Baxter continued…

Baxter part 2

It feels good to be using colored pencil again. As I work on this piece it occurs to me that I lay down colored pencil marks differently from many other colored pencil artists. Instead of treating the marks as stroked lines, I tend to add color like a painter would, in a layered/glazing fashion. It was only after returning to colored pencils again after my recent “watercolor break” that I realized this. Of course, I do stroke lines onto my pieces as well, especially when using non-waxy pencils. But mostly I treat the medium in a painterly fashion. I’m not sure when I learned to do this. Perhaps it was in school when I was smoothing all my colored pencil pieces with solvent. Since the marks were going to be smoothed out anyway, why add color by stroking it?

I also give some credit to my Dad who is a talented oil and acrylic painter. He was a student of Reuben Tam’s and his style reflects both Tam’s and another favorite painter of his, Richard Diebenkorn. These artists’ styles are much too abstract for my tastes, but I can appreciate them nonetheless. I’ve been looking at their work (and my Dad’s) for so long it isn’t hard to imagine that some of their color blocking techniques have seeped into my consciousness. Could be worse… ;-)

Baxter

Several months ago a dear friend and I made a cross-country trek to fetch my recently deceased mother’s car and other personal effects. We had an amazing journey in that old car, dripping as it was with rust and with barely working headlights.

While on the trip we met Baxter. He was recovering from some sort veterinary procedure and was in the office with his person, a night clerk at a hotel in Vermont. He was the cutest little fellow and I’m finally getting around to doing his portrait. I think that Jack Russell terriers have a lot of character and this little guy’s ears were so big I thought he’d take flight at any moment.

Baxter and his dad. Look at those ears!

And here’s the first stage of his portrait:

Baxter, stage 1. Prismacolor pencils on Canson warm gray paper.

More to come soon!

Things have been slow or rather diverted

My mind has been in a total whirl lately getting ready for our first real vacation in many years. Hawaii! Because of  all the needed preparations (the trip is in just two weeks!) my sketch book hasn't gotten its usual attention over the past week. Today I really felt the need to draw something. Anything! I chose calligraphy as my topic as it's just so relaxing for me. Below is my newest journal page. This is a modified Monoline font decorated with gel pens and watercolor pencils on a thin grid paper.

Letter practice today

I'm really liking this font. It seems to have many possibilities for variations and it's not too intimidating. It's not supposed to have any spaces between lines of text, which is interesting. It's also common with this font to run the words from line to line without any hyphenation. To me this makes for a much more "artsy" read.

Looking for Colors that Dance Well Together

Ah, choosing a new palette! This can be fun or exasperating, sometimes both at the same time! As I mentioned in a previous post, my husband and I are taking an Anniversary trip to Hawaii in about 2 weeks. I have never been there before and am very excited not only to see the natural beauty and wonders of the islands, but also paint them.

In preparing for the trip I began considering my current watercolor palettes. How would the palettes I use in the Pacific Northwest work for Hawaii? Although I really like my newest palette (which I call “Little Palette #3”) I thought the tones might be too cool for the vivid colors I imagine Hawaii will have. What to do? I looked at my other palettes and didn’t think they’d work either.

To me, the interactions between the paints are really important. Not just the color mixtures themselves but how the various paints interact when mixed on paper. How do the mixed neutrals look? Which color of two complements tends to overwhelm the other? Do the colors blend, shoot, or back run when really wet?

After trying several new palette ideas with no good results, I got an idea. What about bringing the Daniel Smith watercolor stick palette that I’d been trying out for my sketching bag? Hmm. Could work…

My watercolor stick palette

Last night I gave the colors a good mixture workout. And voila! Some beautiful things started happening. Here's an example of a complementary mixture (colors directly across from each other on the color wheel) from my tests. I love how many colors you can see in the mixtures and how they interact in interesting ways. As I like to use limited palettes in my paintings, I tried out several split complementary color swatches to see how the colors would look side by side. The palette seemed to work well on this front too.

Testing Complementary Color Mixtures

  

OK then! It all seemed to be working harmoniously and I'm happy. This, then, is the palette I will be taking on my trip:

Watercolor Stick Palette

Now I just have to make sure I can paint flowers and water adequately before I leave!! *lol*

P.S. I have since filled the empty pan with white gauche...just in case!

Ink washes

Matt and I are preparing to take our 20th Anniversary trip this Fall to Hawaii and I wanted to get some quick ink sketching techniques in the bag before we go. Now, I know what you’re thinking…beautiful Hawaii...that’s full watercolor territory…no? Well, of course it is, and I’m getting a watercolor palette ready for that too. But finding a way to do quick ink washes also seemed like a good idea, especially as I’m planning on making a handmade sketchbook of brown paper sometime soon. Before the trip ideally…but I'm not sure I'll make that deadline. ;-)

The sketches below were all done with an Itoya Doubleheader Calligraphy pen (thick and thin lines and it washes in water too!) and watercolor. I like the technique. It’s “quick and dirty.” Very good for gestural sketches. And I like the color of the paper. I've had this little sketchbook hanging around for years without much of a purpose. Because the paper is fairly thick, it can hold a wash pretty well. Even with it's small size (4" x 6.5") it's a great test size for these little sketches.

Grey horses painted in lively grays.

I love grey horses. I used to have one and I thought he was the most beautiful thing in the world. Of course, I was a teenager at the time. ;-) All the same, the fact that greys change color as they get older, frequently from black or charcoal gray to nearly or completely white, still seems a magical process to me.

Every horse person has a favorite color of grey (if they like grey horses at all...). Mine is dark charcoal with a white tail and mane, like Chaucer was when I first got him. Playing on this seemingly magical process, I have long desired to paint grey horses in a more lively fashion than they usually appear. This newest sketch from the Evergreen Classic photos gave me the chance to explore that concept.

A grey horse painted in lively grays

Although the colors aren't "true" in an illustrative sense, it's amazing how many of the colors I painted were actually in the horse.

On the other side of the journal page I had fun creating something of a guidebook entry about horse shows.

Horse Show Facts for the "Non-Horsey" Set.

I felt this was a good closing page for the Evergreen Classic series. In case you're curious to see the whole thing I have posted the entire two-page spread here on my Flickr.

A whole load of stuff added to my Flickr today

I've created a new online album of my illustration work on Flickr and have uploaded a whole bunch of new things to it today. You can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sara_light_waller/.

Here's a sneak peak:

Illustration of a Roman city

Silverpoint rendering of a Mueller Hippocampus (carousel animal)