ramonn90

Painting My Platonic Love, Patterns, and Empty Bottles: My Process Video and Brushes!

Added 2025-10-10 16:23:43 +0000 UTC

Hello there! Here are some thoughts and practical tips behind my latest practices. Subscribe to unlock process videos, files, and more!

Bjork my platonic love

I've had a crush on Bjork since I saw her video Pagan Poetry when I was a kid, it was censored though but her face, Jesus, so every once in a while I like to paint her or choose her as a reference since her pictures are always very expressive, plus the picture I chose for this practice had eyes and hands, if you have been paying attention, you know this is a yes for interesting compositions.

The light was a bit too smooth in the original picture so I sharpened the shadows edges a bit more, the render was not too complex to nail, the real challenge was to not draw attention from her eyes with too much information in terms of shapes and textures, I still had plenty of those though, yet I feel it was balanced.

Go and check some Bjork music if you have not already, shes the best.

Pineapple - Pattern chaos

So Ive saved this reference long ago because I really loved the amount of information the fruit has, even though shots in the reference were very traditional, not crazy perspective going on, or complex lighting. This kind of practice challenges you to come up with simple ways to build up complex textures, notice how I started to paint the pattern within the pineapple using the most basic crossed lines, just to see if this would be enough to nail the likeness.

I eventually ended up redoing it by making one single point of the pattern and duplicating it across the shape. I often do this with complex patterns, very simple yet efficient. Again, as with the Bjork practice, I needed to push that contrast a bit more within the shadows, this helps make the painting less flat, it was a nice extra because the complexity of the pineapple was enough in my opinion.

Bottle of water - Unexplicable colours

In a totally opposite take, I took a very simple reference and chose to make it a bit complex, you know like life. When theres no problems suddenly you are the one causing them, Im guilty of charges. The little struggle for me within this practice (hard to believe but there was a bit), was the tone of the plastic base, I wanted to nail the color within the reference but I was not sure which one it was, it was not grey, neither blue, but like yellow with purple? it does not make sense, but what do I know, I dont paint empty plastic bottles everyday.

Challenging you to guess colors even though they might not be 100% there, allows you to sharpen your vision, our brain is trying to let us focus on whats essential, subtle colors might not be as relevant as a very strong yellow or red while driving, or green almost blue in those strawberries that have been sitting in your refrigerator for a week. Anyways, even the least relevant subject can teach us something if we pay attention.