Table of Contents

Overall Thoughts

I thought the dog would be one of the more simple origami things to draw (as opposed to, say, a crane) especially given that it is so big. But measuring the dog actually took forever, because I wasn’t sure what to do about all the non 90-degree angles.

I ended up picking a few key points, not really drawing boxes, but just measuring some joints (where the neck meets the body, where the tail starts and how far it is from the tabletop, etc), and then mostly eyeballing the rest, after trying and failing to get more accurate points.

I also doubled all the measurements, so the dog ended up taking up most of the canvas, so it was a little larger than I would’ve liked, but the other way would’ve been too small.

Overall, it looks like I’m getting better at creating paintings that look pretty realistic. I got a few values wrong, mostly on translating the blue stripes on the ball, but everything else was fairly straightforward!

TK YT Pub Assignment video

Total time spent:

Sketching: From 12pm to 2pm on 7/19 (2 hrs)
Painting: From about 10:29 am on F 7/22 to 2:30 pm (4 hrs)
And used up extra paint to make a portrait copy until 3:07 pm (0.5 hrs)
Total about 6.5 hours

If I were to start this painting over right now, what would I do differently?

Measuring the dog. I would try to measure the entire picture’s height and width first, as the instructor suggested in the feedback.

Day 1: Sketching

I’ve been really getting into the art stuff lately, so whenever I have free time, I always want to sit down and get started on the next painting. This sketch was done while I was taking a break from work. It always ends up taking MUCH longer than I anticipate though.

Day 2: Painting

Painting was fairly straightforward, didn’t take too long to assign values and then from there it was just making sure I remembered to do all the steps: lay down the base color, do the gradients, then the highlights and reflections.
I did have to go back several times to fill in steps I overlooked. Technically we are supposed to move from darkest to lightest shade in 1) filling in 2) gradients, and then 3) reflections & highlights, but I kept overlooking bits and pieces. I should take more time and be more systematic.

Final Submission

This is the final painting I submitted for grading:

Based on this sketch:

Based on these measurements:

Based on this setup:

I submitted the assignment at around 5:08pm on Friday 7/22, and got a response at 1:58pm on 7/23.

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My Questions & Instructor Feedback

I asked about how much of a border we should leave in the canvases, instructor replied: paint all the way to the edge, that way whatever frame you end up using (if you frame something), it won’t get cut up weirdly.
Q: How do I make sure the picture is centered well? A: Measure the entire width and height of the image and map it on the canvas to check that it fits before proceeding.
Q: Did I do the right process for measuring the dog? A: Measure the whole dog (width and height), then break the big box into smaller ones for each triangle for precision.
Q: Was I right to use the admix EL+ML for the ball? A: Yes.

Lesson Video Notes