Foundational Support...

Again, using burnt sienna for the shading and raw sienna for the rest...

Extension Further...

With the raw sienna added...

Extension...

Continuing on, this time using burnt sienna ink instead of the red earth used on the other...   the lit  areas remain  with raw sienna [at this point not yet layered]...

Brightening the Vista...

Using emerald blue and stippling, layer over the trees, adding light green where lit...  where the next round of vegetation was, stippled first the light green on the unshaded area, then layered the emerald green over the whole...  the rock was first layered with red earth on the shade areas, then raw sienna for the rest, then a layering of flame orange stripped here and there across the sunlit areas...

Note that there is a small bit of white left around most of the grass blades in front of the section rock greens - deliberately so to pull the grasses forward more by giving space between the foreground and that section...

The First Wall...

The grisaille of the first section of the left side is now done, and the layering of the colors can begin...  note that there are four strip sections to this, the house one being the furthest...

Self-Esteem in Action...

Pride is an actioning of self-esteem, and whatever feeling one gets is a by-product of a person abiding by that virtue... a proud person sets high standards for the self, and as such conscientiously strives to meet them - in this case, the other virtues, especially the prime one of rationality, of acting by principled thought, of being dedicated to not only doing the best, but of striving to make that best ever better, a continual spiral upward to greater flourishing as a human... a recognition that a person is that person's own highest value, that of any achievements open, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of one's own character - which in turn is the product of the premises held, the making in effect of 'the self-made soul'.... 

Knowing one's own value is a necessity in order to maintain one's own life... because a person is a being whose life consists of making choices of one's actions, it is an imperative that a fundamentally positive view of of the self is there to be accepted in order to be able to take the kinds of actions that would effectively advance the flourishing and well-being of that one's life... in other words, it is that a person is a being of 'self-made soul', that creates the need of making that soul WELL - not haphazardly or piecemeal, but integratively to that well-being... after all, every action that a person takes, beyond whatever effects it may or may not have in the external world, it adds to that person's self image - there is knowing the consequences to having possibly taken another choice, and whether or not the choosing was rational or not... there is also the learning over the course of time that that person's life depends on those actions taken, that there is a responsibility involved in those choices, with potentially enormous impact on successes and failures regarding achieving happiness or frustration... thus developing the sense that one can rely on oneself to make good choices is a necessity to advancing the flourishing - such knowledge is the base on which self-esteem arises... thus this knowing, this pride, is necessary to acquiring this extremely valuable value of self-esteem...

Self-Depreciation as a Negative...

On one of my other blog sites, The Spiritual Visualizer, there has been a series ongoing regarding the Objectivist virtues [as opposed to the Christian and Pagan ones] and how they apply to being an artist... the last, and by far the most controversial, is the one of Pride - and its contrasting with its opposite, Humility... unlike the previous sets of listed virtues, I added a run-down regarding the opposite, humility, showing how it is in fact, contrary to 'conventional wisdom', NOT a virtue but is inimical to the flourishing of being human... further, when discussing pride, pointed out that it has nothing to do with boasting - that indeed, boasting is not an affirmation of pride, but an expression of insecurity of oneself... in each case, it involves the sense of one's worthiness... it does not take much understanding to see how this is involved with, especially, pen and ink artists... far too often it is expressed in how one sees one's own works, or how in the viewing of others' works, the belittlement of being human is [sometimes not so evenly] subtly expressed... most of the time this is due to the artists not understanding the nature of what it is being express, so ingrained by lifelong indoctrination to the idea of humility as being a virtue and pride as the vice....

What does it really mean to practice humility?

To begin with, one must understand that it came out of a worldview which emphasized submission to authority [whether real or imagined], a worldview which supported human domestication [initially from being members of another or outside tribe, thus not considered 'really' human], better known as slavery... little wonder, then, humility has been touted as a virtue for millenia... Humility is defined as 'the quality of having a low estimate of one's importance, worthiness, or merits; marked by the absence of self-assertion or self-exaltation'... remember, 'submission to authority' means to accept someone else's mind as final over one's own - self-abnegation... humility considers this virtuous, even as the consequence of it despairs and inhibits the achievement of self-esteem and to, as consequence, a commitment to self-improvement [because self-improvement requires self-esteem] - it is the conviction that one is doomed to deficiency, which is disabling because it undermines a person's motivation to seek to act as should [ to, in effect, create a false break between a 'could' and an 'ought' to be]... the result would be, then, to 'why bother', since the end would seem to be an assured failure...

It would seem at first glance easy to see a parallel of this to how some artists see their own works and their ability to do better - and so true, as it is one of the most prevalent depreciation effects on rendering, especially among pen and ink artists, as they more than most others have such an adversed perception of their medium's worthiness... keep this in mind when thinking back over productiveness - how it is in the doing that counts, even as the market may not yet gain its appreciation remunerationally... keep in mind, too, this effect in perseverance, the struggle to see more clearly what one is striving to do and why - and yes, why bother...

What, then, of Pride?

And Now - on to the Vista...

Now that the fore ground has at last been done, the grisaille of the rest can commence... which will be done with a Copic blue multiliner 0.05...

Unintended Consequences...

Sometimes, in rendering, attempts at doing shortcuts do not work out very well... a case in point is trying to use the very last of the ink from the bottle, tilting the bottle so to do - and resulting in tipping the bottle over, with the consequence seen in the previous image, a solid spot of light green over the area... at first glance, it seemed no biggie, as was the base color - but getting it to mesh with the surrounding grasses proved a wee more labor intensive... however, as seen, I think the damage has been taken care of, and any further tweaking will be done after all the rendering is laid out, with the shadows cast from offstage...

Blooming Grass...

The first layering of light green is down for the left side grasses... next comes the sap green blade shading...

Viewing the Path...

With the stones essentially done [only the few on the left have yet to get the cyan], the path is cleared to get back to the grasses and finish the foreground...


The stone colors, for those interested, are - sepia, red earth, and cyan... there was some raw umber used for the flat rocks at the edge of the curve]...