Getting Back Into Painting - Part 1

Over the Christmas break I have been having a difficult time with my mental health, combined with how busy this time of year can be meant time away from painting. In this blog post I will go over getting back into painting and brainstorming for finishing my project for uni.

One of the things I did to get back into painting was to paint a gift for someone’s birthday in January, because it was for someone else it made it feel fun to paint as I am excited to give it to them. It is a painting of a walrus playing the trumpet, based on a video online they love, I have included process screenshots and the final painting below.

I created an initial rough sketch.

Next I blocked out each area in different block colours for easier selection.

I then used black and white shading to prepare the piece for gradient maps.

Then after completing the grayscale I added the gradient maps to give colour.

Then I added some extra elements of shading and highlights, I added the whiskers and brought some more pink to the skin. I then finished off the background and cleaned the piece up.

While it was definitely fun to create art as a gift for someone, I definitely think doing something looser will help me get back into painting. I think I am getting intimidated by the idea of starting again, but I think I need to something that is messy and loose to remind myself I don’t need to create perfect work.

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