I was in the village of Cabenge, Soppeng, in South Sulawesi when I did this watercolor study.

So I came across these principles after researching and observing the paintings of both digital and traditional masters such as Schmid, Anders Zorn, Zhu Haibo, and many talented artists. The principles can be represented in the following picture.

Of course this is not illuminati or something. 

Other principles from my old phone.

Dalam digital painting, saya kesal setiap kali orang menuduh atau menyamakan melukis dengan mengedit. Saya menegaskan sekali lagi bahwa digital painting adalah melukis dari bidang kosong selayaknya engkau membuat karya di kertas atau di kanvas. Lukisan Wolverine di atas, oleh sejumlah orang, dituduh beberapa kali sebagai foto yang diedit. Dan saya menantang mereka untuk mencarikan editing yang menghasilkan efek serupa seperti itu.

Two weeks after Eid, Sury, Caca and visited Yusi Avianto Pareanom, an author and journalist based in Depok. He's Javanese. We talked in Javanese all the time, and that is the longest time I spent to speak Javanese here in Jakarta. Caca, who brought a tablet, loved to play with his 12 year old kid Sulaiman and enjoyed his staying there.

As we had coffee, Yusi asked me to paint Sulaiman's bike in front us just to show to him how to do digital painting. I promised to paint Yusi's portrait when I got home.

Lukis jari di ponsel Android: menu buka puasa

Beberapa minggu lalu, saat berbuka puasa, saya dan Caca dan Sury makan di KFC di Jakarta Utara. Jarang sekali saya melukis makanan, dan menu berbuka puasa ini mengilhami saya untuk coba-coba. Gambar di atas dilukis dengan jari di ponsel Android berlayar 4,3 inci melalui aplikasi Paint Joy. Ada playback video yang merekam proses saya melukis. Silakan tonton di bawah:

For the first time, in Jakarta, I found a good menu for breakfast: dudoh mangut and lontong (which is made of rice and coconut). So I thought of doing a painting of it from my Android phone using Paint Joy app.

Seja melukis tahun 2013, saya jarang mengerjakan gambar binatang, tapi belakangan, ketika saya di Jakarta dan melihat banyak ayam, anjing dan kucing di tetannga, saya berpikir untuk mencoba-coba subjek baru. 

Ayam jago ini selalu saya temui setiap melewati gang dekat kos saya di Tanjung Priuk, Jakarta Utara. Rasanya seru juga mencoba hal baru. Sebelum ayam, saya juga sempat melukis anjing yang saya jumpai di tepi jalan raya.

This digital painting was done on Android phone using free version of drawing app Paint Joy, but the steps in the tutorial can be applied in any painting software, either on smartphone or on desktop. Please watch the tutorial below, which I have uploaded to YouTube yesterday. Sorry for the video quality.

A Metro TV news anchor, Gilang Ayunda has a charm that instantly captures the heart of every man watching her. This digital painting was done in a 4,3" Android phone. Watch the video below:

This painting of Joko (Jokowi) Widodo, a candidate in Indonesia's presidential election, was done in Paint Joy on a 4.3" Android phone with my finger. Although I've been a supporter of Jokowi since the governor election, in fact this is the first time I do his portrait. And Paint Joy is doing very well. One reason of using Paint Joy is because it supports playback video; all the process is recorded by the app so you can play it to see each brush strokes.

Melukis dari hape lebih nyaman bagi saya ketimbang laptop atau komputer, setidaknya karena dua hal. Pertama, di laptop, saya memakai mouse jadi jari saya akan goyang dan goresan saya kedodoran. Seandainya ada Wacom bamboo tablet (mouse dalam bentuk pulpen) mungkin lukis dari PC akan jadi favorit saya. Kedua, saya bisa tidur-tiduran sambil menggambar di hape. Ibu serta teman-temanmu tidak akan tahu kamu melukis; mereka mengira kamu lagi SMSan saja atau main game. Di komputer, kita susah melakukannya, bukan?

Angka satu dan dua ini bisa kautafsirkan sesukamu, misalnya: ia menggambarkan angka dua yang dengan kekuatannya akan menyingkirkan angka satu. Atau, angka satu, yang meski dianiaya, tetap bersabar dan tak membalas tendangan angka dua di pantatnya.

Craig Mullins mengajarkan cara ini: Kamu otak-atik sebuah foto dengan mencoret, memotong, menempel secara acak dan abstrak sampai muncul bentuk yang membuatmu berpikir, "Aha, gambar ini tanpak seperti seekor kuda." Atau bentuk apapun. Lukisan di atas juga aku bikin dengan siasat si Mullins. Aku mengambil gambar lama, sebuah foto yang aku jepret tahun lalu saat terjadi kebakaran gubuk di kampungku di Lamongan. Gubuk itu menyimpan banyak jerami, yang tentunya rentan dengan api. 

Add caption

Agsya, my girlfriend's son, has a new tablet from her mother. He plays with it all the time, downloading apps, browsing the web and, of course, playing his favorite game, Zombie Highway. The portrait here is a life painting I did yesterday while he was busy shooting the jumping zombies.

Gambar ini saya bikin sebagai demo di Kelas Melukis Digital. Beberapa karya anggota kelas tersebut, sekali waktu, memperoleh perbaikan dan merangkap sebagai bahan diskusi. Karya sebelumnya dari gambar ini bisa kamu lihat pada gambar dibawah. Gambar kiri adalah lukisan tracing dari ponsel Android oleh Ida Ayu, dan gambar kanan adalah perbaikan saya melalui Photoshop CS3.

Sahur pertama, puasa pertama. Kau tahu rasanya itu: malas bangun, malas makan. Tapi karena hari ini menuku sate, yang adalah makanan favorit, aku gagal menuruti kemalasan. 

Penanak beras ini bertengger di depanku setelah aku kekenyangan nasi dan 10 tusuk sate ayam. Dibeli oleh Sury semalam. Dan ide bagusnya: Ketimbang meresapi perut penuh, kenapa tidak melukis saja? Karya ini adalah life painting yang digambar dengan jari di ponsel Android, bukan mencontoh dari foto. Langkah demi langkahnya bisa kaulihat di bawah. Penggarapan dilakukan di aplikasi Sketchbook Pro.

I stumbled into an interesting blog yesterday --and unfortunately I forgot to bookmark it-- while I searched for Photoshop brushes for digital painting. The blog provides a huge set of various brushes, which is 60MB in size, thank to the maker.

Digital painting of Artha Gading Mall in North Jakarta

I always say to my friend Harry that I'll paint every location I visit. And since now I'm in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, and had a chance to go to this luxurious mall last week with my girlfriend Sury, I try to paint the view in my laptop. Why watercolor? The story goes like this: I'm currently reading a wonderful book, Mastering Atmosphere and Mood, by Australian watercolor artist Joseph Zbukvic. The book is so inspiring and his watercolor work is simply amazing. Because I don't have watercolor paints and brushes at home, I try to do it digitally using a watercolor brush set available here. Unzip the file and import the ABR file to your Photoshop.

This post is inspired by watercolor artists who make great artworks with their brush. Since I don't have watercolor paints at home, I try to render it using Photoshop brushes. If you're curious about how I make this painting, here's a tutorial for you. There two versions: English and Indonesian.

I experimented with newspaper texture on a digital painting, with a combination of two programs: ArtFlow and Photoshop. Photoshop was used for the final step--adding newspaper in a Multiply layer. In fact this is optional. If you think your painting is better without this texture, you can just omit it.