Gaka's-Pointilism Snow Leopard

[Gaka]

Hi Everyone

This is my Pointilism Snow Leopard, It was done on Cartridge Paper and it is 375mmH x 250mmW or 15inH x 10inW and it took around 300hrs. I have also attached a close up of the Snow Leopard....UhOh...The close up is a little blurry in sections :mad:

I hope you enjoy.

[Rose]

WOW! 300 hours?? Something like this with three kids and a house, a rabbit and two fish, may take me the rest of my life! But I'd love to know how!!! :-)

[lene]

Hi Gaka

what patience :p It is beautiful :clap:

[Arlene]

showoff! ;) :D

[bmac]

Amazing! That is beautiful! :)
What type of pens do you use?

[Orian]

absolutely fantastic!!!

[Denise]

http://www.scribbletalk.com/images/smilies/droppedjaw.gif 300 hours???? http://www.scribbletalk.com/images/smilies/droppedjaw.gif 3 HUNDRED hours???? http://www.scribbletalk.com/images/smilies/droppedjaw.gif three hundred hours!?! http://www.scribbletalk.com/images/smilies/droppedjaw.gif

[Rose]

I know Denise, that's like 12 WHOLE days!!! Or working in 8 hour terms ... a regular work day, about 38 days!!!! Yikes!

[rosemary]

Gaka:

Magnificent...

It is truly an inspiration to us all.

Thank you

Rosemary

[Tom C]

Absolutely brilliant work again Gaka..this is the first time I have viewed this piece. It is truley a tribute to your dedication and eye for detail. i never tire of your work. It is always inspiring. tom

[Gaka]

Hi there

Rose....You know even though it took forever to complete I realy enjoyed doping this piece.....At the time I done the Snow Leopard I was out of work (No one wants old people except the old peoples home!)...So just about every day I would go down to the beach where I was living and sit under a large tree and work on the Snow Leopard for about 4/5 hours. Any more than 4/5 hours a Day and I would become mentaly and inspirationally drained.

Besides there were many interesting distractions to keep me from getting bored just doing dots all of the time!!!!

Lene....I think that patience is one of the secrets of doing good/great art, I feel that a lot of artist want to rush their work to get it finished, only to have their and discipline and technique suffer.

Arlene.....Nar Nee Nar Nee Nar Nar :D ...I thought that this would be a good opportunity to explain how I did my pointilism as well as display the results :)

Bmac....I use Faber Castell, Rotring, Kohi-nor technical pens. The sizes range from .013-.018 for very very fine detail or soft work, .025 and .035 for all other work. I very rearely use the .050 unless I am covering a larger area pf black and even then I am carefull because I do not want it to look like it was painted or just filled in with a much thicker pen.

Denise....Gee's...When I look back on it now I think I needed to get a life, instead I got a Wife and all of my free time went out the window and was replaced by cooking, washing, cleaning, groceries etc etc..... :) Oh well, at least I have a great friend to talk to now!

Thank you Rosemary, Tom and all of the other responders for you interest and your comments.

Ok...Now to my technique etc....I draw my subject in pencil firm enough to see but not too strong. I clip my drawing to a board and I lay a clean piece of cartridge paper over the drawing leaving a small top part of the subject exposed because I will work from the top of the drawing down.

I then put on a pair of long sleeved cotton gloves so that no oil or dirt from my hands gets onto the paper. My first concern is setting the tone ranges that I will work with....I usually set a light tone and a darker mid tone and every other tone range will be set from these two. Every "light tone" and "darker mid tone" will be exactly the same through out the drawing. I have attached a pic showing you an example of the lighter and the darker tones that I work from.

When doing the dots I work in a random pattern, I only do five dots at a time because if I do more it becomes a repeticious pattern. In the second pic I have posted I have done a sample...kind of....I have done these dots with a felt pen and they are reasonably large dots. When doing random dots they are less likely to have a patterned effect compared to dots that are done with more purpose and intention. I have exadurated the patterned effect a little in the "Rigid pattern" dots where as in the random dots I have put my first layer of dots down a reasonable distance apart, then I can came back with a little more control and put further dots between the original ones (Comparing the L/Hand side to the R/Hand side of the random dots).

At the bottom of the second pic I have four sections...(1) I have layed down my first layer of the randon dots. (2) Then I have more purposefully placed dots between the first layer of dots. (3) Then I have came back with a smaller pen and placed another layer of dots in the white spaces and this proceedure is repeated in (4)...You can get a more even pattern by doing it this way, You need control because when you have made it tooooo dark...toooo bad!

I have attached a pic of the Cheetah again so you can see the control of tone and shade that I have used in the Cheetah's side to get a nice contrast of light and shade etc.

As I complete sections of the drawing I move my cartridge paper down the page, every now and then you have to check the pencil drawing as the paper over the top will gradually wear the drawing away. This work is un-saleable, because it was not until I had completed 3/4 of the drawing that I realsied that a tiny Ant had got under the cover sheet of paper and I had flattened him onto the undrawn part of the paper a little away from the edge of the Snow Leopard, too far to correct....needles to say he left his lasting impression behind :mad:

I hope that you can understand what I have tried to explain...I you need to ask for something in more detail...please do so.

Gaka

[lucky]

Oh Wow! I ditto everything Tom said!

This is soooooooooo beautiful! Your work is always top quality. I would love to touch that fur. And thanks so much for always explaining your methods!!!!

Think I’ll be coming back to look at this one A LOT!

[Rose]

Gaka,

Thank you kindly for posting your technique! It is amazing how you get the tones just right! I will be saving this one and referring back to it from time to time. This is just wonderful work. You explain it so well too! I appreciate the time you put into describing everything in detail. Have a great evening!

[runninhorsegal]

Wow! Just stunning! :droppedja

Could you have prints done, and edit out the ant? To much work to lose! :console:


Cheryl Lynn <artbycheryllynn.com>

[Gemma]

Holy Moly Batman!!!:droppedja


This is just incredible... thanks for all the detail and showing us your technique.... 300 hours????? Oh my, Oh my.
Gemma

[quickcat327]

I realy enjoyed viewing this piece, and thanks for explaining your tech. for acomplishing such a captivating image (also like the inclusion of the little elf in the cats fur :rolleyes: )

[Wonko the Sane]

Wow! That's incredible. Thankyou for sharing your technique. I've always wanted to try pointilism. Now I have some Idea of how to do it. Thankee.

[Rose]

I realy enjoyed viewing this piece, and thanks for explaining your tech. for acomplishing such a captivating image (also like the inclusion of the little elf in the cats fur :rolleyes: )

Quickcat, you had me looking at the pic again for the elf and I found 4 faces! Don't know if maybe I'm imagining it... Gaka, did you do this on purpose? :p (My photoshop skills are rusty, but here's what I managed to find)... Hope this works...

[Meisie]

Gaka, what shall I say :)

Wonderful? Nah...not quite....some words lack impact.
Love your good explanation of the dots, thank you!

You don't teach, do you? I mean classes?

Meisie

[Gaka]

Hi there

Rinninhorsegal....Yep, I could make prints etc, but the original is unsalable.....The stupid thing is that I should have know after 40 years of painting/drawing etc that I should not have wet the eraser and tried to rub the ant mark off!!!! I damaged a layer of the paper :mad:

Rose....You only found 4 faces, there is a frog, a man on a Hores and a Bus full of school kids :eek: ...No, no only kiding :D The only thing that I painted on the paper were zillions of dots and a Snow Leopard, I find it very interesting that you guys found what you have found....I've just gotta come to your house Rose and have a drink of your water, it makes you see things that I could not see. :)

Meisie....Yep, I have taugh Art Class, But my class was a little different than most. I let the student choose their medium to paint in, I let the student choose their own style and I let them choose their own subject. I dont teach the students colors, composition, drawing or how to use the medium etc etc....What I do is I just let them go and start to paint and learn by their own experience, should someone need an answer to do something or use the medium I will give it to them. Should someone be doing something wrong I will show them how to do it......I feel that by doing this my students learn to have a much better understanding of what they are doing and learn what they need to learn, rather than teaching the whole class at the same time and students learning information that they do not need....This is just they way I do it and everyone had fun and there was no pressure to perform and no competition between students.

Thank you all for your generous comments......I have posted 2 pics of paintings that have hidden animals in them, if you want to see some others let me know and I will post them in the Cafe.

Gaka

[Meisie]

I think I would like to go to your Art Class Gaka....

Those pics are cool! I'd love to see more, please :)

Meisie

[Gaka]

Hi ya Meisie

I have just posted 4 more of those hidden animal type pics-"Secrets in Art-Gaka" in the Cafe

Later....Gaka

[Rose]

Hi there

Rose....You only found 4 faces, there is a frog, a man on a Hores and a Bus full of school kids :eek: ...No, no only kiding :D The only thing that I painted on the paper were zillions of dots and a Snow Leopard, I find it very interesting that you guys found what you have found....I've just gotta come to your house Rose and have a drink of your water, it makes you see things that I could not see. :)

Thank you all for your generous comments......I have posted 2 pics of paintings that have hidden animals in them, if you want to see some others let me know and I will post them in the Cafe.

Gaka

Haha, I actually started looking for the 4 faces before reading on! LOL...well, maybe there is something in the drinking water... or... nah, I won't go there!

Thanks for posting these fun photos too, my kids loved finding the horses and faces in the rocks. :-)

You sure have an interesting life, and live in a part of the world that has inspiring subjects. Ah, I'll trade waters with you?? ;-)

[Lahree]

I am absolutely, 100% awe-struck!! My Heavens!!! This is
MAGNIFICENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW--where in the world did you get this fantastic reference??

[Amazingreys]

Beautiful, incredible, awe-inspiring work. I too would have enjoyed class with you.
This is fantastic. :clap:

Thank you SO MUCH for not only sharing your talent but teaching us along the way!

Dana~

[TeAnne]

Good to see you Gaka and your wonderful work again :)

[Kuchwa Leopard]

:droppedja :droppedja :droppedja :clap: :D :D I love this cat!!! He looks like he was done in graphite as a sketch but when you look closer you can see the dots. You're soooo luckey you have the free time to devote to your pictures and an enviroment that inspires you. Fantastic cat. Fantastic pictures. I managed to find 6 of the7 horses still working on the last. I think I'll take a leaf or two out of your book if you don't mind (like the cotton gloves great solution). You are definitly a brilliant artist, then again you've proberly got boat loads of experience. Great work wiseman.:clap:

[cyrillejubert]

Hum ...
I lost my voice ... exceptionnel !
HUGE!

[Dave.R]

Magnificent work as always. Words fail to do it justice. I have done some pointillism work but yours is "something else"!
Would love to see some more of your "hidden" faces work too.

[mystie]

mama mia :O
boy thats gooood
you have mighty good patiens!!!
good stuff!!!!

[MadMur]

WOW!! Some of the BEST stippling work I've seen yet!!
:clap: BRAVO!! :clap:
I can certainly understand why it took so many hours to complete!
Well worth the time involved! Look forward to seeing some new works SOON!




Murray :dance2:
=================

[ARTMUTT]

Gorgeous work--ever try stippling with colored inks? It's a lot of fun and if you think 300 hours will take forever try doing it in color--easily doubles your time--it can drive you bonkers:bangin:

[ritan3]

I bow to you ol Stippling Master................I am so inspired by your work, and look forward to seeing more of it! Thanks for sharing your tech.:clap: