Don't forget the Silhouette......

I do not write tutorials as I think that you should really find your own methods for accomplishing tasks or overcoming challenges within your artwork, ones that fit within your personal working style, but I do like to give pointers and tips on things I feel are important. Silhouettes I feel are very important but often ignored. When we are working on a new composition there are a good number of reasons to draw traditionally instead of composing with random brush strokes. The most important of which to me is silhouette and how they actually 'read' within your composition. Starting with the silhouettes first and then moving inward in not only logical it allows you to really check your composition quickly and effectively while seeing how its individual components read within it. This allows you to make fast and effective decisions about moving forward with a particular piece without wasting time and energy on details, evaluate negative space within the piece, etc.   The silhouettes within your work should be the starting point and almost never a result of piecing details together. Okay you say but I work digitally and I use a lot of random Photoshop brushes to generate ideas and use the random happy accidents, and chaos in these rapid paintings as starting points. Not a problem. I do it sometimes too, especially when I'm just not having any strong visuals come into my head or I'm tired, or whatever. I use a special set of inkblot brushes to do this, but I've seen many approaches to it and I feel that they are all valid as long as they allow you to recognize shape and silhouette cleanly. I love the way the Steambot cats do their thing this way but it has never worked well for me so I had to find a different way to go about it. Inkblots have a quality that builds silhouettes rather than details inside them so for me it works better and composition jump right out at me. Scott Robertson also has as awesome way of doing this that he details in a Gnomon DVD entitled 'Creating Unique Environments' where you use initial marker sketches and varied blending modes to composite them within Photoshop. Any method can really work, it's all about finding the shapes. The big initial read of the shapes and how they form the initial composition is the key to a strong read early on and hence a strong foundation to build on. This is a very simple concept but very easy to overlook and when used will strengthen you artwork every time. Good Shapes! D  BTW-If anyone wants my inkblot brush set to play with(PS7 or above) just email me or leave a comment. I have no problem emailing it to interested folks.