Interweaving vines with 3D text

[Gare]

I hate to sound negative, especially on a Sunday, morning. So BeanPole, please take this as constructive criticism, because evidently you put some hours into your composition, and they are not wasted, but let's look at the big picture for a moment.

• You have a separation* problem between the characters and the brown area upon which they rest. The "A" is almost impossible to make out against the dark foreground.

• Similarly, there is not enough separation in value (also known as Brightness and Lightness) between the vines and the characters.

Choose your colors very, very carefully when you compose artwork. Many of us take color for granted, but creating a color palette for a composition is often just as challenging as the artwork itself.

A recommendation? Make the characters more on the pastel side, add lightness or white to the existing colors. Traditionally, Easter eggs and women's' apparel for this holiday are light pastel shades of reds (pink, IOW), pale yellow, light blue, you know?

Here's a "Spring Color Palette" that shows some nice combinations of main and accent colors once the snow recedes in the Northern Hemisphere this time of year! At top are some outdoorsy colors and at bottom some pastels. If you like, you can copy this bitmap into Xara, lock the image, and then use the dropper tool on the color editor to sample some of the colors to selected shapes.




My Best,

Gary

*Separation: In Art, the lack of distinguishing contrast between neighboring areas in the composition, due to similarity between geometry, hue, saturation, or value.

[stygg2003]

I think I should have used that palette Gary

Stygg

[BeanPole]

Thank you both for your suggestions!

Stygg:

I love your letter!


Angelize:

I thought I noticed that your leaves were different. That is a very good tip.

Gare:

Yes, I understand where you are coming from with your color suggestions. I noticed that too. I originally planned to have the letters show off against the sky, but ended up moving the letters down because of the shadows showing in the sky. I also started off with bronze looking letters, but they didn't show up against the earth, and the vines didn't show up against the green grass.

I will go back and do some revamping, but not likely today. Today is my day off!

Gare, thanks for the color palette.

[dcahall]

Yet another version but with some different nuances. I have tried to incorporate some things from a couple of different threads into this one. I will tell you up front that there are some things that I was disappointed in but I have spent a number of hours trying to put my "vision" on the screen. I have tried to think about the things Gary has been trying to get us to think about.

I am open to suggestions of how to improve it. I have also included my .xar file if you want to mess around with it.

[Gare]

Although we pronounce it "Zara Zone", Dave, it's spelled "Xara Xone."



Very interesting composition. It would look 300% more polished if you re-thought the colors you used. The green is Astroturf, not organic, and the reflection pool looks like a painted outdoor pool.

Think subtle!

You're doing great!

-g

[dcahall]

I like this one.......

[dcahall]

Although we pronounce it "Zara Zone", Dave, it's spelled "Xara Xone."



Very interesting composition. It would look 300% more polished if you re-thought the colors you used. The green is Astroturf, not organic, and the reflection pool looks like a painted outdoor pool.

Think subtle!

You're doing great!

-g

@Gare - Thanks. I sure messed up with the Z instead of X. Yes, the first time I did the pool I liked the fractal fill better than this one turned out. I will have to try to play with that green to get a more natural color. Colors definitely are an area where I struggle at times. They just do not always come out the way I see them in my mind. I also was not too happy with the shadow of the text. I struggled a lot with it too. I have a lot more time in this than it looks. A ton of trying to accomplish things one way, not being happy and then pursuing a different approach.

Over all though, I feel I am moving in the right direction. Just a long way to go :-)

[angelize]

The stone arch also looks to me as if it's defying gravity. The arch would look better if it was on top of the uprights rather than hanging between them. I'm a little rushed right now but as soon as I have time I'll put together an example for you.

[dcahall]

I thought about that as well. I am going to go back and try to make some more adjustments. I appreciate the feedback though.

[Gare]

Good, Dave—

Color is very, very important. It's one of the first elements you decide on in a composition.

I'm not big on the default palette on the color line and created my own as my default document.

If you'd like to try my color selections, first press Ctrl+Shift+O for Options. On the View panel, UNcheck "Delete unused colors and styles when saving."

Then open the attached blank document, and then choose File>Save Template, and give ita unique name you can remember later.

Finally? When you choose to create a new document, you choose File>New and then pick this template off the submenu.

Generally, lawn green is less saturated and casts warmer than our mind's eyes imagine. Same's true of sky blue—a photo of a sky usually shows a fairly desaturated blue.

If you want to walk away entirely from fractals for the sky, another attachment here has a vector trace of a sky.




My Best,

Gary