Making of Journey Across the Desertby Daniel Romanovsky, Canada Web: www.formlanguage.net



About the Image - This image was a personal project, I wanted to paint an exotic open desert landscape and imbue with a sense of mystery. The painting was created using Adobe Photoshop CS3, took approximately 8 hours of work over the course of two days.

As you are about to see, I used a direct mass painting approach working without a preliminary drawing. I choose several of Jean-Lean Gerome’s paintings with a similar theme to use as a reference for my color pallet and composition. I highly recommend studying the works of classical painters to enhance your understanding of artistic techniques.



Considering that the image is primarily a horizontal composition, I choose a pretty wide aspect ratio. I started by establishing the horizon line, placing it just above center. Using the gradation tool I added in the sky and ground tones choosing somewhat desaturated colors with the intention of adding saturation as the image progresses. I also kept the edge at the horizon line soft to have the flexibility to tweak it later on.



The next step was to block in the sky, I used mostly gray blues with a little bit of earth tones to help blend it with a ground.



Painting the ground plane was a very similar process, keeping it pretty simple. I was looking to paint more of a rocky desert landscape which allowed me the opportunity to reflect some of the sky tone on the rocky planes.



It’s generally a good idea to paint in layers; background first, then middle ground and finally the foreground elements. That way you can tweak your composition later without worrying about overlapping and visual continuity.




At this stage, I put more work into the sky adding some storm clouds to create both drama and interest. To make the process more efficient, I used some of my own custom cloud brushes, which are fun and easy to create. I also added a foreground rock element to help bring the viewer into the picture.