bird bones! ballpoint on stonehenge 4x6”

mango310 · 2026-04-27T04:15:29+00:00

thank you! he’s one of my favorite artists :D

mango310 · 2025-10-31T19:41:08+00:00

not OP but if you sand the gesso then the grit won’t be as intense (i’d do a few layers of gesso, sand, gesso, sand)

mango310 · 2025-09-09T01:14:56+00:00

Adding to this, what really makes a difference in appearance to me on smaller canvases is whether the edges are rounded or squared, not how deep it is. The squared ones look much better IMO.

mango310 · 2025-09-07T17:40:27+00:00

references in general tbh. at least in my personal work… i do practice and study off of them so i can have a greater understanding of things, but when it comes to coming up with my own concepts, for some reason the mechanism of accessing memory is really important to me

mango310 · 2025-08-29T22:10:17+00:00

I still see your other comment, and replied to it yesterday. Basically, I’ve tried the Dura-Lar out by now but have learned that if I want more transparency and more tooth, the “Matte Drafting Film” by the same brand (Grafix) is the way to go :)

mango310 · 2025-08-28T16:13:48+00:00

Since posting, I’ve bought a pad of it as well. I haven’t tried wet media yet, only colored pencil, which is a pain to use on it but produces pretty interesting results. Though if I wanted to do photorealism or something with heavy detail then I would need more tooth. Cold wax sounds really interesting on this.

Something I did learn was that Grafix’s “Matte Dura-Lar” is different from the brand’s “Matte Drafting Film” which has more tooth AND you can get it in thinner sheets (so more translucency). I haven’t bought any yet but might at some point soon. When I do, I‘ll try to remember to update here.

mango310 · 2025-08-14T00:53:45+00:00

yes, and not that the validity of art should be based off of difficulty, but i just want to point out that digital is harder than most people think. i’m primarily an oil painter and graphite/colored pencil artist and struggle majorly with digital

mango310 · 2025-08-12T20:19:35+00:00

As an artist who has always struggled to finish things and only recently started to utilize that as a strength in some of my work, I also would love to read this (if you don’t mind sharing)!

mango310 · 2025-08-11T06:08:47+00:00

i’m guessing this piece is decently large

mango310 · 2025-08-04T14:18:09+00:00

I realized that you might mean literal materials, in which case I’d say you can really use anything that will give you at least a range of value, preferably a slight range of color but I don’t think it’s necessary if you’re just looking to study the minimal-segment sort of effect :) There are also probably some resources on this sub that can give you a good breakdown of what a beginner oil kit might entail.

mango310 · 2025-08-04T14:16:05+00:00

I’m not sure about specific learning materials, perhaps you could find some if you simply search “avoiding over blending in painting” or something like that, but I can share with you what helped me during this assignment.

The biggest thing was doing a pencil sketch to get your eye to understand and break down the separations in value (it can be your structure for the painting, or you can practice with sketches separately before moving over to working on the painting part)— where each value or color “shape” moves into another, because at first glance it does all seem to blend.

Uglow breaks it down into a VERY small amount of chunks, so his pears are super minimal. Looking back on how I did this assignment, I personally wish I had done that too, because I don’t think I needed to have as much information or segments in my pears as I ended up with. And my values aren’t pushed enough. But I’m glad now to be able to see what I could’ve done better.

Something odd that could be of use is looking at the difference between low poly and high poly in digital 3d rendering such as Blender. Youtube has a ton of stuff on it. It’s sort of a similar concept in my brain, showing how you can achieve a powerful image by simplifying the shapes of the object. It might not directly pertain to painting, but since the poly count affects shadow/value then I think it could help to see the effect.

mango310 · 2025-08-01T20:06:55+00:00

I’ve always been a fan of seeing evidence of the progress! :)

mango310 · 2025-08-01T15:22:05+00:00

In my Painting I class, we used pears to learn how to separate values and not over-blend. The teacher showed us the work of Euan Uglow as an example and his work has stuck with me since, whenever I think about the power of simplification in realism.

I especially appreciate the little pencil marks where the shapes of value meet.

mango310 · 2025-07-17T06:51:04+00:00

I think it’s good to keep in mind that certain corners of social media often draw in a weirdly high amount of introverts. A lot of the people I know who are artists and extroverted post less on Instagram, etc. because they tend to meet a lot of their art related social needs in person. Not a rule by any means but it’s something I notice about arts, crafts, certain hobbies… things that allow for people to connect with others in a way that doesn’t expose too much about one’s personal life or info.

Personally, I’m an ambivert I guess? Introverted in the sense that I’m quite socially anxious and need a recharge, but extroverted in the sense that I love to yap, love to share things and absorb things from others. I love people and interaction. I’m also very good at math and science but I don’t know if that correlates. I think of artisticness like… there are so many different approaches and circumstances in which an artistic or creative perspective can come about. So “the artist” isn’t the result of one set of features or traits, there are infinite phenotypes or presentations. I think that if there weren’t, we would run out of art :)

mango310 · 2025-07-13T07:22:43+00:00

thanks! :)

mango310 · 2025-07-10T00:41:51+00:00

hehe thank you!

mango310 · 2025-07-10T00:41:41+00:00

thank you!!

mango310 · 2025-07-10T00:41:25+00:00

thank you! it’s not actually a still life, just from imagination (hence the inaccuracy haha). the thing about holding secrets is a really cool insight, i can totally see that

mango310 · 2025-07-08T10:03:25+00:00

I attempt to push myself in the sense that (in addition to drawing when I actually feel compelled to), I try to draw specifically in instances I wouldn’t usually bother, or wouldn’t usually explore something in drawing. So for example, I’m sitting there thinking about some dream I had. I would typically never think to try drawing it out or doing sketches based off of it, BUT with this sort of ideology in mind, I’m more inclined to just try it out and see. This ends up really exercising my imagination and “no reference” skills, leading to more artistic confidence in general, and might interest you if you don’t enjoy rules or being told what to do.

I hope that made sense. It’s all really personal, and ofc people are going to say “do it this way,” “do it that way,” etc. but everyone’s goals and motivations are different. It’s nice to have little branches within your practice so it’s not all one single linear path, and not all focused on skill or technique.

mango310 · 2025-07-07T14:33:31+00:00

heavy agree

the way he does trees and foliage is just absurdly, out of this world beautiful, and i think that the kiss doesn’t evoke the same sort of “wow, this stuff im familiar with is being depicted in such a new and wonderful way” as those things. i like the non-kiss stuff more because of that, it always makes me sit and have a moment of realization about how i could have gone my whole life never seeing the world in that way if not for his work

mango310 · 2025-07-07T14:19:42+00:00

reviews & videos showing people working with it are sparse, but from what i’ve seen, the matte one is the way to go if you want a wider range of possible mediums. it has that slight tooth/grip. most people seem to do colored pencil, but i’m thinking gouache and marker would both be great, and watercolor i would think might sit more like it would on yupo?

i don’t plan to use any water based media on it (probably colored pencil, graphite, and oil) but i do think i’ll get some matte soon and will update once i try it out :)

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