Looking in the Distance

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working on my portfolio. I decided a while ago that I need to pivot when it comes to my career and how I pursue art. My plan before had been to stay at my current job and when I have times off (I work contract so I often have blocks of time off) and on weekends I would work towards becoming an independent artist. But I realized that financially I could not take as much time off as I needed in order to put real time into my art and business. So I decided to try to get a job that allows me to make art on a daily basis. I figured that even if I am not working on personal projects if I am practising every day I will become a better artist.

My hope is that this will be a job that I enjoy and feel like Im making a creative and problem-solving contribution to each project. I currently work in film and television in the costume department and am moving into the art department (they do the sets and props). This involves moving from one union (NABET 700) to another union (DGC Ontario). I recently learned I got in through their GAP Program, which means I start as a trainee. Not going to lie, Im a little salty that my past film/tv experience counts for so little with them (some people were let in as members) but Im still looking forward to the future and what it means for my career.

I’ve been working on a skillshare class to create some environments and I’ve really enjoyed this class. It is dense with information and breaks downs the process into meaningful chunks. The first part had me practising how to render various textures like rock or water, and the second part was creating full imagined environments.

The class is Painting Environments - Creating Concept Art Worlds with Photoshop by Hardy Fowler Though it’s for photoshop, I did mine in procreate with a few workarounds for some of the photoshop tools and filters. If you’re already familiar with both programs this is very doable, but if you’re not I would suggest sticking to the desktop version of photoshop as the iPad version doesn’t have many of the tools mentioned.

I really liked how my rock texture practice piece turned out.

And two of the full environment pieces. The Forest above and the steppe to the right and below.

These are now in my portfolio, next I want to work on creating architectural environments, creatures and mechanized vehicles.

I feel like my industrial design experience has been really helpful in this process so far because I already have a decent grasp of perspective. The part I find hardest is switching my brain from thinking about small details and objects and thinking in big spaces, and vast blocks of matter like mountains. After doing this course im finding myself looking at my surroundings in a new way, looking at the far distances and noticing the atmospheric perspective (how things get hazier and lighter in the distance) .

There is absolutely a learning curve but I know that, like all things, ill get better with practice. I really enjoy the level of creative freedom that comes in drawing environments. And since it’s all nature, it’s very hard to make mistakes, they just kinda become happy accidents.