Hi all,

Thanks everyone for your participation in my last digital painting challenge. A hundred apologies for not being able to do a painting for it myself, I got tied up organizing a trip to Africa, but I'm back! I'm preparing for an art show in less than a month, so I certainly have impetus to get painting!

That said, here's the next challenge, freshly inspired by an awesome trip to the 'Heart of Darkness.'
"African Wildlife"

Anything's clever within that topic. I'm already planning a couple of paintings based on photographs that I took there, so this'll be my theme for a while. Let's make the deadline the end of May. Also, I'd like to see, if there's sufficient interest, people's revisions based on the critiques they receive from myself and the other members. Many of my paintings wouldn't be nearly as good if it weren't for critique and revision.

Let's get painting everyone!

I want to join the challenge, but don't know where to start.

Judyvan

Hi Judyvan,
Check out www.artrage.com and download the demo of their painting software. It's probably the simplest and most like traditional art program I've used. Then just paint a picture!

Hey Sandworm!! I was wondering what happened to you. Sounds like a great challenge. I will try to participate in this one if the kidlets will allow me some free time..LOL. I just started babysitting my neice and its challenging having her with my 2 yr old. All they want to do is fight. My neice is 3. So they are almost the same age. I do have some idea's that come to mind though..

Yeah Venus, I know your pain. Right now my girlfriend and I are living in a tiny 1 room apartment in the city in Taichung. We have 4 cats (accidentally, I assure you!) Those little rotters are going at each other 24/7, and we never get any sleep.

Actually I'm preparing for an art show my friend and I are putting on this next month, so I've got to get some new pics out there I'm reworking one of my older speedpaints and I still really want to do the image of the cheetah that I photographed in Africa.

Just to add to the madness I've got my company going wild, new divisions to consider opening (all requiring meetings), my band is getting popular, so we've just been asked to play as a house band at a restaurant, add to that three days a week of Silat (malaysian knife fighting martial art), and now we're moving to a new house too!

Also I just bashed my head on the ground in Silat and had to get 22 stitches in my forehead! Bloorgh...

It's like living in a tornado

Wait till you see my new ones though, they're going to be awesome. I hope you get a chance to do something for this challenge! I'm thinking about extending the deadlines to a month though, 'cause I can't even meet them myself these days!

Here is my digital challenge. It is done in MSPaint as a sprite 100x100 pixels. I did Brenda's lesson
Emma Emu- N04. Sorry nothing original or serious. I hope to see some pictures here soon.
Paulette
[attachmentid=5442]

Paulette, how cute!!! You did a fantastic job!!

Sandworm...WOW. Thats a mouthful of stuff happening!! LOL do you get time to spend with your girlfriend at all? No wonder the kitties are keeping you awake at night, they are trying to get attention!!! Congrats on the Art Show and the new House. So far between my class, babysitting and working my part-time summer job have haven't drawn anything except a few sketches for the figure drawing class. I haven't even taken my tablet out of the drawer except to move it out of the way to gather bills that need to be paid..LOL. I love the idea of the thread being extended for a month though, gives us all more time to "try" to participate. Good luck on everything and hope to hear or see ya soon with the cheetah picture finished..

Hey Venus, thanks for the support Let's do it then, one whole month! I have got to finish the cheetah picture by then anyway, and after this week is over, I think I'll have time to do it.

Paulette, that's awesome! Your 100x100 style is so different from what I expected, but it is really creative and cute. The eye looks really half-transparent from the light coming through at the bottom half of the iris. I am impressed! Great job!

To keep you guys entertained while you do the hard work , here is another 100x100 pixel picture. This one is from a picture in the inspiration gallery. The photo is from the Smithsonian's animal photo gallery.
Paulette
[attachmentid=5577]

Hello out there......

You guys are working long and hard, I hope to see some results soon.
Again, just playing with MSPaint, here is a tiger. Are they in Africa?
Paulette
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Awesome job Paulette. I saw it in the gallery, I love the detail.

Thank you Andrea.
Paulette

Hi Paulette, great job! Have you considered working bitter to get even more detail? I'm really impressed with your results so far. I'll get something up here as soon as I can, I've just been else-wise inspired (trying to get stuff done for the art show), but if you want to check out what I HAVE been working on, I'll post it up here...

Yeh, we would love to see what you've been doing. Please post it

Ok, it's a WIP though, so you're seeing it as a value study at the moment. The end piece will be color though, of course! I'm intending to add loads of detail, but since I'm moving to a new house this weekend I'm not sure how much work will get done...

Wow, thats awesome!
Where do you get your ideas?

Hey, thanks! Actually this one I didn't have any clue what I was going to paint, just started with black and white and started making shapes until something started to form. Then the thinking started

Wow Duane that is awesome!! I love it. Great imagination you have there! I can't wait to see it in color. I am sure it will be great though. Wish I had the patience to do something like that and make it look realistic. None of my digital stuff even comes remotely close to what you can do. it looks childish to say the least.

Wow, this is going to be a beauty!

Right know I am mostly playing. When I take a bigger page all my lines look like squiggles and I just say to myself "well sprites are okay too". Maybe the next one.
Paulette

Paulette, I have faith in you...you can do it!! Make them pictures bigger. Your sprites are too cute though. I like doing the digital drawing and painting but love traditional art more. So I haven't even played with my wacom tablet in forever. Maybe I will get it out later if I decided not to start another pastel picture.

Maybe you could try approaching digital with the same mindset as pastel, or any other traditional media. For example, I first build up my values using a hard-edged brush with pressure set to opacity. I'm still doing that on this piece. Take a look at the apple I recently uploaded to my gallery, I did that with only this brush, white and black. It's just a matter of working the values. Try it, it works