Hey folks,
I wanted to throw out a challenge to you guys since some people were mentioning wanting some assignment type things to get the creative juices flowing. This is an assignment I give in school where students create a digital illustration first. I don't tell them that they are then going to have to create the same piece traditionally.
It is very tough and a great assignment. You will learn a MASSIVE amount trying to basically do your own master copy. The looser/more experimental the original piece, the more difficult it's going to be to match. For example, painting a master copy of one of John Singer Sergent's rough oil sketches is actually harder than painting his finished piece due to the loose and spontanious brush work.
My general guidelines are it should be within 90% of the original piece. Individual marks are impossible to duplicate of course, but hopefully the feeling of the piece stays the same. If it's a fairly tight rendering on the digital piece, I want the match to be over 90% on the traditional.
What you are looking for in an assignment like this is:
- how to control your values
- how to control your edges in different media
- how to match color (not easy!)
- How to match texture (not exactly of course, but try to get close)
Here's an example I painted today. The original was done with some printmaking brushes, so I knew I couldn't totally match that in watercolor, but I wanted the general texture feel of it and then of course to match the color and value. Watercolor is probably the hardest to do this assignment in because it's very unforgiving if you make a mistake. Acrylic and oil are much easier.
Anyway, pick your favorite piece of yours that you created digitally (or make a new one) and then give it a go! Post it here so we can see! : )
PS: I will often times create a digital illustration and offer it for sale as a print to test it out. If the print does well, I recreate it traditionally and sell the original painting. This has worked 100% of the time. It works because you can start to gauge demand for a piece based on how many prints sell. This way I don't waste time framing something that may or may not sell.
