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DarthFar — Derelict
Published: 2008-04-14 16:02:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 1798; Favourites: 40; Downloads: 37
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Description
I bought a very, *very* cheap box of watercolours sometime last year when *WraithTen specified that she wanted her 20K kiriban painted with them. Alas, that first attempt went miserably wrong (pink + grey = green. Only in my hands, apparently), and both kiriban and paintbox got junked aside until the end of the year when I wound up doing it with watercolour pastels. This is my second, final attempt at trying something with said box of paints before I throw them into the bin and write them off as a bad job.
The reference photo for this was taken while I was away on vacation in February, and shows Penang shophouses in an advanced state of decay. I like buildings. Especially derelicts that have been partially reclaimed by nature. I don't know why.
Cheapass paints ($2.70) on even cheaper sketch paper.
Adios, paints.
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Comments: 91
This is, put simply, absolutely gorgeous. The detail, colours... everything is beautiful
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You're gonna tell me it's not, but I love the texture. This looks more like an old photograph with colour washed in than a painting.
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Thank you very much, Occy. 
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I usually find derelict buildings slightly disturbing - dunno why, just me - but I love the colours you've used, it makes it appear bright, lively and very pleasant
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Perhaps it's because most of them look haunting? Not in the sense that they harbour actual ghosts, but because they have such an oppressive "presence".
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I love it!!!! Done in the best traditional tradition!!!!
Tassos
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It's good to see you do traditional too!
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Thanks very much!
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I'll go and have a look at them then!
And I think only when you master the traditional medium well, you can manage the digital too.
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Actually I'm going *backwards*: I never had much aptitude for "traditional drawing"; if you asked my high school art teachers, I'd be the last person they'd have named as having any talent at all! But now that I have some kind of grasp of digital art, I'm going back to traditional, and I find that what I've learnt with digital media actually helps me with traditional techniques.
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If you are the last person your high school teachers would have named ad having talent, what kind of high school are you in then?! I always envy those who can have art lessons at high school...We had only one class a week, and the teacher never asked us to draw...
After a thought, I think you're right about it, the two mediums can just be promoted with each other.
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Lessons? what lessons? 
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I just mean that, at least you have teachers assigned you to draw... I wonder if the teachers in my school know there is such thing like art...
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You have an eye for a well composed scene and the skill to render this in watercolour.
I expect you could do marvellously with a sharp tooth pick and a piece of burnt toast! Or any other medium.
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Is that a dare?
Thank you very much, Richard.
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I wish I could paint buildings that good. This is awesome.
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Thank you, Fran. 
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I went out and bought expensive paints and paper and i can't get it to look as good as that 
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You gotta be kidding! I thought your paintings of birds were dead cool.
Thank you, David.
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Oh thank you but i can't paint scenery to save my life and thats what i really wanted to attempt, i'm not giving up though, spent to much money on stuff for that
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See, that's why I buy cheap stuff - then there's no commitment if I decide I don't like working with them.
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Well i started with the cheap ones but i found the paint used to go all weird when i put water to it, now it just goes weird when i add paper
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"I like . . . derelicts that have been partially reclaimed by nature." Reminds me of me 
Ok. Like the colours. Nice form. The overgrown plants are great. I could get all symbolic here, but I will spare you that . . .
My best will never come close to your work, so pretend you are nine again and enjoy it like the rest of us do
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You said it, not me. 
Thank you very much, Bunny.
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Thank you master Far
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This is just beautiful! And I have to say--with a medium as unforgiving as watercolors (cheapass ones being even moreso)--seeing how lovely this turned out tells me that all you need is more practice (...perhaps with, as has specified, some "semi-cheapass" paints! 
"I like buildings. Especially derelicts that have been partially reclaimed by nature."
Me, too; I think it's because it emphasizes the impermanence of humanity and its trappings: this planet and its processes will continue into eternity, regardless of our presence on it or not--for me, there's a great lesson and a strange sort of comfort in that...
FF
PS--ALL watercolorists continually dab at their paintings with tissues--it's an essential technique!
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Thank you very much, FF. 
YES! you've got it: Impermanence.
(I like telling people that, were a great catastrophe to wipe out all of human civilisation and macroorganisms, the microbes would make sure that life continues on the planet. Somehow, it doesn't comfort said people...).
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"I like telling people that, were a great catastrophe to wipe out all of human civilisation and macroorganisms, the microbes would make sure that life continues on the planet. Somehow, it doesn't comfort said people...)."
Me, TOO!! LOL!! And I get precisely the same reaction! But for me, it's a great comfort to know that, if we do indeed someday wipe out ourselves and most of the larger life forms on this planet, the insects and microbes would still survive and that the essential processes which evolved us in the first place would still be here. It'd be interesting to have a view of what might eventually evolve in that far future, no?
FF
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Very nice, water colours are an extremely unforgiving medium, even moreso when you buy cheap ones that could have literally anything mixed in for their pigments.
I particularly like the little touches like the one crooked rafter etc.
I like buildings. Especially derelicts that have been partially reclaimed by nature. I don't know why.
I think it's because you like complicated things and the combination of hard lines and standard polygons with formerly hard lines and now not so standard polygons with a little bit of organic growth tossed into the mix tends to make for interesting imagery.
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Thanks very much. 
I like your hypothesis. It's certainly more attractive and palatable than the possibility that I might simply be attracted to decay.
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I dunno, my mother is big on water colours and frantic dabbing seems to be part of our routine sometimes.
I think you just love a little bit of chaos and entropy in everything.
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Entropy! the Second Law of Thermodynamics!
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YOU HORRIBLE HORRIBLE PERSON. You're clearly mocking those of us who will never have such amazing watercolor skills and be able to say they suck -sobs-.
Because this is /beautiful/. Very, VERY nicely done.
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LOL, *what* watercolour skills?
And thank you very much.
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Well, you definitely /do/ have them, at least as far as I'm concerned. You're welcome
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Son of a...
*rescues paints from bin*
You cannot throw these away unless they get replaced by semi-cheapass watercolour paints.
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Okay, okay! I'll save the black, white and brown paints! The rest can go back in the bin! Or better yet, I'll *send* the dang box to you so that you can have the pleasure of finding out first-hand just what it is I hate about them.
(Okay, among other things, the dried-up paint feels like powder. And you have to draaaaag your hand through it.
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No, no. No need to send them to me. There's something inherently weird about watercolor paints that are *powdery*.
But don't you have some nice watercolor pastels? 
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Watercolour pastels are different, dear aunt.
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OMG, I know they're different, doint, that's why I said go back to using them! Sheesh.
I have to say, though, that I've never heard of powdery watercolors, that's just all kinds of crazy. I mean, why not paint with colored sand then?
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Powdery watercolours are probably saturated with filler material, the same way cheap colour pencils are full of wax.
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I cope with those *much* better.
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