HOME | DD
jossif — Morena
Published: 2004-08-05 05:01:40 +0000 UTC; Views: 954; Favourites: 2; Downloads: 98
Redirect to original
Description
Niña Morena - Digital paintingBest appreciated in full view
See also detail in my scrapbook.Model: Aimee. *oolostentity (thank you for the reference photo
)From the dA Artists' Portraits Collection by *jossif
Poem by Pablo Neruda (from Twenty Poems of Love And a Song of Despair - Translation included below the original Spanish version.)
Niña Morena
Niña morena y ágil, el sol que hace las frutas,
el que cuaja los trigos, el que tuerce las algas,
hizo tu cuerpo alegre, tus luminosos ojos
y tu boca que tiene la sonrisa del agua.
Un sol negro y ansioso se te arrolla en las hebras
de la negra melena, cuando estiras los brazos.
Tú juegas con el sol como con un estero
y él te deja en los ojos dos oscuros remansos.
Niña morena y ágil, nada hacia ti me acerca.
Todo de ti me aleja, como del mediodía.
Eres la delirante juventud de la abeja,
la embriaguez de la ola, la fuerza de la espiga.
Mi corazón sombrío te busca, sin embargo,
y amo tu cuerpo alegre, tu voz suelta y delgada.
Mariposa morena dulce y definitiva
como el trigal y el sol, la amapola y el agua.
Translation:
Girl Lithe and Tawny
Girl lithe and tawny, the sun that forms
the fruits, that plumps the grains, that curls seaweeds
filled your body with joy, and your luminous eyes
and your mouth that has the smile of water.
A black yearning sun is braided into the strands
of your black mane, when you stretch your arms.
You play with the sun as with a little brook
and it leaves two dark pools in your eyes.
Girl lithe and tawny, nothing draws me towards you.
Everything bears me farther away, as though you were noon.
You are the frenzied youth of the bee,
the drunkenness of the wave, the power of the wheat-ear.
My somber heart searches for you, nevertheless,
and I love your joyful body, your slender and flowing voice.
Dark butterfly, sweet and definitive
like the wheat-field and the sun, the poppy and the water.
Pablo Neruda
Related content
Comments: 26
wow i like how you made the skin look smooth without looking fake. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Beautiful... i like how you did the flowers in her hair... the colours are amazing!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
WOW!!! Im so happy!!! You rock! 
Thankyou. Thank you. Thank you.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I had great fun working on this piece. When I saw it, it immediately reminded me of that poem by Neruda. I had to paint it....
The pleasure was all mine...
-J-
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you so much for your comments and for featuring my work in your Journal....
When are the two of us going to do a collab?
-J-
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you...
I am working on two new paintings... both inspired by neruda.
-J-
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I like the pose of the girl - a well chosen reference. =]
There are a couple of things that disturb me a bit in this one: The brush strokes are very chaotic in places, mainly those indicating the curls and the part of the background behind her back. Otherwise I like the not so smooth finish of this piece.
Another thing are the skin colours. They may well have been like this in the photo, but the extreme yellows on her ear and forehead, and the green dash on her left eyelid make it look awkward, as does the pure white of her eyes. White (just as black) is a void in paintings. Rather use very light colours for anything you want to appear white (or very dark ones instead of pure black), it gives it more volume. The colours used on her face make it look flat, there is no real range of hues other than variations of the same colour. Here is where colour theory would come in useful. As said, even if it was like this in the original; picture, photos often are distorted in colour, so picking the colours from the photo is best avoided if you are aiming for a realistic, non-digitalised result. As it stands here, it looks more like a worked on photo than carefully applied colour with brush strokes that define the facial features.
Next would be the pixellisation around some of the edges, as well as the rather strange rough sharpness of the edges, mainly again around the curls and her back. Especially around the curls the backgroud "flares", which normally indicates applying a filter or plug-in, or simply that the brushing wasn't through through carefully enough. "Flare" happens when you paint hair (or anything else), and then try and apply a backgroudn around it, instead of painting the background first, then paint the hair.
Since I know how you create your works, maybe it would be wise to think over the finer details of your technique to avoid above mentioned flaws. =]
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you so much for the feedback. It is indeed appreciated.
Regarding the colouring, I am not 100% happy with the skin colors on the face. It could do with mote work, and I may do that soon (long live digital media...)
The pixelization of the edges is probably due to the unsharp mask I applied after resizing. The canvas is 4,000 pixels wide and when reduced to 900 pixels wide to fit on dA, everything gets smoothed out too much, so i had to do an unsharp mask. What size of canvas you work with?
And finally, I agree of the haphazardness of the brushstrokes on teh hair... still learning how to do hair...
-J-
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You're welcome.
A little manual touching up of the face would probably work wonders already.
I work at 9000px minimum, usually between 12.000px and 20.000px. So, yes, I use the unsharp mask as well when I resize, but also fade it a little after applying it, so the edges won't come up flaring.
Ah, hair is pretty easy, actually. You already paint just bundles of hair, which is best when painted. Look at the flow of the hair, and use the base colour of the hair to define that in broad strokes. Next, choose the medium highlight colour and apply it on top, working with the flow of the hair, then the highlights and shadows in the same way. Abstraction is the key in that case, funnily enough, to get a good realistic result. Even fuzzy or curly hair has one constant flow, although it may not be apparent immediately.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yep, will retouch the face and upload new version later today.
How do you manage to work at 20.000 px? Do you work at full view or zooming out? I find this aspect the most challenging (zooming in and out all the time...).
Thanks about the tip of fading the unsharp mask to eliminate flaring. Will try next time.
regarding the hair painting, what type, size and brush variant you use to paint the strands?
many thanks,
-J-
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Usually I keep it at 25% or less of the original size while painting, since 25% is the print size at 300dpi. So, if it looks fine at that size, it doesn't matter what it looks like at 100%. I just zoom in to 100% if I do extreme photo realism from reference material, otherwise no.
It depends on how big the image is, so I cannot give you exact brush sizes at all. Nothing too small however, or else it becomes ridiculously tedious. I only ever really use the hard round paintbrush for painting, and have the opacity jitter switched to pen pressure (in PS), as well as the size jitter when painting fine details. That's all. =]
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanl you Nykolai, these tips are priceless and mucb appreciated.
I wil try next painting at 20,000 px at 25% zoom and see what happens.
I am now working on some landscapes, using acrilic brush variants in Painter... I am a bit tired of painting beautiful women... Hav you painted landscapes, or just the human form?
-J-
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
=]
I have painted various things, but my main focus is still on the human face.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0