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DigitalGreen — The Eye of Ra
Published: 2006-02-27 20:15:58 +0000 UTC; Views: 1121; Favourites: 20; Downloads: 9
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Description
Title: "The Eye of Ra"Medium: Gouache and Gesso on 120# coldpress illustration board (shown here matted with taped edges)
Size: 10" x 10"
Date: August, 1998
Client: The College for Creative Studies
I've been debating for a long time if this piece was worth posting, and I've gone ahead and done it.
This is the first illustration I ever painted with gouache. Created in 1998 for practice, really. I still enjoy the symmetry of it, although I think the actual "eye" was unnecessary.
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Comments: 28
Greetings! We've featured this lovely work in our journal - [link]
Blessed Be
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I am extremely honored by this gesture. Thank you so much for the prop!
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Hey there! Thanks so much!
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You did an excellent job, especially for a first try at the paint. 
I don't think the eye wasn't nessecary, I think it looks alright, it adds symbolism...
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I'm going for the "Longest Wait for A Response" Award! Did I win?
Thanks so much! I appreciate the comment!
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Yush! You won! 100 cool points for joo!
But it's alright with me.
No problem, 'tis awesome.
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Woot! I be jammin' now! ^__^
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Hi there! Thank you so much!
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Wow this is a realy impressive piece. I am totally into mythology
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Thanks! There was a time that I had considered going into Archeology because of my love for ancient civilizations and myths.
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At a time I have considered every possible career. LOL
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really nice ! very cool picture..
I think it is the "eye of horus" you have painted though
anyhow
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Hi there, thanks!
It depends who you ask. Typically the right eye is the Eye of Ra, who is also sometimes called Horus, as these gods are often used interchangeably depending on what region the artifact came from or who authored it. The left eye is usually considered the eye of Thoth.
Thanks for the comments!
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ah you are quite right. the left eye is Ra, the right eye is Thoth, and with them both it becomes Horus.
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*bowing I'm not worthy of such eye candy. What exactly is gouache? Is it like acrylic? I'm going to go rent the Mummy now. *smiling Fantastic job on everthing! My favorite part is the sky.
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Oh, nonesense! We're all worthy of art! ^__^
Think of gouache (pronounced "gwash") as a liquid pastel. It's a chalky pigment once dry, and it comes in tubes like any other pigment. It's closest comparible cousin is watercolor, although gouache isn't nearly as colorfast and can be damaged by light and liquid long after it's dry.
Despite it's long reputation as "the illustrator's medium" for ease of use, it is actually a rather difficult medium to use. It's gummy (depending on brand and color), and it tends to dry a different hue than it appears wet. (Typically darker). The colors tend to seperate when mixed on a palate, so they require constant attention while wet.
Once you get used to them, they ARE actually quite fun.
Thanks again! for your comments!
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*smiling Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. When you say you use illustration board, do you mean that bristol/vellum board? Do you use the same type of brush that you use for watercolors etc? Do you have to spray it after finishing it?
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Hello again! I don't know if you received my response to this comment already; my browser glitched as I was posting. So here it is again:
Thanks to you, and np!
"Illustration board" is actually a variety of board. It's own entity, like canvas or bristol board. "Coldpress" and "hotpress" describe how the board was calandered (rolled over and smoothed). "Coldpress" tends to be a smooth with a fair amount of texture. "Hotpress" board tend to be very smooth and a little more rigid. The biggest affect these have on your painting, is the way the board absorbs the pigment. Hotpress boards absorb less, allowing the medium to essentially pool on its surface.
"Illustration board" is unique because it's layered. The drawing surface can be peeled from the rigid backing. This is/was useful for professional printers who would use large-format scanners that are drum-based, versus the flat-bed glass scanners we have. They could peel the illustration from the board and wrap it around the drum to scan. This technique is loosing relevance as personal technologies grow, but it's still common enough.
It's fairly inexpensive, costing about $3 to $5 per 30"x40" sheet.
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What size do you usually work with? And do you prefer using the cold or hot press with the works that you have in your gallery? Is there a particular brand that you prefer?
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Hello again! I will buy full sheets, but every piece I create dictates its own size and dimension. I consider myself a "small-details" painter, versus a "painterly" one, so I tend to work smaller than some. My largest "canvas" has been about 30" x 40", but that's rare for me. Most of my illustrations are within the 16" x 20" variety. With the advent of digital work, I work my under-drawings smaller yet, since I want to reduce the number of scans I have to piece together when importing it to Painter or Photoshop. (But not so small that you sacrifice room to work).
I don't really pay attention to brands, so I can't really recommend one. The brand concern was larger back when artists sought the board for the ability to remove the drawing surface. (Some brands seperated easier than others — nothing more horrible than tearing a finished piece in half accidentally). The more expensive brands, Winsor& Newton etc, were always the best. I pretty much buy whatever the store has in stock. I never peel the pieces off anyway (I do my own scannng).
The difference between hot and coldpress is dictated by the medium. You can essentially use whatever you want, but the slicker surface of hotpress boards does not absorb, so thinner mediums like ink, watercolor etc are almost impossible to work with, since they will just pool on the surface. Coldpress is better suited to thin mediums. Hotpress boards are great for thicker mediums like undiluted acrylics or oils, etc.
Of course, if you gesso either board, then you're painting on the gessoed surface and thus the board type is irrelevant.
Now, there is a difference between coldpress/hotpress BOARD and coldpress/hotpress PAPERS.
The same general statements apply to the papers, but a hotpress paper is just super-smooth, it will still absorb thin mediums, and is in fact prefered.
The only brand I tend to swear by is Arches, which is an old-world French-brand paper. It typically comes as a paper-block of about 20 sheets (various dimensions) and costs roughly $50. I use the hotpress variety of paper for almost every water-based project I create. (It also works well with dry medium).
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Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly and giving me more details about your work. I usually buy Arches or Winsor adn Newton bristol board so when I see illustration coldpress paper, I'll definitly experiment with 'em. You have your own scanner? How big is it? What brand?
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Cool beans. Experimentation is key.
Yup, a scanner is essential. I have an HP Scanjet 3970. It's not the best model in the world by any means, but I find the colors to be damn-near perfect and it's fast and affordable. What more can you ask for? ^__^
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How large will it let you scan?
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My scanner has a glass bed of about 9 x 12", which is a common size. Which means that pieces larger than this must be scanned in sections and re-composed in Photoshop, etc.
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I never thought of that method...scanning pieces section by section. I've automatically assumed that folks had big arse scanners. *grinning No one knows that I just use my digital camera and it picks up all the details etc. 
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Hey, no problem at all. Art is not something any one person can have all the answers to. It takes a lifetime of experimentation and asking questions.
Digital photography is often a suitable substitute, but there are very few cameras that can capture details accurately. Color aside, I mean the texture of the paper and the paint, etc. Plus, a photograph is going to show the piece as curved or warped, which can make even a spectacular piece seem amateur.
Of course, there are real limitations to the piece-by-piece scanning method. You could potentially scan anything, as long as you're willing to put in the work to reassemble it all (which can be quite the task).
But as is true with anything, "where there's a will, there's a way."
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