Wet Brush Test


I've been experimenting with photoshop brushes and I kinda like the result I got here. These remind me of the ink and watercolor brushes in [Paper](http://www.fiftythree.com/paper).

Who Am I?


_Who am I?_ was a semester long project for portraiture class which required us to look into our thoughts, fears, and dreams. While I have spend much time exploring my own psyche, this project allowed for a different approach and consequently different answers. Below you will find a series of self-portraits that explore portraiture as well as my mind.

### Mini Self Portrait #2

[![Mini Self Portrait #2](/content/images/posts/mini-self-portrait-2.jpg)](/content/images/posts/mini-self-portrait-2.jpg)

Digital Painting. This is the second of a series of five mini self-portraits — they were done in small cards. This marked the beginning of the Who am I? project and required a basic exploration of how we see ourselves.

### Myself and Me

[![Myself and Me](/content/images/posts/IMG_0003.jpg)](/content/images/posts/IMG_0003.jpg)

Charcoal. This piece is a representation of myself and a version of myself I wished to be. At the time there was nothing I wanted more than to be outside watching the Orionids meteor shower.

### Myself and the Duckling

[![Myself and the Duckling](/content/images/posts/IMG_0088.jpg)](/content/images/posts/IMG_0088.jpg)

Charcoal. If you had to chose a bird to accompany you in a portrait, what would it be? Although my first choices were a raven or a penguin, I decided to take a different route.

### On My Way Up

[![On My Way Up](/content/images/posts/on-my-way-up-medium.jpg)](/content/images/posts/on-my-way-up-medium.jpg)

Digital Painting. This assignment required us to look into our fears. After some thinking, I could think of one fear that had always haunted me, failure. In this piece I am not only representing my fear but I chose to picture myself overcoming it through endurance and persistence; biting my lips in excitement as I make my way to the top.

### When One Door Closes

[![When One Door Closes](/content/images/posts/when-one-door-closes.jpg)](/content/images/posts/when-one-door-closes.jpg)

Digital painting. This is a continuation to my analysis of fear. While failure is terrifying, it is also inevitable. Sooner or later we are all bound to fall. The problem then is getting back up on our feet. Sometimes this can be difficult, it is understandable to want to hang on to a door that just closed behind us, becoming oblivious to other doors, to other opportunities. When one door closes...

### Myself, Unfinished

[![Myself, Unfinished](/content/images/posts/myself-unfinished.jpg)](/content/images/posts/myself-unfinished.jpg)

The last portrait is meant to be one final representation of our fears. While I did not plan for this painting to turn this way, it could not be more appropriate.

Quick Study


Decided to correct some bad habits by relearning some of the basics. I noticed that when working on digital paintings I was relying too much on the Brush Transfer settings, for opacity. This would require me to do multiple passes at a single spot which resulted in works that took a long time and were rather pale.

While finding the correct color palette is still taking me a long time this should get faster overtime. I'm also now using Coolorous, a really cool plugin for Photoshop — and other applications. This plugin is a great replacement for Photoshop's default Color panel and it makes the process of picking colors a breeze. If you don't feel like paying $10 for the plugin there are others out there for free but not nearly as good.

## Update

I've added two more studies. The first one is of a glass with passion fruit juice and of a clock. The glass study was particularly difficult since I was really thirsty. I had originally gotten the glass to drink it but while looking for something to work on, I couldn't find anything else that interested me.

In these studies I made a copy of the original sketch to overlay it. I put considerably more time than I usually put in the sketch stage, trying to get the proportions right and really studying the perspective.

### Tumbler Study

[![Tumbler Study](/content/images/posts/cup-study.jpg)](/content/images/posts/cup-study.jpg)

### Clock Study

[![Clock Study](/content/images/posts/clock-study.jpg)](/content/images/posts/clock-study.jpg)

### Glass Study

[![Glass Study](/content/images/posts/glass-study.jpg)](/content/images/posts/glass-study.jpg)


[![MJ](/content/images/posts/mj.jpg)](/content/images/posts/mj.jpg)

Special thanks to MJ for uploading such an insteresting picture and allowing me to share this work.


Carlos Ballena

Digital Paintings Posts

Wet Brush Test

Who Am I?

Quick Study

MJ