Rendering Denim: Folds, Stitches, and the Long Road Through a Jacket

I'm really excited to be revisiting one of my favorite things to render: fabric. This time I'm taking on denim — a full jacket with all the folds, seams, stitching, buttons, and little variations in the material. I've been working on it for weeks now, and it has definitely been a challenge, but I've also learned a lot from it.

I've always enjoyed rendering fabric because there's so much information packed into something we normally don't think twice about. Every fold changes depending on how the fabric is sitting, where it's being pulled, and how the light is hitting it. Denim has been especially challenging because there's just so much happening at once. You have the folds themselves, the texture of the material, faded areas, stitching, buttons, seams and all of those things have to work together without becoming overwhelming.

Like I normally do, I started with the block-in and then moved into the first layer. At that stage, I wasn't really worried about making everything look finished. I was much more concerned with establishing the larger value relationships and getting the structure of the folds to read correctly.

That was probably one of the biggest challenges with the jacket. Some of the transitions are extremely subtle, while others change very quickly. You might have a gradual transition across one part of a fold and then suddenly hit a very sharp, dark crease. Getting those relationships right is what actually makes the fabric feel convincing.

The first layer alone took me weeks to work through. I was definitely eager to start refining, but I've learned that there's not much point in rushing into detail if the foundation underneath it isn't working. The better I can resolve those larger problems early on, the easier the refinement becomes later.

Now that I'm in the refinement stage, I've been able to slow down and start paying attention to all of the smaller things that make denim look like denim. The stitching, the weave of the fabric, the buttons, the little shifts in color and value. I'm also going back into folds that were already established and pushing them further, deepening certain darks, adjusting edges, softening transitions, and adding smaller pieces of information.

It's slow. Some days I might spend hours working on a surprisingly small section of the painting. But that's also one of the things I enjoy about this kind of work. You gradually watch something that was fairly simple in the beginning become more and more convincing.

One thing this painting has really reinforced for me is just how important value is. When you're working with something that has this much texture, it's really easy to get distracted by all the little details. But those details aren't going to save an area if the larger value relationships aren't working. The structure has to come first.

I've also been reminded how much I like working in passes. I don't feel the need to completely finish an area the first time I touch it. I can establish it, come back to it, make adjustments, and gradually build it toward where I want it to be. In a lot of ways, that process has felt very similar to how I approach drawing.

And sometimes the best thing I can do is just walk away from the easel for a little while. After staring at blue denim for hours, your eyes start accepting things that you would probably notice immediately if you came back fresh the next morning.

There's still quite a bit left to do, more folds, more stitching, more buttons, and plenty of refinement — but I'm really enjoying watching this painting come together.

I'll share the finished piece when I get there. For now, I wanted to share a little bit of what the process has actually looked like, because so much of painting happens during this stage. The finished image is only a small part of the story.