Al Fresco Art Club Challenge: Do What Thou Wilt

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Today the Al Fresco Art Club unanimously agreed to just go with it. Since we could do whatever we wanted, I decided to pursue my current obsession of painting gigantic waves tossing tiny boats around.

I used Procreate to start the picture and finished it with Photoshop. My reference was Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, Week #338. Foster’s awesome picture is the comic book equivalent of Hiroshige’s Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Prince Valiant, Volume 4, 1943-1944, #338, 8-1-43

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Resources:
I used Clip Studio Paint to draw the picture in this post.

Al Fresco Art Club, Dec 6, 2020 -- Paint on One Layer with One Brush

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My rendition of Hiroshige’s Suido Bridge and the Surugadai Quarter, (1857)

Today’s challenge was tough. We were to paint digitally in a way that emulates traditional painting: use one layer and one brush. Though traditional painters often use more that one brush, we were restricted to use our ingenuity with one brush only. Ctrl-z was forbidden, as was the color picker.

I used a simple flat opacity brush, and the color palette was all my own. The perspective of the carp, however, is Hiroshige’s — he was going for effect rather than correctness.

Page 1 Redone and Completed

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The revisions for this page were drastic, but worth it. I won’t be spending as much time on the other 45 pages. I have to keep in mind my August 31 deadline. That’s the day my part-time job takes over many hours of every day.

Returning to Page One with Hiroshige in Mind

When I returned to page one, I found the picture a little bland, so I placed Momma Jay into an edo Era Japanese room where she can watch the geese flying to the North for the summer. Anything remotely related to Hiroshige is interesting to me. I’ll add a few more details to this and then move on to page 2.