Painting Demo: 'Candle Light'
Friday, July 30, 2010 at 6:40AM Here's a painting demonstration from a piece I recently completed for a client project about life in a medieval castle. Apparently, most castle inhabitants slept communally on straw mattresses on the filthy floor of the main Great Hall. Stale bread would be soaked in turpentine and a lit candle was placed on top to repel pests during the night. Nice. Glad I didn't live back then.
You'll notice there's a layer of 'noise' on top of the whole image. That's from two layers of texture I add on top of the entire piece. One of the textures is from a picture I took of a rusted car door and the other texture is a scan of hot-press watercolor paper. I find they help unify the overall image and contribute to an analog look to the work.
You can see a lot more detail if you click on the YouTube logo in the lower right of the video window and then select 720p mode.
Medieval, candle, castle, demonstration, middle ages, painting, rat | in Demo
Reader Comments (7)
Great work Gerald and really cool seeing your process! I love all the shadows and details that you put in, like the chips in the wall and the cross-hatching on the mattress.
Inspiring stuff!
Hey Sarah!
Thanks for the nice words. This has been a busy summer and hopefully I'll have a lot more work to post toward as fall arrives.
Excellent! great coloring and perspective!
Awesome video, Gerald! We've enjoyed your clever illustrations for our Enslow books, but this is amazing. It's fascinating to watch how each line, shading, or swatch of color adds to the effect. You've somehow managed to convey the essence of the creative process -- and the final image blew us away! What an eerie insight into another time. (We wouldn't like to live there, either!) The background music was also very effective: edgy, compelling... Where on earth did you find it?
Best wishes from Ginny & Laura
Virginia,
Thanks for you r comments! This has been the most research I've ever done on a project.
I found the music here: http://dig.ccmixter.org/
Its a Creative Commons site where people post music for use without royalty. Lots of creative people doing some great work there.
This is amazing! You are so very talented.
Thanks for the tip, Gerald -- looks like a very interesting site!
Meanwhile, we just got a contract for another batch of 6 Cool Pets books. We'll look forward to your clever illustrations for those books, too.
Best wishes from Ginny & Laura