Early Artworks Of Yours Lacking Technical Skill. Themed Image Thread.

I hope you are rummaging in the cupboard, or at least thinking about it, meanwhile, I will add more from around the same time that my interest in seriously trying to improve my work took a hold on me. Let me know if this gets unbearably boring and if so I wil be happy to close, with no offense taken :)



You might notice a better rendition of the pear, it looks more like a solid thing. The sugar bowl is as flat as a pancake! I think underpainting was used in this one. It was around ths time that I began to try and improve the drawing of faces. Sleeping children were the only ones I was confident enough to try. Look at the gap between Liam's eyes and nose :))))

If you stop by, can you just give this a yes or a no in favour of its continuation. Thanks :)

Maria, I think it is your title preventing people to joining this thread.. I think few are willing to share or admit their earlier works are lacking technical skill. Here is mine which I done when I was a teenager forty years ago.



As I looking at this I think my skill at the time was good and was confident what I could do with it however I am lot more expressive with my way of painting with more knowledge. I am understand the meaning of "less is more".

I meant to remember to do this today. But rummaging is on my list... it's just ancient excavation in my case.
-- mary ellen anderson

I suppose - and of a there were - there were some that lacked any skill at all - but I don't have photo's of them - I hardly have "bad photo's" of my "good work".

i don't remember what my earliest works are. and i often bring them back and repair them after. my older things are less refined, less detail, not much in the way of shadow.



where as the newer ones are far more complex. i'm still not totally pleased with the landscape things like with the balloon. but it's a work in progress. each one improves the next.

---Mike Savad

Maria, It might be better to go ahead and show the works side by side. Otherwise it could get very confusing trying to find the 'better' versions later in the week.

Dear Maria, Below is a rendering I did in Adobe Illustrator 9.0.1.. I first began working in Adobe Illustrator (6) for product design back in the mid 90's. Great years with lots of work and many upgrades to the program (Illustrator 8 was groundbreaking but riddled with glitches!) After I retired in 2002, I began playing with the program for my own enjoyment. "The Flight" was my first official personal expression with the program. It's old, but I still smile with the memory of making it. I'm now with CS4 and have no plans to upgrade.

Imagine what I could do with this now !!!!!! It's hand-painted.......good idea, "interesting" execution, lol...........Great Thread, Maria.

This is one of my first Illustrator pieces for school. I thought it was pretty good for a beginner, but I never could get the shadow right.

Dear April, Nice to see a fellow Illustrator artist. I've been to your art site, good work! I have a very fond appreciation for the program. I first "witnessed" Illustrator in 1988, maybe 89, anyway, it wasn't even in color yet. Illustrator is like a very dear friend to me… :)

Thank you, Kelley. Your Illustrator work is very impressive! I don't make nearly as much art in Illustrator as I do in Photoshop, but I do use it all the time for my graphic design work, and I prefer it for work that requires precision. I understand exactly what you mean when you say it is a very dear friend to you. I feel that way about Photoshop, but Illustrator is like my trusty old workhorse that's been through everything with me. I don't think I could do without either of them.

This was a class assignment when I went to Gibbs 10 years ago. We were each given a celebrity to draw in pencil. I could NOT get this right to save my soul until I turned both the photo and the paper upside down.


This is the first composite I ever did, around the same time as the Connery sketch (Liberty and the Caddy are my photos, borrowed the flag):

Dear April, Below is some photoshop work.

I was about to reply to Alfred but found that ppl are beginning to thaw to the idea. Alfred, I have always loved your Kingfisher, it's so beautiful, and I think I like it all the more the fact that it was a young boy drawing it, without much care for the technicalities, but you were a keen observer, even then.
Roy, thanks for stopping to comment and confess:)))
Mary Ellen look forward to seeing your excavated works.
Louise, I recognised Connery instantly.
Thanks everyone for posting, too many to reply too just now, and I'm easy about posting early work next to recent or improved work, if it helps the thread not to become confusing. I am liking how people are still attached to some of their early pieces, and as Kelley said, the means used at the time. I've never used illustrator but feel that I should try it.

Dear Maria, If you decide to try Illustrator, best you take some classes for it. I taught myself Illustrator and Photoshop. Manuals are so wonderful, but people appear to be really put off by them if they're your only source of instruction.

Here's the second icon that I did. People still liked it though and now it's the private possession of a priest.

Dear Marcelle, Very Beautiful!!!

Louise, up-side down works amazingly well. I did the whole of Guernica that way, to almost perfection! Very proud I was....doubt the Master would approve,lol.

Hi Louise, love the Sean Connery portrait, but what does "digital art" put to the description mean? You didn't draw it?

Edit: Digital Photography, ??

It says that? hm...
Yes I drew it, upside down! lol

Ok I changed it. My defaults are Photography and Digital Art, forgot about that.

Well Louise, you really should jump up and down about the details, you do so much of the time with everyone else.

first oil - age 6


cardboard art - age 8


just before going pro - age 16

-- mary ellen anderson