspects that i have in mind. Will see how it goes. So yes, the mind kind of "knows" (as usual) how i want this swamp scene to
be like conceptually, but it blocks me from accessing this vision in one go and hands won't listen either
Because i need to mix various types of swamps and there is even idea that there is not only water but something like relic oil, so the liquid also looks like a disaster mix on its own. How i would
paint it ? (Hi hiii, on other hand, i think the verve will be precisely THE best tool for experimenting there).

So, lots of experiments to be done. I know that it won't be possible for me to reach a fully realized vision in one go here. More like element by element, and then some sort
of 'final merge', i guess. Thanks for references, Taron.

[Taron]

Just let it inspire you! Consider certain details as mental orientation, that's all! No need to hit them on the nose!

No need to hit them on the nose!

Hi hii - easier said than done. You all know probably that feeling in creative endeavors, when, metaphorically and overdramatically speaking, you see a whole universe and you rush in to paint it and all you got in your picture at the end.. ..maybe one atom . But yes - patience, method and persistence is everything. I agree on that

[Taron]

The beauty of being an artist is to constantly journey through many layers of awareness. One can't just say that it's about developing an understanding for a certain thing. You gradually develop understanding for more and more different aspects of everything. Let's say you wish to paint swamp grass. You could try and understand each physical manifestation of it, what its substance looks like in what light, what the shape may be according to its general nature, where it grows and how the water behaves around it, how deep that would be, how murky and so on... but then you also just want to capture what it feels like, when you see it, what's the impression that would suffice to indicate that it must be swamp grass. What if you just wanted to even go fully abstract and what would it take to capture the essence of the sensation to see it. Or you could go fully graphic, draw each straw and whatever shape emerges from the straws in great detail. So many things to absorb and consider. And after all that- or during these observations- you may bring yourself into your focus, how would you want to paint it, what would truly satisfy you, what's enough, what's too much and maybe even why. Any reason goes, too, be that extreme diligence or laziness, be it dreamy idealization or a darker impression, coarse and just enough to avoid complete doubt intentionally.
Art really is the discovery of your own essence, your perception, but also the nature of your desire to communicate. At the end, art along with virtually all forms of creativity is communication. I find it helpful to remember that.