Assassin's Creed III however is just a really enormous game with lots to do and fills me with conflict as it involves murdering my countrymen* in large numbers in a bid to remove them from American shores (It's set during the Revolutionary War of Independence - That's a combination of both the US and UK names for it if you were wondering).
You're not here for excuses though, you're here for ART. Not much to be found unfortunately, but carry on if you fancy a giggle at my expense.
Yes, it's a little sad and unfinished, some of the reasons why can be found below, as well as why I'm not terribly disheartened by it (though I am a little embarrassed). The photo quality is dreadful - I'll need to work on that if I want to post paintings from now on - ugh.
Nine weeks ago I started an eight week painting class. Some of you may recall my last attempt at painting way back in January. I was planning to have another go soon after, but I realised that I really had no clue what I was doing and should probably take a class to at least learn the basics such as how to mix paint and handle a brush. It took me almost ten months to get there, but I finally did it. Cost a fortune too - not the class, all the paint. Good paint is expensive! If I paint a picture with a lot of red I'll need to take out a loan (Cadmium red is particularly pricey, although you can get a hue version which is cheaper).
I didn't bore anyone with my background beyond what my job is, so it was nice not being in a situation where anyone expects you to actually produce something spectacular (and them being subsequently disappointed), especially since I really know next to nothing about actual paint.
The first few weeks were spent painting simple things, such as a colour wheel and some transitions between various shades and colours. I'm not going to scan those in as one colour wheel is much like another, except mostly better than mine, you'll just have to use your imagination (or possibly google if you don't know what a colour wheel looks like).
That's me painting squares. I think I was painting transitions between various yellows and blues and blacks to make green. I didn't know mixing black with yellow would give some excellent greens prior to this (that's the sort of thing I took the class for). Actually, no, I lie, it's me painting transitions between complimentary colours - the greens were the week after.
So on week three we started on a still life. We had a choice of two, and I chose the bunny one, because who doesn't like a bunny? The photo above is from week six of the class because I forgot to take one the first two weeks we were painting this.
I roughed it out in pencil and started painting. Then the next week I painted some more. I forgot to get a picture of the painting the first week as well, so this is how it looked on the second week of work.
After that I... you guessed it, painted some more. It's worth noting that the class was one day a week for three hours (about 2 to two and a half hours of that was painting), and between sessions the still life was struck and then put back for the next time. There were a lot of variables that could move, and did. You'll note the ribbon in my picture, and some of the locations of things is different than those in the photograph. That's because they moved, as did the light, as did I. I could blame all that on my Rabbit looking a bit wonky (because he was at a slightly different angle each week), but in all honesty I'm pretty sure I sketched him in a little wonky and a little fat, so it's far more my fault than any slight variations in position.
I'm not particularly pleased with it, but the rest of the class seemed to like him, mutated though he is. Apparently the colours I chose for him are appealing and his eye went down well (with a nice Chianti and some fava beans, probably).
Despite having little desire to finish it, and not being happy with the current result, I'm still pleased I did it because I learned a lot in the process. Some of which will hopefully be reflected in my next piece (It's in progress - the class has finished but I have a little more to do on it before I'll call it done). One of the things I learned was that painting for real takes a lot longer than painting digitally. Most of that time, for me, comes down to mixing the paint. Digitally you just pick the colour you want and go at it, but real media takes time to mix for every single variation - there were quite a few colours here, so it took a while (~6-8 hours total?). If I was painting this digitally it would be a lot faster - I'm guessing I could speedpaint it in 90 minutes without issue, and probably more accurately as it's easier to fix mistakes... I may even do that at some point.
Still, painting from life rather than photographs also has it's challenges, and I don't do nearly enough working from life in general. Maybe this will inspire me to do more of it in future.
So Turkey-Day is fast approaching, and I'll be away for that. I'll try and get some sketching done. When I get back I have something to keep me busy for about a week (not going to spoil it too much, but it's another Doctor Who picture, my last for a while), then I'll finish my next painting from the class and post a write up. Somewhere in there I'll get October's meager sketching scanned so you can see that too. Things to look forward to, or dread - I'm almost back to full speed again though I think, and that can't be a bad thing.
Sorry for the large amounts of text and small amount of pictures this post - but not half as sorry as my fingers, because they had to type it all.
*That's my actual countrymen by the way, not the character's countrymen, and a distressingly large number of the rooftop guards seem to be specifically Welsh and yell things at you like "Oi, get down! Are you deaf? Ge'down before I come over there!" Which is slightly creepy and uncannily accurate as I'm usually yelling the exact same thing at the cat. I'm starting to sound like my Dad...
