Shmush wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 4:08 pm
In making your videos, I am always amazed at how you create progressions of the artwork used for demonstration purposes when you are obviously using completed art pieces. Is that time-consuming to create?
Errrr... Yes!
It's often
very time-consuming.
For example, although not my work, in the last video I wanted to use Escher's "Three Worlds", as I do in my Drawspace Intermediate course. In the course PDF it's easy, because it only involves stills. But in Negative Drawing Part 2...
It took 3 days to carefully extract the trees from the image - including painting in all the gaps created by the leaves.
Polly-trees.jpg
It took another day to separate out the leaves and the fish. And then invisibly fill the holes in the fish.
Then, returning to my own work, you can add a full day to cut out around the Cairn Terrier in my drawing "The Barn Patrol". Of course, once I'd done that - accurately:
Polly-cutout.jpg
I could save time by using it as a mask to remove itself from the background:
Polly-background.jpg
And it HAS to be accurate (erased right up to every edge), so I can throw a stroke around it to create the "line drawing".
Polly-line.jpg
Then add another full day to cut out all the parts of the final composition and prepare them for animation.
It IS a lot of work, but I apply the same thinking to it as I do to my drawings... I NEVER think about how long anything will take. Everything will take as long as it needs, and hurrying will spoil the result. For example, I had no idea of how long the White Peacock Butterfly drawing would take to complete. Working 2-4 hours a day, it took 16 days - I'd guessed at 7
- so, I estimated the total time as 38 hours. Why only 2-4 hours? Because it takes another 2-4 hours to log all the camera footage and begin the edit.
I love to be creative, and I'm loving these video creations... but it IS a long process.
And it's full of things that the how-to-video books don't tell you. You can't just pick up a pencil and draw. Oh, no! Even after you've set the white balances and focussed all the cameras, I have to repair the damage to my hands (caused by whatever I've had to do around the farm). And file my nails... and apply hand cream to my ageing skin... and... Well, you get the idea
Sorry - I got off-topic there. But - Yes, it
is time-consuming, but if the result justifies the time, and gets the message across clearly, then I think it's time well-spent.