lines, painting, and beating a dead horse

[thecosmicgoose]

sorry for pestering you guys with the same questions over and over, but i'm having a hell of a time wrapping my mind around this. i think i've boiled the essence of my problem down into a few key questions. so hopefully that will help.

lines are a good way to denote an edge in a painting or drawing, but im trying to cultivate a more realistic style, and lines dont seem to appear in those works. so...

are lines used in realistic paintings?
---if so:
- where/when are lines best used in a painting?
-How can i keep those lines from flattening my image and making it look cartoony?
-whats the best way to smooth out a line that looks blotchy or scribbly?
-how should hue enter into the use of lines?
-how about tone?
-Shape?
- whats the best way to blend a line into a painting without losing it entirely?

please answer with as much detail as you can. im having to teach myself all of this and its damn frustrating without a mentor to watch and go "how'd you do that?"

thanks!

[Black Spot]

Lines are an illusion in real life that are created by two areas of different values.

[Chris Saksida]

If you want to learn the painting style of rendering; you should think on terms of VALUE and COLOR, not lines; lines can help you just as a starting point to establish the forms but they will dissapear as you start to render those forms, they HAVE to dissapear COMPLETELY.

You see, the "edges" of things are not made of lines in the real world, but a variation in COLOR and VALUE, when there are no variations in neither color nor value there are no edges, if someone is dressed in white, against a white background, and a illumination that makes no shadows, you won`t see the edges and he will blend with the background.

Or sometimes the "edge" of an object is the brightest point of the object in terms of value, for example if the object is lit from behind, you will see a bright zone around the object.

Hope that helps!

[thecosmicgoose]

this is actually helping me figure out where my dysfunction is. few more questions.

after scouring the net for tutorials and demonstrations. i've come to a few conclusions

- you don't put down a line, per say, but an area of tone/hue to denote an edge. this is actually kinda line *like*, but isn't a straight, unchanging mark, though it can seem that way if the edge your painting is smooth and consistent. the area of tone/hue gets fatter and thinner, fades in and out, and can have fuzzy edges. different from making a mark with a pen on paper.

is this a correct assumption?

and some technical questions:

so lets say you lay down some tone to define an edge, and you want to blend one side of that edge into the form its defining (im thinking of a jawline right now, the bottom of the jaw would be sharper, while the top would smooth into the rest of the face) any tricks on the best way to do this? i've had problems with the toned area looking splotchy, or over smoothing it and losing it entirely.

actually, now that i think on it, that's a big part of the problem im having. how do you blend one side of your edge-defining tonal area so it smoothly leads into the rest of the form without losing the sharper defining edge or it coming out looking streaky/splotchy?

[TASmith]

"are lines used in realistic paintings?"

A line doesn't always have to be drawn to be seen, but yes, all realistic imagery has many lines. Part of it has to do with looking at composition, not just the subject matter.

How do you keep a line from looking scribbly? Stop the jerky little movements that make a line scribbly, and draw out one, long, elegant line. Note, each line has it's time and place - scribbly lines are necessary too. So far as edges, they're not always sharp. Elwell has a good tutorial on edges in the tutorial section of this website. I'd look it up.

So far as how to paint... It depends on the kind of paint you're using.

If you go to a museum and look up some 13th-14th Century Italian painters, who used egg tempera, you'll find they started with light colors, and laid darker colors on top, always hatching/cross hatching the forms with pencil-thin strokes.

A little later when artists got into oil on canvas, you'll find many start with a dark undertone (red, gray, etc) and then paint lighter colors on top, with larger brushes in larger, bolder strokes, emphasizing blending wet on wet over hatching. Lines become more subtle/invisible.

With acrylics you can pretty much go either way, depending on what mediums you mix them with.

With watercolors, (and all of these mediums) there's an infinite number of techniques, some emphasizing line, and others not. You can wash large areas, blot them, scrub them, scratch into them with an old credit card/plastic knife, and make a ton of diferrent lines with your brushes.

It all comes down to practice and experimentation. I feel like a broken record saying this, but post your work, and we can help more. Start a sketchbook and put a link to it in your signature.

[thecosmicgoose]

er, i suppose i should have mentioned i paint digitaly

[thecosmicgoose]

here's a visual of my issues.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y177/thecosmicgoose/linequestionweb.jpg

hopefully thats not to gigantic.

heres also a piece that may help illistrait what i mean.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y177/thecosmicgoose/plaugeface1.jpg

for instance, how could i have better depicted the line between the mask and face? as well as the wrinkles in the mask itself?

and another

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y177/thecosmicgoose/valcalion1web.jpg

the seems of his shirt stumped me.

[dpaint]

Think in terms of edge not line it is a semantical point but important. Edges are hard or soft. When they ar hard there is more contrast between both sides of the edge than when they are soft. Hwen painting digitally paint with a bigger brush to get a softer edge and smaller brushes to get a softer transition. In your image where you ask how to smooth this out without losing the edge; select the negative shape then invert it and paint the positive shape the average of the mass with a big brush, then use slightly smaller brushes to paint the transitions from right to left.
I don't have time now but if this doesn't make sense post a reply and I will show an example when I have time.

[thecosmicgoose]

an example would be wonderful

[TASmith]

You don't need an example, it's as easy as raising the opacity. Eye drop on that mask color, zoom in a tad, and paint that edge with a high opacity, and it'll sharpen.

[dpaint]

Okay here is a quick example as an attachment. Whenever you paint anything start with the big shape first, and make it as directly as possible, so for the arm, I draw it, select it and I fill it with the average value (biggest shape). I then use as big a brush as possible to paint the shapes within the arm. So if you have a shape that is 30 pixels across use a 30 pixel brush ten pixels across a 10 pixel brush etc.They are as soft as possible, and at 20% pressure ( choose a pressure you're comfortable with). The selection keeps your hard outside edge and the soft brush keeps softer transitions within the bigger shape. Where ever you want a harder edge use the selection tool and draw it big enough that you won't create an edge where you dont want it. Hope this helps

[thecosmicgoose]

hmm. thats useful. but will it also work for hard brushes? the majority of the tuts i've seen portray soft brushes as the devil.

[dpaint]

This is a base to add details into. I would never leave it that soft in the finish. What I was responding to was your question about keeping a hard edge on one side of the shape If you use the selection tool as a sort of brush it will always make the hardest edge so yes it will work with any brush. As for the soft brush thing being quasi evile, try matte painting with only hard brushes. It is a tool and like any tool it should not eclipse the ability of the artist.

[TASmith]

Not that I'm the artist to be posting examples, but here's a little sketch I painted recently. The whole thing's with a hard round brush. I started at 100 opacity. Then painted over at 50%. Then I varied the opacity from 30%-60% as I painted. But, I was still able to harden the edges I needed, while softening others. It's just a sketch, it could use more work. But do you get the idea?

[Muz]

softbrushes are only evil for guys that don't know how to use them.

using "only" soft brushes is what is evil, but if you use them in conjunction with hard brushes they are great.
A lot of the time i use them to smooth out a surface, then harden up the edges with a hard brush.

(heres my old gif on it...)
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e305/muzzoid/metalpaintgif.gif

p.s. tas, use colours with less chroma, and turn down the flow...