Sites I Like: Sijun Forums - SpeedPainting IV

Speed Painting is an exercise, primarily digital, in which one paints on a time budget, using already developed methods to create a piece.

While it is cloudy where the term was first coined, it appears to have been started on an art forum by the name of Sijun with 'The Speed painting thread', which still exists and has planted offspring on other art communities such as ConceptArt.Org and CGSociety.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Started on September 30, 2002, SpeedPainting IV is probably the oldest active speedpainting thread on the web. As of this posting, there are 997 pages of art. To be considered a true speedpaint, no more than two hours can be spent working on the piece. The artist usually works with broad strokes and very little correcting. You have to get your meaning across using very little detail. Though, some artists can get an amazing amount of detail done within the time constraints.

I came across one of the earlier versions of this thread years ago, but none of them got to be as large as SpeedPainting IV. There is some truly wonderful, imaginative and draw dropping work sprinkled throughout the thread. Some of the artists have been contributing so long that you can actually see their artistic progression.

The work in the thread has provided me with inspirations and education. Since these are not polished pieces, a lot of the work process is discernible. This has helped to figure out somethings artistically, without completely reinventing the wheel. It will also bruise your ego. When someones speedy blows what you were working on for days out the water, it can be a bitter pill to swallow. After you rinse the bad taste from your mouth, hopefully you'll take it as a challenge to practice more and do better on the next painting.

Take a look at the thread (I hope you have a fast connection, 'cause there are a LOT of images!), you'll probably recognize works from some people who've gone on to being premier digital artists.

Enjoy!