Thursday, November 17, 2011




Digital Gouache sketch from memory after a hike. Morning light with breaking fog, 8:30am. It was interesting to notice the buzzards looking dark in their shapes and with the right angle see them shift to a high shine against the muted hillside.

6 comments:

Darnell said...

I like the feel of this piece. Nice and calm. Beautiful

Jared Shear said...

Love these memory sketches Erik! Are you picking out a particular scene and trying to burn it into your mind to paint later?....or is it more about creating a painting based on the overall hike or "experience" in general. I'm curious on how your are approaching these.

E.Tiemens said...

Thanks for the comments Darnell and Jared.

As for your question on my approach with the memory sketches Jared, I did have a particular area above this valley in mind. I've been hiking in our local headlands for several weeks most mornings (2.5 -4 miles) so I was noticing the atmospheric variations each day. The morning mist was just perfect the other day and I thought, where is my camera?? But I usually try not to take too many pictures as I never really work from them anyway. In this case I studied the step angle of the light raking down the hillside and how some of the brighter shades of the valley floor exposed areas of bright dried grass.

In this case the image was created from the overall experience of the hike, with a composition that came to mind - intuitively later. A big block pastel digital brush (Painter 12) was used over a warm gray background. Some blending and dodge and burn tools were used, but pretty simple overall for brush work. I did make a custom brush from scanning some moss in great detail that I use to get a dry brush/gouache look to it. This mood thumbnail sketch from memory is close to dream imagery and has something that working from a photo would not. -Erik

Jared Shear said...

Cool....thanks for the insights Erik. Sounds like fun, I will have to give it a shot.

Jason said...

Wow! Really beautiful. Thanks for sharing your process on memory painting Erik. I want to try this too. Amazing atmosphere!

Unknown said...

I love the very bold composition on this one, and the overall feeling. It really feels like you say exactly what you want with color and light, I mean that there is always a great virtuosity in your work but it's always "hidden". I envy this maturity (and talent/sensitivity of course).