10 + 85 points
Finger painting never gets old by Beta Orionis
May 15th, 2008 3:45 PM
Part I
With all the technology available these days, digital painting is becoming increasingly popular. Many people use graphics tablets (as do I when I dabble in digital art) while others use mice. I wouldn't be surprised if there are individuals who instead use touch sensitive devices to assist them with digital work, but I am unaware of their existence.
For this task, I utilized the touch pad on my laptop. I consider touch pad art to be the digital equivalent of finger painting. With this device, I attempted to reproduce a photo of myself in Microsoft Paint, thus limiting myself mostly to big fields of completely opaque color, as would be available to a young child with pots of paint. I also tried to spend relatively little time on the piece because finger painters usually only have a small alotted amount of time in which to complete their work, or sometimes a short attention span. To reduce the time, I forced myself to limit attention to detail, including only what I thought was the bare minimum to capture myself. I also tried to shy away from true color representation, remembering that my little finger painting companions tend to have a limited color palette, and not much experience with color mixing. Keeping this in mind, I tried to pick colors that both resembled those in the photo and might be found ready-made as tempera paint. I must admit that I strayed from strict finger painting techniques in the use of the different brush sizes and the spray-can tool for two portions of the piece, but overall, because I used only my fingers, I feel it accomplishes the task.
(The finished digital finger painting)
(the reference photo)
Part II
Originally I planned only to submit the digital version, but in the course of my "painting" I realized I had never actually finger painted before. In the grades where one would normally be exposed to the age old activity and encouraged to participate, I opted for the use of paintbrushes instead of my fingers, and preferred watercolors over tempera. How could I possibly have missed out on a classic childhood ritual? Perhaps even then I was putting distance between myself and my work, between myself and the world. So I decided I must fix this terrible catastrophe once and for all.
So I set up a workstation in my bedroom, taking advantage of the mirrored closet doors. Plastic bag on the floor to avoid painted-carpet-crises and minimal coverage (apron and appropriate undergarments) to prevent painted clothing. (and a rocket for... inspiration? nah. Mostly a bag weight...)
I couldn't find thick paper or big sheets that weren't for acrylic or watercolor, so I sacrificed two pages from my sketchbook. One for the portrait and another on which to unload excess paint from my fingers.
and of course, I set up a paint mixing station with tempera in primary pigments + black and white.
I mixed up my first skin tone...
painted the base (for my face)...
Darkened the tone and added some shadows/notes of things to come...
Then finished adding all the light colors. Ack! Creepy eye voids! *shudders* Moving on!
After that, I began to add the dark colors, but got so wrapped up in painting that I forgot to update every so often. So the next painting shot jumps to the finished version.
Here's the end result of all my mixing.
Surprisingly, my hands were not as dirty as I had expected them to become. I suppose I was just too dainty with my painting.
notsodirty nails
notsodirty palm
Admittedly, I did wash my index finger, the dominant one, at one point after getting frustrated. After I brought the piece to the final stage, I kept smudging brown or black on in places I hadn't intended to and ended up washing my finger and trying to use a lighter skin tone to fix things as best as I could.
Here's the cleaning page (and portrait which you should ignore for a moment) after painting.
and before "revealing" the final portrait, I give you the reference. Note that the painter had a different perspective of the model than that which the camera captured, and like the impatient squirrel that she is, the model kept changing position, which in turn changed the lighting. goodness! It's hard to find good help these days.
Model (ready for the battle, although it's over):
Final portrait:
I know there are a lot of flaws with this (which I won't point out) but I can tell you this much: finger painting is HARD! I just don't how those little kids manage. It's also so foreign. Even with some amount of dexterity, using your fingers as tools that literally takes some adjustment. So I'm satisfied with the result.
I think using my player portrait would have made things much, much, MUCH easier, but I wanted more variety, so I turned my back on the easy way out.
I realize that more blending and color variety probably would have been acceptable in the digital version.
I also realize that I only used my right hand to paint in order to avoid getting paint on things like the camera. Do little kids use both hands? How would that have felt?
I gotta say, on the subject of feeling, the feel of the paint on my skin was a little unnerving (but interesting.) All that cool, slippery wetness made me want to wipe my fingers onto something every so often and I had to fight hard resist the urge. For the first 15 minutes, I just felt so dirty. I did get over it though. Then, when it dried, I felt like parts of me had a shell, like a giant bug, only one that must have been molting on every bit of its body aside from its little buggy toes.
Having experienced finger painting for the first time as an adult (well, a legal one at least,) I find myself wondering how I would have viewed the experience as a child. Can't really guess because I don't remember my younger self very clearly. Alas. I can say that the Now Me enjoyed the experience.
And there you have it: Fingers' paintings!
With all the technology available these days, digital painting is becoming increasingly popular. Many people use graphics tablets (as do I when I dabble in digital art) while others use mice. I wouldn't be surprised if there are individuals who instead use touch sensitive devices to assist them with digital work, but I am unaware of their existence.
For this task, I utilized the touch pad on my laptop. I consider touch pad art to be the digital equivalent of finger painting. With this device, I attempted to reproduce a photo of myself in Microsoft Paint, thus limiting myself mostly to big fields of completely opaque color, as would be available to a young child with pots of paint. I also tried to spend relatively little time on the piece because finger painters usually only have a small alotted amount of time in which to complete their work, or sometimes a short attention span. To reduce the time, I forced myself to limit attention to detail, including only what I thought was the bare minimum to capture myself. I also tried to shy away from true color representation, remembering that my little finger painting companions tend to have a limited color palette, and not much experience with color mixing. Keeping this in mind, I tried to pick colors that both resembled those in the photo and might be found ready-made as tempera paint. I must admit that I strayed from strict finger painting techniques in the use of the different brush sizes and the spray-can tool for two portions of the piece, but overall, because I used only my fingers, I feel it accomplishes the task.
(The finished digital finger painting)(the reference photo)Part II
Originally I planned only to submit the digital version, but in the course of my "painting" I realized I had never actually finger painted before. In the grades where one would normally be exposed to the age old activity and encouraged to participate, I opted for the use of paintbrushes instead of my fingers, and preferred watercolors over tempera. How could I possibly have missed out on a classic childhood ritual? Perhaps even then I was putting distance between myself and my work, between myself and the world. So I decided I must fix this terrible catastrophe once and for all.
So I set up a workstation in my bedroom, taking advantage of the mirrored closet doors. Plastic bag on the floor to avoid painted-carpet-crises and minimal coverage (apron and appropriate undergarments) to prevent painted clothing. (and a rocket for... inspiration? nah. Mostly a bag weight...)
I couldn't find thick paper or big sheets that weren't for acrylic or watercolor, so I sacrificed two pages from my sketchbook. One for the portrait and another on which to unload excess paint from my fingers.and of course, I set up a paint mixing station with tempera in primary pigments + black and white.
I mixed up my first skin tone...
painted the base (for my face)...Darkened the tone and added some shadows/notes of things to come...Then finished adding all the light colors. Ack! Creepy eye voids! *shudders* Moving on!After that, I began to add the dark colors, but got so wrapped up in painting that I forgot to update every so often. So the next painting shot jumps to the finished version.
Here's the end result of all my mixing.
Surprisingly, my hands were not as dirty as I had expected them to become. I suppose I was just too dainty with my painting. notsodirty nails
notsodirty palm Admittedly, I did wash my index finger, the dominant one, at one point after getting frustrated. After I brought the piece to the final stage, I kept smudging brown or black on in places I hadn't intended to and ended up washing my finger and trying to use a lighter skin tone to fix things as best as I could.Here's the cleaning page (and portrait which you should ignore for a moment) after painting.
and before "revealing" the final portrait, I give you the reference. Note that the painter had a different perspective of the model than that which the camera captured, and like the impatient squirrel that she is, the model kept changing position, which in turn changed the lighting. goodness! It's hard to find good help these days.Model (ready for the battle, although it's over):
Final portrait:
I know there are a lot of flaws with this (which I won't point out) but I can tell you this much: finger painting is HARD! I just don't how those little kids manage. It's also so foreign. Even with some amount of dexterity, using your fingers as tools that literally takes some adjustment. So I'm satisfied with the result. I think using my player portrait would have made things much, much, MUCH easier, but I wanted more variety, so I turned my back on the easy way out.
I realize that more blending and color variety probably would have been acceptable in the digital version.
I also realize that I only used my right hand to paint in order to avoid getting paint on things like the camera. Do little kids use both hands? How would that have felt?
I gotta say, on the subject of feeling, the feel of the paint on my skin was a little unnerving (but interesting.) All that cool, slippery wetness made me want to wipe my fingers onto something every so often and I had to fight hard resist the urge. For the first 15 minutes, I just felt so dirty. I did get over it though. Then, when it dried, I felt like parts of me had a shell, like a giant bug, only one that must have been molting on every bit of its body aside from its little buggy toes.
Having experienced finger painting for the first time as an adult (well, a legal one at least,) I find myself wondering how I would have viewed the experience as a child. Can't really guess because I don't remember my younger self very clearly. Alas. I can say that the Now Me enjoyed the experience.
And there you have it: Fingers' paintings!
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(none yet)6 comment(s)
posted by Burn Unit on May 16th, 2008 3:55 PM
"I know there's a lot of flaws with this"
Uh? Which ones? The flaws where you put paint on your face which is usually pretty awesome? Or the flaws where you start out doing a vanilla please-god-not-another-Microsoft-Paint-proof but instead decide to go physical and thus take it to a whole 'nother level of awesome?
Cuz usually we don't think of that as a flaw around here. I mean, not that I can recall.
posted by Beta Orionis on May 16th, 2008 4:36 PM
oh! I meant flaws with the actual portrait as far as accuracy/proportion/etc., not the task completion. Thanks for the compliments though. :)
posted by Sean Mahan on August 8th, 2009 10:47 PM
Just stumbled onto this, and I really like the digital/IRL combo!
Damn, that beats my portrait right off the bat! Great painting :)