In this workshop I will show you one exercise. It must be done by everyone who is engaged in bas-relief and has at least minimal experience. And beginners can take note, come in handy. This exercise is a quick work with relief. Artists call it ala prima, one-touch. I think it will be useful to apply it to the relief as well. The point is not to do any preparation. There should not be any sketches, there should not be a photograph of the work next to it, nothing. Everything is in the head.
Preparation is only at the preliminary stage. You need to choose a theme (landscape only), you need a few details, a composition and two to three hours of free time.
In the process of work, no stops, breaks. Set up, start and finish. Choose a topic without too much detail, with simple lines where everything is clear and understandable. It is important that you are not distracted or interrupted. Prepare tools and materials. It will take a minimum. I had one scribe and two paintbrushes. Small for washing, large for sweeping after cleaning. So let's get started.
Background. After working with cast plaster, I have waste. They are liquid, you can throw them away, but you can also use them. I typed this cake with a frame. It is about 5 mm thick. in a thin place. But you can also use ordinary small drywall.
We quickly and schematically apply our drawing. Only out of my head. If you copy or translate, you will lose time and the meaning of the lesson.
We are dialing the distant plan. The forest stands, the shore lies. It needs to be shown. Going into the distance, everything becomes thinner and smaller in height. Any material that you work with. It doesn't matter, because the relief is very thin.
We quickly throw on the front bank.
All this is done in one batch of material. Has dried up a little. Now blur the background with a small brush. For washing, I advise you to take a regular construction primer instead of water. We immediately erode and strengthen the material.
If you already have something to correct, we correct it with a suitable scribe. I have one. Two regular nails. But we are not delaying at this stage.
Now the center of the composition. Trees. Apply by extrusion. After a little drying (5 min.), Smooth it. They are flatter and fit better with the background. Dried up, cut through the contour, we begin to form the bushes on the right and the near shore. Few trees on the far bank. We check the correctness of the thicknesses with shadows from oblique lighting.
We report the coast to the right and below. It smoothly goes into the frame.
Add the shore to the right. He is clearly missing, he must rise from the river. Detail the bushes and the melting ice near the near shore, and if you run your finger over the still wet material, you get an interesting rough texture. It will look like melting snow.
There is no need to try to bring the work to perfection. This is a lesson, and mistakes are possible in a lesson. The point of this exercise is to learn to identify and focus on the main parts of the work. No need to be distracted by trifles. Detailing, undercutting, clarifying forms. This can always be completed later, when the main relief massifs are arranged in their places. This part of the work took me two and a half hours. The relief is almost finished, but it is getting dark and there is not enough lighting for the work. The next day, I finished the bushes and some ice on the water in the foreground in twenty minutes.
The relief is finished, as is the sculpting lesson. Now painting. By the way, those shortcomings that we got as a result of quick work, you need to be able to remove by painting. We prime and dry. We go through with the base color. I have turquoise.
The landscape is springtime, everything should be light and bright. All colors are whitewashed, there are no dark places. We begin to gain the sky. Turquoise, blue, then a little orange. Do not paint over tightly, it should be a little mosaic and shimmery. In some places, even the basic background is visible.
Now the distant forest. Gray-violet. In the distance, the color decreases.Close up is more contrasting.
Few trees to the left on the far bank. The more details, the more favorable the landscape looks. But this is a distant plan, there should not be any clear registration. Snow on the shore, thawed patches. That side is lit, which means the snow is melting faster.
We collect the river. While preliminary, trying on. I do without photography, so it feels like. We will return to water and ice, especially in the foreground, all the time, until the very end of the work.
We outline the tree, bushes, front ice. Snow on the river. Ice near the shore on the right.
The sun is shining on the right and a little on us. This will show shadows from the tree and the near shore. This will complicate and beautify the image.
Better snow and ice in the middle of the river. We have it illuminated by the sun. If you add a little orange to the whitewash, it will turn out more brightly and artistically. I forgot to add, I have butter.
Lilac is missing in the shadows. It is necessary to connect the distant plan with the foreground. Let's do it with color. Add lilac on the near bushes and distant trees on the left with a little more contrast. Tree nests. The melted ice near the coast is slightly turquoise under the sun. A small palette knife was used here.
I will make a small digression. The palette knife works poorly on the relief, but if the little ones tinker not with the edge, but with the whole plane, then interesting ice turns out.
I contrasted the far shore with blue water. I think that's enough. If you write further, the relief may darken. It is small in size and difficult to register. And so, in my opinion, it is quite spring-like.
