― Artistic Expression Critique ⇒ Impasto oil paint technique in PS

[Duck]

Recently I have been experimenting with different ways of getting a more realistic oil paint technique. The one thing I hate about most actions is that the process is too animated and the "brushwork" looks fake. Either because of scale in relation to the image or direction in relation to elements within the image. I think I found a technique that allows a more natural look. Of course it requires a bit more hand work from me but I'm liking the results.

This is an experiment and I left out a few steps from another result that I like. In the next I will be incorporating those steps and I think it will make this so much better. I also used a stock brush I downloaded from somewhere. While it did what I wanted I think I need to create a more customized brush to get the look and feel I actually want. That'll be my next task.

In the meantime, I would love to hear some feedback from the community. Does it look like an impasto oil painting? Is the texture too much? Not enough? Too course? Everything will be taken into account as I refine this technique before I start teaching it.

Rainey clown

Unitas_Photography-7678.jpg (93.43 KiB) Viewed 945 times

[Psjunkie]

While I would need to do more research to familiarize my self with "impasto oil painting" (I am very ignorant of such things) I see unique brush work and am looking forward to witnessing the progress...

[Duck]

While I would need to do more research to familiarize my self with "impasto oil painting" (I am very ignorant of such things) I see unique brush work and am looking forward to witnessing the progress...

Thanks for looking.

Impasto is the heavy buildup of paint on a canvas to create extreme textures. Globs of paint are pushed with brush or palette knife to add dimension to specific areas of a painting.

[Psjunkie]

Thanks for the explanation......in that case, I find the back ground starting to look pretty good but I would say you need more buildup is needed elsewhere,..from my untrained eye of course

[uuglypher]

Recently I have been experimenting with different ways of getting a more realistic oil paint technique. The one thing I hate about most actions is that the process is too animated and the "brushwork" looks fake. Either because of scale in relation to the image or direction in relation to elements within the image. I think I found a technique that allows a more natural look. Of course it requires a bit more hand work from me but I'm liking the results.

This is an experiment and I left out a few steps from another result that I like. In the next I will be incorporating those steps and I think it will make this so much better. I also used a stock brush I downloaded from somewhere. While it did what I wanted I think I need to create a more customized brush to get the look and feel I actually want. That'll be my next task.

In the meantime, I would love to hear some feedback from the community. Does it look like an impasto oil painting? Is the texture too much? Not enough? Too course? Everything will be taken into account as I refine this technique before I start teaching it.


Unitas_Photography-7678.jpg

Hi,Duck,
Having gone through a period of impasto painting in oil more years ago tan I care to admit here are my impressions of your sample:
The sunflower is strongly and well representative of the deeply textured impasto effect, I don’t find it elsewhere. An impasto painting is ALL impasto.
Floral images with detailed leaf/ stem background would work well. Scenes with open, low-detail-dense planes and surfaces do not contribute productively to demonstration of impasto virtuosity.
For what it’s worth...
Dave

[Duck]

While I would need to do more research to familiarize my self with "impasto oil painting" (I am very ignorant of such things) I see unique brush work and am looking forward to witnessing the progress...

Thanks for the feedback. I see what you mean. Makes sense.

Hi,Duck,
Having gone through a period of impasto painting in oil more years ago tan I care to admit here are my impressions of your sample:
The sunflower is strongly and well representative of the deeply textured impasto effect, I don’t find it elsewhere. An impasto painting is ALL impasto.
Floral images with detailed leaf/ stem background would work well. Scenes with open, low-detail-dense planes and surfaces do not contribute productively to demonstration of impasto virtuosity.
For what it’s worth...
Dave

I agree. True impasto relies as much on how the paint is built up as it is to the direction and quality of brush and palette knife use. As you know, mimicking true impasto digitally is very tricky and I don't think I'll be able to come anywhere close to the true effect with my limited knowledge of PS. This is very much experimental and I'm wondering if this technique could be toned down to be less 'impasto' and more of a natural brush look, heavy on the texture but not as strong as represented here. Thanks for your input. It's very much in line with what Psjunkie said above.

[PietFrancke]

some day we will have 3d paint printers that can build up the wax/paint where you want and layer the color on top of that - should we live that long. Until then, to me, the target of having it look impasto and looking real at the same time are conflicting goals (since real 3d look will change as the head moves about and new surfaces are hidden and revealed - since it is really 3d).

Anyway, to me, I see wrinkles and lines (in the face - that don't look like hills and canyons of paint) and I find myself wanting to blend them somewhat away with a blender brush.

I admire your goal, but am fearful that the best you make it look like (if printed), a photograph of an impasto painting and that is just because of the nature of the problem - that the screen or the paper is not 3d.

But there is one success here that absolutely looks 3d (too me), and it might be due to the colors and contrast and shadow painting- it is the look of the tear drops - they have an amazing feeling of 3d.

Part of your solution will be to figure where you want the affect - selected edges comes to mind, And perhaps those areas where you choose to use it, you will incorporate richer highlights and detailed crease shadows.

[Duck]

[...]
But there is one success here that absolutely looks 3d (too me), and it might be due to the colors and contrast and shadow painting- it is the look of the tear drops - they have an amazing feeling of 3d.

Part of your solution will be to figure where you want the affect - selected edges comes to mind, And perhaps those areas where you choose to use it, you will incorporate richer highlights and detailed crease shadows.

I think you are on to something with this. Perhaps applying the effect on just certain areas will help sell the look better than applying it on everything. I new I'd get some useful input from you guys.

Thanks.

[uuglypher]

While I would need to do more research to familiarize my self with "impasto oil painting" (I am very ignorant of such things) I see unique brush work and am looking forward to witnessing the progress...

Thanks for the feedback. I see what you mean. Makes sense.

Hi,Duck,
Having gone through a period of impasto painting in oil more years ago tan I care to admit here are my impressions of your sample:
The sunflower is strongly and well representative of the deeply textured impasto effect, I don’t find it elsewhere. An impasto painting is ALL impasto.
Floral images with detailed leaf/ stem background would work well. Scenes with open, low-detail-dense planes and surfaces do not contribute productively to demonstration of impasto virtuosity.
For what it’s worth...
Dave

I agree. True impasto relies as much on how the paint is built up as it is to the direction and quality of brush and palette knife use. As you know, mimicking true impasto digitally is very tricky and I don't think I'll be able to come anywhere close to the true effect with my limited knowledge of PS. This is very much experimental and I'm wondering if this technique could be toned down to be less 'impasto' and more of a natural brush look, heavy on the texture but not as strong as represented here. Thanks for your input. It's very much in line with what Psjunkie said above.

Hi, Duck ,
You said:”As you know, mimicking true impasto digitally is very tricky”
With that statement you vastly overestimate my experience in attempting to mimic other art media with photography.
And here I have to wonder:
Having studied and used a variety of paint and other graphic media ( watercolors, gouache, oils - in various styles (including impasto) , acrylics, pastels, graphite, pen-and-ink, sum-I-e, and engraving/carving in stone and glass (bas relief and intaglio) I have never found myself inclined to attempt to mimic the effects of different art media with my long-term favorite medium, photography. To me, each medium, including photography, offers such a variety of modes of expression that using one medium in an attempt to achieve a creative effect more purposefully - and convincingly - and routinely - provided by another medium dedicated to naturally producing the desired effect ... well ... I guess that I simply find it hard to understand why so many wonderfully able photographers make the effort to try to mimic to some degree the effect of another, totally different creative medium with the medium of their own mastery?

I have to wonder if it is a subconscious attempt at tit-for-tat to mirror the abilities of some artists working in classical media to approach photographic realism with their particular (non-photographic) art media?

In fact, in the historically deep pre-photographic era did not the artists of the most representative turns-of-mind and skill, for lack of the comparative “photographic” term, simply aspire to render their works in “ultra-realism” or tromp l‘oeil (sp?).

The use of different “apps” to accomplish characteristic modes of pictorial emphasis makes me imagine what our modern collections of the works of the “greats” of the past would be like if their recommendations to each other were of this sort:

“Y’know, you could use PetePaul Rubens to come in and put a bit more flesh on y’r skinny models!”
or
“you should get Mike Caravaggio to step in a give this painting of yours a real punch-up with a strong dose of his chiaroscuro!

(Maybe “Apps” aren’t as new as we think them to be.....???)

in hope of further discussion...I’m just sayin’............

Dave

[PietFrancke]

While I would need to do more research to familiarize my self with "impasto oil painting" (I am very ignorant of such things) I see unique brush work and am looking forward to witnessing the progress...

Thanks for the feedback. I see what you mean. Makes sense.

...

...

Hi, Duck ,
You said:”As you know, mimicking true impasto digitally is very tricky”
With that statement you vastly overestimate my experience in attempting to mimic other art media with photography.
And here I have to wonder:
Having studied and used a variety of paint and other graphic media ( watercolors, gouache, oils - in various styles (including impasto) , acrylics, pastels, graphite, pen-and-ink, sum-I-e, and engraving/carving in stone and glass (bas relief and intaglio) I have never found myself inclined to attempt to mimic the effects of different art media with my long-term favorite medium, photography. To me, each medium, including photography, offers such a variety of modes of expression that using one medium in an attempt to achieve a creative effect more purposefully - and convincingly - and routinely - provided by another medium dedicated to naturally producing the desired effect ... well ... I guess that I simply find it hard to understand why so many wonderfully able photographers make the effort to try to mimic to some degree the effect of another, totally different creative medium with the medium of their own mastery?

I have to wonder if it is a subconscious attempt at tit-for-tat to mirror the abilities of some artists working in classical media to approach photographic realism with their particular (non-photographic) art media?

In fact, in the historically deep pre-photographic era did not the artists of the most representative turns-of-mind and skill, for lack of the comparative “photographic” term, simply aspire to render their works in “ultra-realism” or tromp l‘oeil (sp?).

The use of different “apps” to accomplish characteristic modes of pictorial emphasis makes me imagine what our modern collections of the works of the “greats” of the past would be like if their recommendations to each other were of this sort:

“Y’know, you could use PetePaul Rubens to come in and put a bit more flesh on y’r skinny models!”
or
“you should get Mike Caravaggio to step in a give this painting of yours a real punch-up with a strong dose of his chiaroscuro!

(Maybe “Apps” aren’t as new as we think them to be.....???)

in hope of further discussion...I’m just sayin’............

Dave

About media... ah.. We have had computer monitors for a number of years now bringing the world (in a glowing flat fashion) onto our desks and our laps and still we talk about the media being chalk or oil or PS or photography, etc. I am slowly coming around to the idea the the media in our experience is mostly the computer monitor as the physical embodiment of the art's presentation.

So, the only rule around that is the impact of the piece and it's ability to interest the viewer. Once the work is viewed digitally, it is digital media. Yes, it might be carved wooden intarsia of an eagle's head, but if it is presented digitally, the digital rules come into play. I can touch the wood, but I can not feel the smoothness or roundness of it with my fingers on a computer screen - granted I can See it a little.

Anyway, in the interest of capturing attention and interest, we often seek to embody features of traditional media into our digital works - which is fair enough. But here it the thing... if I want an image to contain the features best associated with a wooden intarsia eagle's head, perhaps the easiest way is to produce such a work in it's "native" media and then digitize it. And if want an "app" (or set of procedures/rules) that would emulate the physical in a digital environment (PS), I begin with doing the physical and deeply study it.