When I started my little digital Impressionist painting, I made sure to go in with no expectations. If it came out great – great! If it came out bad – also great! The whole point was to try it out and hopefully learn something along the way.
It was definitely a rough start at first, but by the end I found a sort of rhythm. Somehow this blobbly colorful thing I was making started to look like something and I’m really happy with the result! Could there be improvements? Absolutely. Did I approach it the way an Impressionist would? I’m still not really sure about that.
However! I feel like a better artist having done this. I had to work against what I normally do (Blend, blend, blend! Make it darker!) and I think I really started to see my subject. When it was done, I didn’t really care that it’s a little off. I captured not only a moment, but all the things I felt about that moment in the movement and energy of the (digital) paint.
So who did I pick to paint? Chewy and my son! It wasn’t my original idea, but on the day I was thinking about the picture I took of my son laying with the dog on the couch. It’s one of my favorite moments and even though it was a few years ago, they still hang out like that to this day. As my aunt said when she saw the picture, “There’s nothing like a boy and his dog.”
And so without further ado, here’s my little Impressionist experiment: A Boy and His Dog
My one regret with this is that I forgot to turn on the time lapse recording. It would have been such a cool playback! At least there’s still the stream. You can watch it here.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you in February for the next Artist of the Month!
