Reflective essay #3

Another challenging one for me. Although evironmental sketch #1 is the crudest, it is also the truest to character, for my character. He is an office drone, and lives in a rather drab office environment, which is why there is very little color - it's mostly monochrome. It's also why I placed him in the sketch, even though we weren't asked to; it's partly to show how well he fits in. His two work colleagues are going through the same ritual - tiredly starting to pull out their chairs at the beginning of the work day. Same posture, same motions, same mindset. The only hint of color is the Orwellian non-motivational work slogan on a background of chirpy canary yellow. I used a stock photo of an office to help me lay out the perspective somewhat.
The second one was not entirely to my satisfaction, but I enjoyed doing it. I started with an interior photograph looking up and out of the tower of a ruined Irish castle. Technical challenges abounded. I tried sampling colors from the photograph; and tried using a later-discarded outline to 'try' to map out the areas of the most light. When it ended up not looking very 'interior-tower-like', I ended up trying to make it more 'interior-cavelike'.
I added a few elements to the coastal scene. The distant formations on either side, the close rockface silhouette on the left, and some rocks in the water. I used the erase tool more than anyone will ever know. No, that's not tree-like. Erase. No, that's not rock formation-like. Erase. No, that's not rock-in-the-water like. Erase. The tutorial videos make it look maddeningly easy. "Well, heck, those realistic rock formations just about draw themselves!" Sigh. I sampled colors a lot, punched it up, dialed it down, and experimented with different opacities. And digitally erased a lot. Buy a computer, save a forest.