Through The Looking Glass, At The Mount Of Hyperrealism
Art loves you so much,
that it instantly helps you with everything you need.
Just stretch your reference image over the entire canvas in Krita,
and you have perfect shape and color reference.
This beautiful first step,
instantly makes you an artist.
Your first ten hyper-realistic portraits,
will teach you about the nose, the eyes, the lips and hair.
Gaining an intuition about how features are painted,
is very special.
This talent is also a very powerful reference point,
very useful for comprehending other kinds of art.
This first step takes you all the way up,
on one of the many mountains of art.
From here,
you can look at other mountain peaks.
And perhaps most importantly,
you can feel confident that there is a pleasant path up every peak.
We all love to create portraits,
that is one of the huge reasons why this first step is so pleasant.
However,
this may not the the case for painting nature scenery.
The process here, involves taking a number of pretty photos outdoors on some adventure,
and using them as shape and color reference.
Because of the randomness of nature,
you can do shapes free hand.
Though having real colors on hand,
is still very useful.
The joy of portraits can be so overwhelming,
that not everyone cares to paint nature.
A similar situation applies to still art,
some people may not like drawing indoor things.
Steps beyond Hyperrealism,
are as unique as the personalities of the artists.
Some will feel at home with Pop Surrealism,
others will use real world reference images but base their shapes and colors on marshmallows.
It is easy to get lost among the other peaks,
as they are all so enchanting.
Let us image our art printed on canvas,
and ask “Now, where would I like to see it displayed?”
Or in reverse,
“What kind of art do I need to create, so that it looks great on a living-room or bedroom wall?”
While this question may not sound too great to all artists,
we must not allow our art to fade away with crashed hard drives or outdated accounts.
All out works of art need legs,
everything has to go out the door.
And that means we should carefully consider,
the peaks we are headed to.
And ask if our works,
will display well.
By extension, we can also ask,
if the series of works that we create will sell well.
Here portraits reveal,
that they are precious to the person in the painting.
But strangers,
may not be too interested in portraits of other people.
If you make all your portraits in a Low Brow or Pop Surrealist style,
which will make them appealing to strangers as a series.
The people in the portraits,
won’t get the full pleasure of art from you, as you will distort their appearance.
What are the marvels in your painting or the next series of paintings,
that will make a stranger wish to purchase them?"
And, where do you want your paintings,
to be displayed?
And what kind of style and content do you need,
to make that happen.