Vacation Dreaming

  6x8" oil pastel on paper

Beginner's Lessons 4 -Turning Photo into Line Drawing

Turning a photo into a line drawing

Often people do not try painting because they say they cannot draw. Drawing comes with practice.

If you are too intimidated to even start then you need to temporarily find a way around the thing that intimidates you the most (drawing) so that you can gain confidence (painting). Once you gain confidence you can then work on improving your drawing and painting skills.

(An alternate use for this technique is to use family photos to make a children’s coloring book.)

In this demo, I will be showing you step by step how to turn this photo I took of a carousel horse into a line drawing that can then be traced onto paper and ready for painting.

  

I’ve used a free software program called Dogwaffle to turn a photo into a line drawing.

Dogwaffle is a digital drawing/painting program so with practice it can be used for that. But here we will just use it to manipulate the photo.

This transformation is done in 4 easy steps which I illustrate below.

There are probably simpler ways to create a line drawing from a photo but I wanted to show how to do it with free software.

Free digital art painting program

http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/free/

Choose a photo that is a .bmp file. If the file does not end in .bmp (bitmap), open it in your regular photo viewing software and Save As a .bmp

Now open Dogwaffle and open your photo. If your photo opens too large for the screen, zoom to fit as shown below.

Step 1

Sharpen the edges.

Step 2

Detect Edges

 

Step 3

Change to white background.

Step 4

Clean the image up a little.

You may need to play with the settings in this step to get the best image.

And here is my final outline drawing ready for tracing onto my painting surface.

The majority of the lines you need to sketch are here and fairly easy to see. For any lines that are missing or that you are unsure about, look back at the original photo and just “connect the dots”.

Keep in mind that you do not need to trace every line. Just trace enough so that you know where the major shapes are. this leave you room to improvise.

Trace this onto a medium to heavy paper. I like to use Strathmore Bristol Vellum.

After you have the lines on your painting surface, you can spray it with a workable fixative like Krylon Workable Spray Fixative.

This keeps the  lines from smudging and muddying your painting.

Now pick up your oil pastels and start painting. It’s easier than you think. And before you know it, you’ll be starting to think about doing the drawing without using this computer generated outline.

Have fun!

Flowergirls Dress Shopping

Here is the finished painting.

“Flowergirls Dress Shopping”

11x14” oil pastel on paper.

When I went shopping with my 2 little nieces for Flowergirl dresses for my wedding, I took a photo of them admiring themselves in a 3-way mirror.

A few days before the shopping trip, I had been looking through the June/July issue of International Artist Magazine and saw a painter’s work that I liked.

Susanne Forestieri’s style intrigued me. Here are some paintings of hers:

http://www.susanneforestieri.com/nea.html

I had wanted to attempt her style of painting. And the image from the shopping trip had stuck in my mind. So much so that when I got home I immediately started working on a painting.  However, the painting you see above didn’t happen right away.

I was so anxious to start painting that I just did a quick pencil sketch. Then did my underpainting

Then I went on to the final painting. Although, I was not very pleased with this result









I was not happy with the figure proportions on the above painting.





I tried working it but the underlying drawing was done too quickly and was out of proportion too much.



I started over, spending more time to get the drawing better.

Here is my new underpainting. I decided not to underpaint the figures.

I also used blue on the carpet to try cooling the final red.

And from that new (better) drawing and underpainting, I got the painting you see below (same as at the top of this post.)

I am much happier with this result. Part of what I like about this image is the sense that I am being let in on a secret.

Although I didn’t duplicate the style that Susanne Forestieri uses. I was able to pull some of that style into this painting. And I like the result. I’m looking forward to doing more paintings like this.

What to draw with?

I'm still trying to discover what the "perfect" sketching medium is for me.
I keep a sketchbook and some oil pastels in the car if I want to do lunchtime sketching.

But to throw in my bag....
Even pared down to what I think is a bare minimum number of oil pastel sticks, it is still too bulky to throw in a medium-sized purse. So today I experimented with using just a pen and a pen with watercolor pencils.
That wasn't bad, I'll try it some more.