Art, Money, Life

secondary tumblr: todayirun // Hi, I'm Dorka Muranyi, painter & illustrator, and this is my art blog.

[dorkamuranyi]

After an insanely long break, something BIG is finally in the making!

(my studio is messy, but I'm working on it)

[dorkamuranyi]

reunited with my Wacom Intuos Pro

My first digital painting in years!... A timelapse of the whole creation process is up on my YouTube channel ;) (link at the bottom of the post)

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Masking Fluid 101

Masking fluid, also called masking liquid or liquid masking film, is a thick liquid that is applied to prevent paint from covering certain areas on a painting - you can keep small spots, fine lines, delicate patterns uncovered, even larger parts if you wish. Masking fluid works well with light, water-soluble paints like watercolors or ink. I have collected my top tips on how to use it - read on, or scroll to the bottom for a video version!

#1 PROTECT YOUR BRUSH

If you skip this step, you can quickly end up doing irreversible damage. Choose a brush that you will be using exclusively for applying masking fluid and nothing else. 

Before dipping your brush in the fluid, put a little bit of soap onto the brush. Then you can dip it in the masking fluid, apply the fluid on your painting surface, and when you are done, go and clean your brush immediately. Thanks to the soap, you will be able to wash the fluid off of your brush easily. Don't put this step off - the fluid on your painting needs some time to dry anyway.

#2 HOW MUCH MASKING FLUID DO YOU NEED?

Be careful not to apply too little or too much fluid, especially if it's over a bigger patch. If you do a layer that is too light and thin, at the very least it will be difficult to remove. If you apply the fluid too thickly: it might tear some of the paper off when you remove it. When applying masking fluid, try to create an even but not too heavy layer.

#3 DRYING TIME If you have finished applying the masking fluid, now it's time to wait. Don't be impatient, let the fluid dry completely before you go over it with paint. It may seem like a good idea to try speeding up the drying with a blow dryer. I've tested it so I could deliver some first-hand information. The first thing that happened: as  soon as the air from the blow dryer hit the liquid, it overflowed and the shape that I had created was ruined. I also have a suspicion that hot air might bake the masking fluid into the paper, making it stick too strongly, and cause problems when you try to remove it. 

It's true that blow drying will help the masking fluid dry somewhat quicker, but I do not think it's worth the risk of damaging your painting. The safest way is just to wait patiently until the liquid solidifies. Be careful and avoid touching it before time, because, depending on how far along it is in the drying process, it will either smear or stick to your finger and peel off the paper completely. For the sake of the test, I checked the patch that I left to dry on its own every five minutes.

After 22 minutes, it was solid enough to be removed without a problem. Of course it will depend on the size of the area that you cover with masking fluid, but I think it's safe to say that you should calculate with a drying time of roughly 20 to 30 minutes.

When the masking fluid has dried, it's finally time for the paint! Then comes some more waiting until your paint dries. At this stage, you can use a blow dryer if you want to save some time, but I do recommend setting it at a low temperature. Make sure that the paint has completely dried, before you proceed to

#4 REMOVING THE MASKING FLUID

This is the fun part. Removing the dry mask is easy. You can simply use your fingers or fingernails, just make sure that they are clean!

Keep in mind that you might rub some of the pigments from the paint onto the parts that you wanted to keep unpainted, so be careful.

#5 FINISHING TOUCHES It's possible that you will not achieve the perfect outlines with using masking fluid alone. If that's the case, just grab a brush and perfect the edges where it's necessary.

BONUS

Here is the tutorial in video format if you prefer that:

[dorkamuranyi]

bye, acrylics

I ended up repainting the little Sea Sunrise picture with oil paint.

I’m much happier now :) 

[dorkamuranyi]

Bye, acrylics

I’ve finished this quick little painting (by quick I mean like 3 hours of work which also included me dropping the almost-complete-still-wet painting face down and having to do the whole thing all over again)...

...only to realize I don’t like acrylic paint anymore.

I think I’m switching to oil paint for good.

I’m also thinking about redoing this little landscape in oils, but I’m not really sure it’s worth the effort.

[dorkamuranyi]

One trick to improve a pencil portrait - drawing Elon Musk

So I’ve tried drawing a pencil portrait of Elon Musk.

And I failed my first attempt. Badly. I could not leave it at that.

Let me share one important trick that helped me improve this drawing. 

To start off, I want to say that I think half of the success of a portrait drawing is to find a good, clean reference picture. I used a still frame from National Geographic's behind the scenes film footage of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch in 2018. I loved Elon's expression here, but I would say the picture itself is not a good one to use for drawing reference because his face is almost completely in shadow, without much contrast. 

...but I'm not saying that I can blame my disappointing first result on the quality of the reference picture. Anyway, let's see how I failed the first version of the drawing. 

After finishing the initial sketch, I began working on the details, and this is where it all started to go wrong. I got lost in refining each detail like his eyes, his mouth, his teeth, the outlines of the face etc. It seems to me like the individual details didn't look that bad when viewed separately - however, they did not work together, and I ended up with this monster of a caricature. 

It needed to be redone.

The problem with the first version was that I got lost in focusing on isolated parts of the face, kind of losing sight of the whole picture. 

It's very important what I did after realizing this. 

I zoomed out of my reference image. 

Looking at it in small size helped me understand the general shape and proportions of the face much better. I tried to see the right position, angle and size of his facial features compared to each other, before going in on the details again. As I progressed with the drawing, I still messed up some parts so I had to go back and forth correcting them a few times. 

In the end, I think that my drawing does not look perfectly similar to the reference, but I feel like it does resemble Elon Musk - somewhat, at least :) Anyway, this has just shown me again that I still have a lot to improve...

You can see the whole progress in a short timelapse video on my YouTube channel:

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My first Moleskine sketchbook! I filled it over the course of 6 years :)

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Some progress photos of the oil painting I have finished recently. Gimsøy Church, Lofoten Islands, Norway.

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Why you should paint landscapes

Up until a few years ago, I was convinced that a landscape was the most boring subject one could ever paint. That was until I started to get into hiking and fell (back) in love with nature. Until I first had the chance to see and climb a real mountain.

Now that I love painting landscapes more and more, here is why I think you should paint some too - even if you don’t think you are interested. 

I find that a landscape provides a fantastic opportunity to polish your painting skills. There is not much pressure of being precise: it’s not really a tragedy if you cannot exactly nail the shape of a mountain or the curve of a river. It will be okay just the way it turns out. So that is out of the way - and you have a fun way to experiment with everything you need to learn. Mixing and matching colours, understanding what each one of your brushes of different shapes and sizes is best for, playing with different strokes and techniques. I think you can really go free and wild with a landscape, without being afraid of ending up with a failed piece. Painting ‘easy’ landscapes can be turned into a stress-free yet powerful way of training, that will give you a lot of knowlegde, and the confidence to use your tools and paint.

[dorkamuranyi]

The many faces of temptation (part 1)

There are constantly so many temptations to resist if I want to progress with my art.

What makes it harder: these temptations are not necessarily ‘bad’ ones, things that should be avoided. Sometimes they are things that are nothing but good for me. Going for a jog, for example. I know that is generally a wonderful way for me to spend an hour, it boosts my mood, it aids my health, it gives me a reason to spend time outdoors. But even though that one hour spent on the jog is not a long time, I know how much more time it takes for me to get back to painting after I get home. I need a shower, I sit down to have a hot drink (or a nice cold one in the summer), my mind wanders. There’s a good chance I either get hungry by this point, or I simply want to get the eating out of the way before I start a painting session. I need to prepare some food - having to go grocery shopping makes matters worse. By the time I’m done, several hours have passed since I had gone out for that short jog, and it always disappoints me how much effort it takes for me to sit down and get to painting, and how often I fail to do so in the end.

Another tricky temptation is - alcohol. I don’t drink much, especially not alone at home. But about once a week, I like to enjoy a glass or two of some fine wine or a cider. I find that a certain amount of drink does help me get in the mood to paint, and even improves my working pace. The tricky part: it’s quite hard to stop at that perfect amount - if I drink more, that takes away my motivation. I will be restless, wanting to dance rather than sit still and paint. And even if I do paint after a drink, I cannot do it in a precise, controlled way. It works for loose landscapes or abstract pieces, but not for the type of painting where I have small and significant details.

So, the conclusion is, drinking on a painting day is usually another temptation to fight off.

[dorkamuranyi]

Art and eco-consciousness

I have realized that trying not to create any waste while creating art has been a big blocking factor for me.  I am very environmentally conscious, and in my daily life I have been trying to keep my waste output at a minimum, and also to use and consume material that puts, to my best knowledge, the least burden on the environment.  With painting, and especially oil painting recently, I cannot really find a way around this problem. To point out my most obvious issue: even though I avoid using paper towels otherwise, when I paint with oils I just cannot not use them. And a lot of them. I noticed that unconsciously I have been trying to get away with using just one or two sheets (which simply does not work), and stressing so much about this actually kept me from progressing with my paintings and slowed down my process terribly. Recently I have given up - I had to admit to myself that I just need to use those damn towels without thinking about how wasteful this is.  I am working on a big landscape painting right now - it’s almost done, just a couple hours of work left to do, and I have gone through almost a full roll of paper towels.  If anyone has any helpful advice about alternatives, please don’t hold it in.

[dorkamuranyi]

Chasing my 10,000 hours

Have you heard they say you need 10,000 hours of practice to master something? From the bottom of my soul, I really want to be the best artist I can be and bring my ideas to the world through the best skills I can acquire. 

10,000 hours is a lot. I know this ought not be taken as an exact number, and anyway, when will I know that I am good enough?

But I feel like I can turn the number into an ally. I need a fixed goal that I can chase after. I am sure I will lost count sooner than later, but I am planning to start counting the hours I spend doing art every day. It is not enough right now. I want to allow and to help myself to become someone as close to a ‘master’ as I can get.

The counting starts today. Oh, and if this sounds like the kind of challenge that would motivate you, join me and let me know!