Third Thursday Sketches

Last Thursday, the biannual young artists' show opened at the Rectangle Gallery in Centralia. Gallery owner, Jan Nontell, integrated the kids’ art beautifully into the gallery's regular collection. Many of the art pieces sold within two hours. What an amazing opportunity for the youngsters! Their smiles and the smiles of family and friends told the story.

Here are a series of pencil sketches I made during the event. They’re VERY fast, drawn in only a moment or two, as people were in constant motion, especially the kids.

Fast sketches are a great way to nail down gesture and shape. They also require little in the way of art supplies, just sketch paper, soft pencils, erasers, and paper stomps for blending. Easy peasy.

Painting of the Day

"St. John's Episcopal Church, Snohomish" 9" x 12" gouache
in a Stillman & Birn Beta journal Copyright, Sara Light-Waller, 2015

This painting is of a local church, St. John's Episcopal. I drive by it all the time and thought it was high time I painted it.

This painting gave me an excuse to try out some super short-handled travel brushes I bought over the winter - the Jack Richardson Plein Air Travel Brush Set. This set has seven synthetic brushes, packaged in a small stand-up travel wallet, making them really handy for taking out plein air painting. I was a little concerned about the length of the handles, which are half the length of "normal" watercolor bushes. But after giving them a thorough test in this painting, I'm happy to say that they worked out fine. The synthetic bristles were durable, made a good line, held color and water well. Thumbs up all around for the travel brushes! They'll now get a permanent spot in my plein air kit.

I only used five gouache colors for this painting - Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Red, Cerulean Blue, Phthalo Blue, and permanent white. This seemed enough for the subject.

I was looking back at my first gouache sketch, done eight months ago, and was noting how much I've learned since. It was a nice seeing the progress, it made me grateful for the opportunity to continue learning.

Using Crayola Crayons as Fine Art Tools

“Blue Angel, © Sara Light-Waller, 2014.

9” x 12” Crayola crayons on Stonehenge paper.

I am a big fan of crayons. Give a person a crayon and they will lose all their artistic inhibitions. Honest, it's true! Give it a try sometime and see for yourself.

I had a hole to fill in my art calendar and I decided to try a fine art piece using Crayola crayons. For my subject I chose a funerary statue of an angel that I think is quite beautiful. I’m fond of painting and drawing statues, the textures and colors of worn stone are endlessly fascinating to me.

For this piece, I chose a limited palette of Crayola’s – Cornflower, Cadet Blue, Cerulean, Blue, Indigo, Blue Violet, Violet, Purple Mountain Majesty, Mauvelous, Orchid, Burnt Sienna, Brick Red, Black, and White. I used Stonehenge paper, as it has good tooth and you can scratch it without too much damage. As I'm sure you'll remember, you can't erase crayons. But you can scratch them out with a sharp craft knife to bring back some lighter colors from underneath.

I have made a little video showing the progress of this piece. (Actually, this is only my second video and one of my intentions for 2014 is to do more videos, so here we go – the first one this year.) I hope you enjoy it and my “Blue Angel.”

Happy New Year 2014!

Yes, you can use q-tips and crayons for fine art! Chickadee Painting

I have recently started a new piece in Inktense pencils and Caran D’ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons. What a delight! I took my cue from Mona Majorowicz and her Squidoo lenses about using Inktense with Neocolor II crayons in her wonderful animal paintings.

I simply had to give it a try! Although Mona frequently uses Suede Board as the support for her paintings, I decided to use Aquabord for my test piece. The Aquabord surface is quite rough and I felt this would be appropriate for the woody subject I had chosen.

In starting the piece the first step was to choose my palette. I used hole-punched pieces of white watercolor paper (nice and heavy) to match little pieces of color in my reference photo with the Inktense and Neocolor II swatches in my swatch book.

After choosing my palette, next I assembled my tools. Here is a picture of all the pieces laid out. And yes, those are q-tips. I quickly discovered that they were the best choice to smooth the Neocolor II crayons. Brushes work too but dilute the effect of the opaque crayons. On the rough surface, the crayons have been giving me really wonderful textural effects.

Here is stage one of the painting with the background laid in, mostly in Inktense pencils. The brightness of the Inktense provided a wonderful base for the Neocolor II crayons.

Please come by again and watch how the painting progresses. :-)

New sketch kit

Happy (US) Independence Day! I hope you all have had a good and safe holiday. We had a really nice day cruising around the area looking at homes for sale, baking cookies for a nice elderly couple next door and finally going to a wonderful party at a neighbor's home. :-)

This past weekend I decided to redo my current sketch kit. The old one just wasn't feeling quite right any more. Here’s my new configuration.

My new sketch kit - so far, I'm pretty happy with it.

I have added all new half pans to my old Winsor & Newton Cotman travel watercolor box and filled them with a new palette of Daniel Smith watercolors. Here are the colors I’ve chosen: Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Quinacridone Gold, French Ochre, Transparent Red Oxide, Transparent Pyrrol Orange, Quinacridone Coral, Cobalt Blue Violet, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Venetian Red, Sepia, Serpentine Genuine, and Payne’s Grey.

Also in my kit I have two Noodler’s Flex pens (one filled with Platinum Carbon Black and the other with Noodler’s Fox Red), two waterbrushes, a ruler, pencil, tiny eraser, and a tiny travel brush (that I may yet replace with a better folding brush.) Add to this some paper towels, a pencil case and my moleskin, and I’m ready to go.

Here are the first two sketches I made with this particular kit.

Another thing I’m working on right now is simplifying the pen work in my sketches to make more “room” for the color. I’m pretty happy with these first two attempts. Using simpler pen lines makes the entire drawing seem more peaceful and I like that. I'm looking forward to some sketching time this week for more "road testing." ;-)

My new Caran d'Ache Neocolor II set!

I just had to share my newest art supply purchase with you today - an 84 color box of Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watersoluable crayons! I'm pretty excited about them. I have had a handful of Neocolor II's for years and have recently started playing with them. I mean - crayons! At my age! How cool is that? I've been very inspired by Mona Majorowicz's work with them at Wild Faces Gallery. She's written some lenses for Squidoo about Neocolor II's that I've really enjoyed reading.

Lee Hammand also has a book out called, Amazing Crayon Drawing With Lee Hammond: Create Lifelike Portraits, Pets, Landscapes and More. I've just ordered it from the library and can't wait to take a closer look at it.

Whenever I get a new color art tool I happily record the colors in my black, hardbound sketchbook. Here is my newest Caran d'Ache Neocolor II color chart. 

I'm eager to get start testing these crayons and the effects that I can get with them.

Looking for Lucy

It has long been my opinion that our artistic styles, as we develop them, may be reminiscent of someone else’s, sometimes purely by accident. As an illustrator I have copied styles from stylistic Japanese manga to primitive Grandma Moses. My own style has always had a high “cute“ factor to it. I also really like drawing and painting horses and dogs. Familiar with English horse sports and fox hunting in particular, English hunting art has always been present in my life, even if I have never actively collected it.

Last week I was visiting a friend who is an art collector and shop owner specializing in English hunting art. I had gone to see her to look at the works of Cecil Aldin (1870-1935), an artist whose style apparently resembled my own. I found much to admire and aspire to in Aldin’s work. I was determined to study him and learn what I could from his pieces.

Cecil Aldin puppy

At the same time I became curious to research other artists of the early and mid-20th century who worked with similar subject matter. Enter Lucy “Mac” Dawson (1874(?)-1954), a popular mid-century illustrator, best known for her dog art. I had never heard of Lucy Dawson before that day but, to my great surprise, my style resembles hers even more than it resembles Aldin’s. Whoa!

Lucy Dawson Spaniel

I find Dawson’s work delightful and what I have found of it online, has provided me a good platform to study. It is clear to me that the subtlety of both Aldin and Dawson’s work still a bit beyond my grasp. But with both of them as my lamplight, I can see that I can get there. I definitely can get there. Picking up my hardly ever used oil pastels, I created a few small dog pieces to further explore the style. Such a happy experience! ;-)

Some dogs: oil pastel, pencil, and pen

Of course, none of this post refers to my horse art. I can find no samples of Lucy Dawson's horses, if in fact she ever did any. But no matter, Cecil Aldin did, and with his good example, I look forward to bringing some more horses to light in my art very soon. :-)

Steamcon II: Weird Weird West!

We ventured far to SeaTac, Washington this weekend for the delightfully madcap and adventure-filled SteamconII: Weird, Weird West. There we met a fabulous assortment of people, wearing amazing clothing! Of course, not to be undone in the face of fashion, I went as my Steampunk alter-ego, Professor Almira Styles of  Hawk’s Nest Observatory in Cambridge, Mass..

Professor Almira Styles

While there we were entertained by many wonderful talks about the nature of airships, haberdashery, and social issues particular to the Steampunk genre. It was amazing and fun!

Here are my sketches from the event. Drawn in an old surveyor’s notebook in Pitt pen mainly.

And speaking of hats…here’s mine from the convention. A Christmas hat featuring clockwork birds. Tra la!

Detail of my Christmas hat featuring clockwork birds.

For more pictures from this extraordinary event you can take at peak at Sara and Matt's Steamcon II Shutterfly album.

Cheerio to all!

Playing with Pitt Design Pens

Inspired by the workshop last Friday, I have been experimenting with the Pitt Design Pens. I was really impressed by Don Colley’s use of the Pitt pens for monochromatic drawings. He explained that you can create a high density of color by building up transparent layers of color with the pens. Several times during the workshop, I saw him go back into “completed” drawings to darken a line or two to prove his point.

Here are two of my sample pieces. A human and an equine portrait. I’m finding that these pens give an amazingly illustrative feel to the artwork. They require you to work boldly; markers generally require a certain brash élan!

Ayla

Prospero's Magic in Arizona

So far I like them. They make bold statements. Amazingly, they are NOT bleeding through the paper despite the heavy density of color I have been using. That's truly amazing!

I’m planning to take them with me to Steamcon II next weekend in my sketch kit. It'll be interesting to see how they do on a field trip. :-)

Great Workshop at Daniel Smith's

Yesterday afternoon I headed to Daniel Smith’s in Seattle for a free workshop given by Chicago artist/illustrator Don Colley. This workshop was sponsored by Faber-Castell and explored the characteristics of a variety of Faber-Castell products including Pitt Artist Pens, Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils, Polychromos colored pencils, and pastels for use in multi-media art pieces.

Don Colley is a wonderful speaker and a fabulous artist. His urban sketches created on huge, old, ledger books are truly a wonderful and very characteristic art. His manner was bright and lively as he described the products he uses in his art and illustration work.

Two of the media I use frequently in my artwork are colored pencils and pen & ink. After so many years of use, I had stopped asking a lot of product questions about either tool. I have used Prismacolor pencils for more than 20 years and have been satisfied with them for the most part. As far as ink pens go, I definitely have my favorites, with the Pitt Superfine (S) black pen being among them. I have also used the Pitt artist brush pens on a limited basis, with my primary use being calligraphy. I have been delighted with the Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils and have a large set of them. My painting “Please May I Come Up,” is done in the AD watercolor pencils. 

With all that said, I was surprised and delighted to learn some amazing new things at the workshop yesterday.

Pitt Artist Pens:

• Are just pigment and water and therefore have no odor like other markers. (I had not paid attention to this before but now that you mention it…)
• Will set up and be permanent and waterproof but can be smudged immediately after they’re laid down.
• Are transparent and can be built up in layers like other wet media.
• DO NOT BLEED THROUGH PAPER!

Polychromos Colored Pencils:

• Are bound in oil (not wax as are Prismacolors) and so will not “bloom” when laid down in heavy concentrations of color. Waxy bloom is observed as a white sheen that can make a piece look dull and opaque. As I use heavy concentrations of color in my colored pencil pieces, not having to worry about waxy bloom building up is a huge revelation for me!
• According to the Faber-Castell website the color leads are 3.8mm, break-resistant, water-resistant, and smudge-proof.  The Polychromos leads are glued down the entire (inside) length of the pencil casing thereby creating a stronger pencil overall.

    Generally:

• All the Faber-Castell products (pens, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, pastels) are color-indexed and each same-numbered color will be consistent across the entire product line.

I tried this out for myself when I got home. I have exactly one Polychromos colored pencil, #173 (Olive Green Yellowish) that I was given after the workshop as a free sample. I already owned the matching Albrecht Durer watercolor pencil, as well as a similar-colored Pitt artist pen #167 (Permanent Green Olive). I added Pitt pen #103 (Ivory) and a Rembrandt Polycolor White colored pencil and played around on a sheet of Bogus Recycled Paper.

Here’s are result. Perfect matches for color between the Polychromos and the AD watercolor pencils and a close match with the similar (but not exact number) Pitt brush pen. A success! I may now have to invest in a line of the Polychromos colored pencils since I won’t be able to mix and match them with my old Prismacolors. That would be oil and water! (or at least oil and wax – not a good match…)

Many thanks to DS blogger Deborah Burns for the timely heads’ up about this great workshop. A super afternoon event at Daniel Smith’s!

Puka Dog

While on Kauai we were recommended to a gourmet hot dog joint near where we were staying in Poipu. It’s called “Puka Dog” and is something of a local institution.
Normally, I’m not one for hot dogs but this place was special. If you can believe it, my tropical hot dog was a polish sausage (they have meatless too) served with spicy jalapeño garlic lemon sauce, mango relish, and Lillikoi (passion fruit) mustard on a bun. As my Dad would say, it was delish! In fact, we liked the place so much that we ate there twice during our five-day stay. :-)
Here’s my on-site sketch of Puka Dog and the marker drawing I did after I got back. I had to do this sketch in markers as the actual place was so bright and tropical.

Fast sketch of Puka Dog Hawaiian Hot Dogs

Marker drawing from pencil sketch

 A big thanks to Haley and Amy for being such great company during our visit! Also to Amy for her great snorkeling recommendations. Mahalo Amy! 

Mahalo Amy!

Color Dots

I am a lucky girl! I live close to two Daniel Smith stores. The big one in Seattle is farther away now that I live on the “East Side” of Lake Washington, but the Bellevue store is mere 15 minutes away. A VERY great temptation for me. *silly grin*

Daniel Smith regularly gives away little watercolor paint dots on cards for free in their stores (also in the University Bookstore in Seattle for some reason) usually when they are promoting new colors. I’ve discovered quite a few new colors this way including Sicklerite Genuine (a lovely, granulating cocoa- brown) and Mayan Blue Genuine (a warm green-blue). The last time I was in the store they had a big bonanza card of 66 color dots for about $3. I couldn’t resist. It included quite a few colors I’d never tried and I was dying to see what they looked like. About a third of them were PrimaTek colors (expensive!) but this gave me a chance to see what they looked like. Big surprise I like several of them.

DS 66 Try-It Color Dot Sheet

 

Today I made up samples of each of the colors (some of which I already had) and decided which I liked best. It was a fun exercise.

Lovely color samples

A few notes on the colors. The pale ones on the bottom right are all Interference, Iridescent, and Duo-tone colors. The colors on the top of the right hand sheet are the new DS "Cadmium Hue" colors. They are Daniel Smith's new non-toxic Cadmium colors. They are really nice, clean colors. I suspect they'd make really nice, clean mixtures.

We have some winners!

Here are the colors I liked best:

PrimaTeks: Bloodstone Genuine, Blue Apatite Genuine, Green Apatite Genuine, Lapis Lazuli Genuine, Zoisite Genuine

Other colors: Quinacridone Fuchsia, Cadmium Yellow Light Hue, Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Cadmium Yellow Deep Hue

Of course, I won’t be buying all of these colors at once. But I put Zoisite Genuine and Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue on the top of the list for the next convenient holiday. :-)