Act Out

Recently, I was accused of being an “art snob.” I will agree that I like certain styles more than others, but I think my real fault is that I am an art perfectionist.

This is one of the reasons that I don’t often include my renderings in my design portfolio. Despite years of working on my drawing and painting skills, I still can’t seem to get on paper what I see in my head in any literal form.

It’s always a sad, faded, over-photocopied version. At least in my mind.

This lack of skill on my part often leaves me frustrated, angry, and anxious. I see something so much clearer and more detailed than I can ever seem to get down on paper. I over-analyze everything. And more often than not, when sitting down with a director, I have to watch that I don’t constantly apologize for my lack of drawing skills. (we are trying to discuss CHARACTER, not my drawing skills…)

I’ve also shied away from discussing rendering techniques on this blog because there are people out there who do it beautifully and seemingly effortlessly. They should obviously be the ones to give you advice on what to do and how to “fix” poor renderings.

Then I realized that I do have something to add to the discussion.

I can show you what doesn’t work!

I have amassed a great collection of less-than-stellar renderings over the years.

Why do I keep them? Because looking back, it appears that I have in fact made progress, and progress makes me happy. Also, some techniques have potential, if I were to keep practicing.

For your entertainment (if nothing else!) here is part one of a series on rendering techniques, complete with examples from the very back of my closet.

Pencil sketch/Watercolor/Colored pencil rendering

Caliban from The Tempest

This is what I usually end up doing. Sketching with pencil, laying in color with watercolor washes, adding shadow and highlights with more watercolor washes, and then defining details (lipstick, fingernails, jewelry, fabric patterns, etc).

I’ve tried a few riffs on this theme. I’ve tried adding glitter to the watercolor for “shimmery” fabrics. (usually this doesn’t work, in that it either looks like it has been applied over top, or it doesn’t show up at all.)

I’ve also tried using fresh watercolor paint straight from the tube so that it behaves more like acrylic (a very expensive way to paint btw. If you want paint to behave like acrylics, just buy acrylics and dilute with a touch of water.)

I even tried using gold and silver nail polish to paint jewelry. Again, it just sits on top of the painting, standing out like a sore thumb of bad painting judgment.

This style goes the fastest for me because I’ve been doing it for so long now. However, no matter how pleased I am with the final result, when I scan them into the computer, or photocopy at the local Staples, they always seem too soft, delicate, watered down, dream-playish. Which is fine, of course, if I’m working on a dream play.

If you’re interested in what I see in my head, but can’t quite produce, here is a link to artist Ann Miller. Her work comes as close as anything I’ve found to what I see when I’m drawing.

Oil pastel/Paint thinner Rendering

Harvey Feldman in Breaking up is Hard to Do

This was for a musical. I wanted to get a more saturated color because, well, it’s a musical. A bright and colorful musical. A 1960′s summer-time “dirty dancing” type musical. The characters were flat. The songs were (mostly) bright. The set had a mylar curtain if I remember correctly.

What I learned: the oil pastels were really just a way to get pigment onto the page.

It did give me a much more saturated color in the end, but my sketches were so small, that I needed a tiny brush to move the pigment into all of the corners. It was easy to get color where I didn’t want it. And the faces ended up being blobs of flesh-colored mess. I couldn’t do shading. And I ended up with so much color on the page, that I couldn’t even go back in with pencil and try to re-define my lines. Any subtlty just made it look more messy.

For this style, I found this site containing what I see in my head when I’m using oil pastels. A visual example for this style (which is from this site) is this:

Oil pastels done beautifully

 

So there’s part one. Part two coming next week … in the mean time, add your thoughts to the comments.