For this painting, I knew that the powerful value contrast was very important. I wanted to keep the colors muted (staying in the grey and brown range) and exaggerate the values. So I did a value comp in Photoshop [...]
Level: Intermediate
January 27, 2010 – By Stan Prokopenko
January 25, 2010 – By Stan Prokopenko
So, at this time of year, like many others, I start planning my year and make new year’s resolutions. This year, I decided to make 1 career goal and 1 personal goal [...]
January 10, 2010 – By Stan Prokopenko
For the alla prima wet-into-wet oil painter - I recommend putting 1-2 drops of Clove Oil on each color on your palette when you’re working on a longer studio painting. This will slow down the dry time of the oil paint.
January 4, 2010 – By Stan Prokopenko
It’s finally finished! Feels good to close this chapter, since I put so much time and effort into it. Scaling up to 24 x 36 from a 4 x 6 color comp was a bit tricky [...]
November 28, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
The zoo trip turned out to be a great success! The bears were very active, giving me many angles and poses to choose from. I ended up with almost 400 photos [...]
November 24, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
My main focus with this color comp was the sunlight coming through the trees creating a glow. I wanted to transition from warm trees on the left to cooler trees on the right. Also, wanted the rim light on the rocks to be believable [...]
November 20, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
At first glance, the photo reference is overwhelming. There’s a lot of stuff going on and all the trees blend together. So, I felt it was important for me to study the shapes in more detail and redesign some for a simpler and more powerful effect [...]
November 18, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
I started preparing by doing a comp of the major value break down of the painting. At this point I’m thinking of separating the foreground, middle ground, and background [...]
November 16, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
This photo was taken by my father while camping at Idyllwild , California. It reminds me of Ivan Shishkin’s most famous painting “Morning in the Pine Tree Forest” [...]
November 7, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
I was sitting on the beach one morning and this guy arrived… Immediately, I could see it as a painting! I ran to my car, got my camera and did a mini photo-shoot [...]
