Crash drawing Crash

Testing new software - Krita for digital painting

One of my online students told me about a digital painting program he's using that is similar to Photshop. It's called Krita and the good news is that it's fee to download on your computer. So I did and this evening I took some time to doodle a color sketch and test the tools especially the brushes. 

Works great! This is what I came up with. 

A used a whole bunch of brushes to see what the effects would be. It may be reflected in the hodgepodge of shapes of color within the composition. Also I used an old Bamboo graphics tablet from Wacom to do the art. It's a very crude input device but it worked out okay plus it's excellent practice to use technology this challenging. If you can do it with a Bamboo you can do it with just about anything. If you're interested in Krita follow this link to the company website and try it out for yourself. An excellent alternative to the more expensive programs.

Can't stop the Bandicoot

Crash says it all ...

High school art - Delacroix's "The Lion Hunt"

I was going through my old art and found something I did in high school. I think I was 16 years old and a sophomore. This was an assignment in art class. We were told to copy a work of a great master so I chose one of the hardest ones I could find which was "The Lion Hunt" by Eugene Delacroix in 1861. He was a great French artist. This is what I did.

It measures 18" x 23". I used Crap-pas which is something of a cross between crayons and pastels. I remember I started at the left and worked across the paper towards the right. I don't think I created a preliminary sketch. I went straight ahead. I was very proud of it. Here's a picture of the actual work by Delacroix.

Here's a comparison between the two. I had a limited palette as there weren't that many colors. I recall I had to do a lot of blending to get a color that was something in line with the original.

And what do you think I did with that teenage mind of mine? I used the back of the art to take notes in my driver's ed class! What was I thinking?

 And I folded the work in thirds! Man I just wasn't using my head.

The good news is that in spite of the way I handled the art it held up after all that time!