Singing Potatoes
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Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Like I need another hobby...

Since stumbling upon the "speed painting" genre last week, I watched a lot of said videos, and (as with all nifty things I see) found myself wondering if I could do that. As Karen was out of town and I was bored, I decided to give it a try this weekend. I doubt it qualifies as "speed painting" — it took just under ten hours, split up over four days — but since it's the first time I ever tried to use The GIMP to paint something entirely from scratch, I'm not overly worried about the time.

I didn't know what the hell I was doing; it took me a couple of hours to discover that using a paintbrush in "darken" or "lighten" mode was a lot easier than selecting a color, overpainting and then blending.

Anyway... click the picture to see the video (about four minutes long; turn your speakers down if you're at work, there's background music):

Click for the YouTube video...

Hands are a bitch to draw, let alone paint; perhaps my first attempt should have avoided them. I am somewhat mystified that the hand which was obscured in the source picture actually turned out better in my painting than the one which I could see.

Posted by godfrey (link)
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Comments
That's pretty good!

"Calamity!": LOL.

Do you have artistic training, or is this all self-taught?
Posted by Zach on 24 May 2007 08:59
Thanks!

I'm all pretty much self-taught; of course there were the obligatory art classes in high school, the usual books (e.g. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain), and some 17th-century books on painting; but I've never really been able to draw or paint convincingly before.

So I was kind of surprised at how it turned out.

If only the poster image on YouTube weren't an armpit close-up.

Posted by Godfrey on 24 May 2007 09:11