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Spent around 10-15 hours on this, got very little sleep due to the time restraints. :(
I had a ton of fun with the contest, the idea to make it based around a quote was amazing since that meant I didn't have any limits.
My goal was to show a woman pulling herself from the "dark" and bringing herself into the "light", I thought an underwater scene would be perfect for this as we can see the clear contrasts between light and dark but also blue and red.
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Without the text version:
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Below you can see my process. I started with using black and white so I could make sure the main focus was on the woman, and then by using overlay, soft light, hue, and colour layers I added some rough colour that I was able to refine.
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(Yikes! Went over 100 layers)
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Below I've demonstrated what my thought process was when creating this piece.
To the right I circled the areas I wanted the focus to be on, being the "subject", the "dark" and the "light". To do this I made them stand out by having a dramatic change in value. To the left I showed how I wanted your eye to move around the painting. Starting from the top, I wanted the viewers focus to go down the woman's body down to the "dark", which gives us already a good idea about what the piece is about. Finally your eyes will lift back up to the top by the seaweed (or tentacles!) to start the journey all over again!
(I also want to make sure no lines are directing your eyes outside the painting)
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