Laura De Fazio

Painting Process on Mt. Olympus

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about my painting process so I’ve put together this play by play with my thought process. 

1. Design and Value-Before starting, I want to make sure I have a nice design I’m happy with. I need to know this before hand because it’s really my blueprint to paint light and color. So, the shapes are really important. Then I need to make sure each shape is distinguished from the one next to it. This is Value. It is the single most important thing here. This step is crucial to getting the color to work. If the Value is off, then I will never get the color to work. 

2. Light Shapes and some temperature-Here, I’ve laid in some rough color with broad strokes. I’m just looking at relationships. There is nothing more to it but this step is important before I invest time in the edge of forms. I do everything up to this point at a very small thumbnail size. 

3. Rough Texture and Foreground-Now that some of the lights are working I take a look at the shadow area. I adjust the color to match the atmosphere. I experiment with the transition from light to shadow with a texture brush. 

4. Light Reveals Texture Details-At this point, I am working at about 100%-125% and start to paint in any cast shadows in the light shapes. I work from large to small. I keep my focus on just the areas of light since the shadows will be much less detailed. Shadows are transparent. Light reveals texture. Dark reveals form.

5. Principles of Light-Up to this point, I’ve hit my key light, cast shadows, core shadows, fill light, occlusion, and now I’m approaching bounce. This is an unusual image because the bounce isn’t really obvious in the cliff shadow sides. So, I subtly lift out a little texture in the atmosphere of the cliffs. I have to keep it very subtle because the texture is not revealed in light but without anything it doesn’t feel right. I run through my principles of light and make sure I’m following a consistent light direction. I add some clouds into the background to test my depth. It feels good so now I’m thinking about adding them to the mid-ground somewhere. I add a figure silhouette where I am pointing my light shapes. 

6. Nitty Gritty-Okay, now the gloves are off. I’m getting down and dirty to hit every little detail. I know where I can invest. I keep the shadow areas simple. I add fill light to the figure. I keep its value darker than the background for readability.      

7. Final touches-I make any final adjustments here to assist the story. When it’s ready, sign it and ship it!

70. Samoa

Come color with me!

My best advice is to work your hardest and make sure you are proving to yourself how dedicated you are through that hard work! Your teachers are going to do their best to give you new ideas to think about and techniques to practice, but it’s really up to the student to take that info and chew on it. Here’s a list of seven specific things you can do, that I observe my most successful students doing:

Draw all the time. Carry your sketchbook everywhere and draw everything. (And draw from life - examine and reinterpret reality)

Use your teachers. Listen to their lectures, read the books they tell you to, practice the techniques they show you. You will still have a thousand questions - ask them for help and advice! You are paying for their expertise and they are an amazing resource.

…But don’t wait for your teacher to give you direction. In your off time, make the work you want to make. Try different media, styles, ideas, techniques out.

Develop a community with your peers. One of the most important and overlooked parts of being in school is being surrounded by other artists and designers. Make clubs or meet up for coffee and talk about art! Critique each others work! Make challenges for each other! Be competitive and push each other to make better work! 

Experiment a ton. If an assignment asks for 10 thumbnails, make 20! If something you do doesn’t come out the way you want, try it another way. If it does come out the way you want, STILL try it another way. Don’t ever get comfortable and always do more than is asked of you.

Look at other artists in and out of your field. You should be inspired by hundreds of historic and contemporary artists, and you should know their names and their work. Your work should never look like just one of these artists, but the lovechild of all of them and everything else you’ve ever seen in your entire life.

Have other interests. The world around you is huge and the more things you’ve experienced and observed, the richer and more believable your drawings will be.

The Huntsman!

Hadn’t done a painting in such a while, wanted to relax and enjoy myself. Heavily referenced from a photo in this amazing fashion story: