Horse Life 11

Horse Life 11 is up on my website today horse shoppers!
Click here to see it!

Horse Life #5

This is the first new comic to be added to my website! :-) I'm putting it up here as well, but if you have trouble reading it, just click on it to see a bigger version on the Flying Pony Studios website. :-)

Percy2 completed

 "Percy2" 12"x16" Neocolor II and Inktense pencils
on canvas board prepared with Daniel Smith watercolor ground.

Percy2 update

While it is true that I seem to be moving steadily in many different directions lately, I haven't yet given up on this painting. But there's been so much going on! I tell you it feels like a whirlwind surrounding me each and every day! There's our new house to consider - it's about to close, my coloring book to promote, several holiday cards to complete, and what(!) I also seem to be making Kindle book covers! Not to mention working on several logos and editing old short story collections! Phew! But I am still working on "Percy2," albeit slowly.

It may take me a while to finish this one but it will get done. Maybe it'll even be the first piece I finish in our new house. Now wouldn't that be something?

Percy comes into further view

I have decided that this is a very fun piece! I've been working on it a bit further and am really enjoying the larger size (12"x16"). The DS watercolor ground-treated background is lending itself more to the brush than the q-tip thus far, but I expect to be using the q-tips more when I start adding Neocolor crayons pretty soon.

I've started adding the background
with dry Inktense pencils.

I've wet the top part of the background
and added dry Inktense to the bottom section.

At this point all the Inktense pencil has been wet
in the background and I've done some more
detailing on the horse's eye and the rest of
his face, also with Inktense.

Drawing With Pen & Ink - Part 3

 

The Unique Qualities of Pen Drawings

Pen and ink has some distinctive features. The first is the pen itself. Unlike a pencil or crayon, the pen gives off no color or tone by itself. You have to add ink. The pen point is pretty fine, so, unless you have a brush to deliver it, ink is laid down only a little at a time. Covering large areas with ink produced from a single fine delivery point becomes impractical. For this reason, pen & ink pieces are generally smaller than other artwork mediums like watercolor.

Wildly varying values that exactly mimic nature tend to be difficult to create in pen & ink. For this reason a lot of mental editing is required by the artist. Much information may need to be left out or simply implied in order to create a pleasing piece that makes sense to the viewer’s eyes.

Tonal values are frequently under-used or even disregarded in pen drawings. The lack of values are replaced by the use of outline. No other art technique uses the outline the way pen drawings do. The use of the outline, along with the particular method of tone building using lines and dots to build up “color” are two of the distinctive characteristics of pen drawings.

Lovely Lines

The suggestive nature of good line work leaves much to our imaginations. The crispness and directness of pen drawings make them full of light and life. The very expressiveness of the lines themselves can become the focal point of the piece.

It is the graceful suggestion of form and shape through line work that makes pen drawings so effective. They are at once restful and graceful to the eye. As the beginning pen and ink artist learns quickly, it takes practice to see and understand what to leave out and what values to reverse in order to suggest a shape in a pen drawing. These are necessary steps in creating an effective image. Like any skill, it takes practice. But like most skills, it is well worth practicing. :-)

"Canterbury Tails Pencil Knight," copyright Sara Light-Waller 2011

Horse Art: “Two Roans”

"Two Roans" Polychromos pencils on Rivers paper

I finally finished “Two Roans” today. What a long delay, eh? The last post about it was here. I put this piece out of sight for a while as I wanted to look at it with fresh eyes. I was trying something experimental with the black and white portion and wanted to see if I really liked it. I think I do. I thought about adding an entirely black and white background behind the horses. But as I hadn't planned for it ahead of time I was too nervous to try it with this piece. Next time I’ll plan for it we'll see how it looks.

What do you think of the color bleeding off the horses?

Getting more colorful

"Two Roans"

Here's the newest update on the heavy horses. I like the progress of the piece but I have to admit to some frustration over the soft finish of the Rivers paper. It's pretty paper but a bit too delicate for my tastes. I miss the harder finish of my usual Stonehenge or Canson paper. I'm finding the colors aren't sitting very firmly on this paper either, smudging easily. I'm also finding myself worrying about the paper surface being compromised when I lift off color. Sigh. The cost of experimentation! At least you learn what not to do in the future!

Adding Color to the Roans

The big horses are beginning to have real horse colors! Yeah! Progress, progress. :-)

Horses of a different color

I have to admit that this is a funny posting, It looks like I'm doing a St. Patty's day piece. Green horses...? What? I do have a method to my madness however. I have been working on creating grayed complements in my colored pencil pieces - in other words - creating more colorful neutrals by mixing complementary colors instead of just using straight (and therefore more flat) grays. This can make your underpainting look like you're painting Martian animals, but the results are really worth it! This is the same technique I used in my latest commission and in the peacock earrings and it seems to be working out quite well.

Here are parts 2 and 2.5 of "Two Roans." The first is shown with dry watercolor pencils and the second with the colors wetted.

Part 2 - Dry watercolor pencil

Part 2.5 - Wetted watercolor pencil

Next I'll apply Polychromos pencils and start neutralizing those greens and purples.

Starting a new piece today.

"Two Roans"- line drawing

I am starting a new colored pencil piece today whose working title is, “Two Roans.” I have long intended to do a painting of these two draft horses. I took the photo several years ago somewhere in Arizona. Tombstone perhaps? I really love draft horses, though I have done precious little draft horse art. Perhaps that will change with this piece. I have always loved these big gentle giants with feet the size of dinner plates. ;-)

I am going use the same technique in this piece as I used in the peacock feather earrings. That is to say, an underpainting of Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils (in a limited palette of Dark Indigo, Delft Blue, Indanthrene Blue, Pine Green, and Manganese Violet. Then over the top I'll lay down Polychromos colored pencils. I'm using a new paper for this one, with a very soft, but not velour, finish. I think it's a Rives paper, but I'm embarrassed to tell to you that if I did write down the paper's name when I bought it, I've lost the note. Fortunately, I know exactly where to find more at Daniel Smith's! ;-)