Photoshop - How To Create Spontaneous Art

Ayran Oberto demonstrates the creative approaches he uses to produce colourful portrait art without overthinking anything

- Ayran Oberto

1 Sketching the ideas

It all starts with the sketch. A few key words spark ideas and help me write this workshop. My aim is to create different angles of a female head using my visual and muscular memory, and give the viewer the sensation that they’re being observed.

When ImagineFX contacted me, I was interested to hear that the theme of the cover was to experiment with a painting. This has always been my mission with my personal work, so I was more than happy to approach the cover in the same way.

The idea was to paint a female portrait and for this I went to my comfort zone. My lines, which are always flawed, tend to produce features that I consider particularly attractive: thick lips, large eyes with long eyelashes, small pointed noses and hair that flows in all directions.

As with my other client work, I start by visualising various options. During this stage what’s foremost in my mind is to avoid drawing the same angle. I look for natural angles of the head that would allow for a logical movement of the character’s eyes towards the viewer.

Once the sketch with the strongest composition is chosen, it’s time to give it maximum visual impact, using colour. My approach during this stage is to create a sense of randomness using a range of Photoshop tools. I want to combine effects that on initial viewing appear like mistakes, but with a little vision can end up having potential towards the end of the painting process.

Once the colours are finalised, it’s time to enjoy discovering the image, using design rules that enable me to reveal attractive shapes in each area that are gradually refined as the painting progresses.

2 Wrapping lines over my sketches