I bit off more than I can chew. Depicting fabric is new for me, and I picked a doozy to put in this

[GreenPartyVoter]

still life. How do I push the darks back to look like a valley and not a hill? And how do I make green and orange not equal brown?

[Laelth]

1. You are ambitious, indeed.

Good luck.

Orange and green will always make brown. I can’t help you there. Remember. Thin layer underneath. Thick layer on top. It’s the only way to keep your colors separate.

As with any art, excellence comes from repetition. Paint it ten times, and then you will be a master at fabric folds.

-Laelth

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Thank you. More studies seem to be the answer.

[Alwaysna]

2. Try highlighting the top of the fold and darkening the valleys..

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. I did try that, but that optical illusion effect keeps

flipping them on me.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. First, you need to do some research on optical illusions...

The checkerboard illusion is a great place to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Checker_shadow_illusion&direction=next&oldid=938588333

Then, remember the fights over the color of the dress?

https://slate.com/technology/2017/04/heres-why-people-saw-the-dress-differently.html

And you can keep on going from there, with fascinating results.

In your case, transcribing a 3D image into 2D brings some possibly unwelcome results. By the time the brain gets the image, many compromises have been made and interpretation gets screwed up. Other interesting effects come from the "crater illusion":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_illusion

There are better articles, but this will give you the idea.

So, assumed light direction, contrast, saturation, and a few other things affect the perception of the scene. The more you know about this, the better you can manipulate the image to get the effect you like.

[MLAA]

4. Thank you for this interesting response

I went to each of the sites and found it fascinating 🙂

[CrispyQ]

8. Those were fascinating links. Thank you.

I hadn't heard of the dress phenomenon. I love optical illusions!

Here's an article about how blue birds aren't really blue.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/06/30/blue-birds-arent-blue-this-is-how-they-fool-you

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Thank you. I have had more than one fun house effect

turn up in my work. It's only fun if you did it on purpose. Lol

[samnsara]

5. i like it just as it is!

[MuseRider]

7. I was going to say the same

but with little skill and no actual knowledge I hesitated. Still, as an observer I agree with you. I looked and could not find anything that did not look convincing.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Another set of eyes is always helpful, thank you! I'm in the middle of it

so I still see bits and pieces, not a whole image yet. That takes time away from it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Thank you so much!

[CrispyQ]

6. This book is for colored pencils, but I found it helpful.

https://www.amazon.com/Textures-Colored-Pencil-Denise-Howard-ebook/dp/B079ZMVBXP/

There's one for black and white, too.

Keep painting! Today is Messy Friday at my house. The paints, pens, and paper all come out.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Mine never get put away. We've lost the dining room and half the living. LOL

[CrispyQ]

10. You are a true artist!

I just play one on Friday's.

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. I was only playing after school. It's the extra time that

made me a true artist. Everyone has some latent ability. I'll never be a Michaelangelo, but I don't need to be. I do have enough talent that good lessons and hard work on skills can help develop it, and I bet you do too.

[lunatica]

17. Drapery is a wonderful thing to master

but as others above have said, it’s also difficult. It has visual properties that nothing else does so it’s something that has to be mastered to a certain extent separately than the usual ways of painting or drawing. You have to ‘see’ it in a different way than you ‘see’ landscapes or Still lives. Just like painting flowers is very different from painting the vase they’re in or the clouds in the sky. Each element must be looked at in it’s own way.

My suggestion is that you train your eye to see the uniqueness in drapery. If I were your teacher I would ask you to take any part of the scarf and work on that. First I would want you to draw it. You can use graphite pencil which will make you to really look at each Highlight and shadow. Or you can use color pencils, which will help you discern the subtle hues of each color.

I particularly like the lower left and bottom of the scarf. Draw that all by itself. By doing this the concentration involved will put you into your right brain very quickly. You will be in “the zone” so to speak. You will marvel at what comes out.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. I'll try it in graphite first, I think. It's such a lovely

fabric. I do hope I can eventually explain it W watercolor.

[lunatica]

19. Wonderful

I promise you that you won’t regret it.

In beginners drawing class it’s one of the important drawings that every teacher assigns.

When you use graphite you can use an eraser to show the highlights. It’s called reductive or subtractive drawing. It’s when you use the eraser to draw with and not just to erase mistakes.

[tikka]

20. I think that the nice impressionistic feel of your painting

is overpowered by the intense blue background. It could explain the optical illusion effect you talk about in the burnt sienna folds. Rather than arranging the beautiful fabric around the pitcher, drape folds behind it like you did with around the paining in the photograph. Use the folds to lead your eye and strengthen your composition. Lunatica's idea of sketching fabric is a great idea.