Illustration Emergency Vehicle Emergency

Above is my version of our only colored pencil study, we did emergency vehicles, mine is in its' own emergency, which sadly happens all too often in some cities. I don't have a lot to say about this except I actually had to draw in my perspective lines to get the ambulance lines correct. Goes to show that the kids in class that though learning perspective was useless information were wrong (at least for me).  I enjoy using colored pencil so I am sorry that we only did the one drawing but such is the way things go. Usually we do 3 studies in each medium, but we are getting close to the end of term and still have two mediums to cover. I suppose that colored pencil is probably the best one to miss, it is the medium that most people have already used to some degree, and there isn't a lot to mastering the use.  Well... maybe I shouldn't say that, but pencils just seem less intimidating then other media, so I think the other students will be more like to explore colored pencils on their own. I know I did. Our last two mediums are Air brush which we have started, and then working on the computer with Adobe Illustrator. 

My first air brush study is to the left. We were doing a cube, a pyramid, and a sphere. I think I rushed the sphere a bit so it isn't shaded quite the way it should be, and I had masking paper over one corner of the cube when I was painting it so...  I will say now that I have a lot of respect for air brush artists, you need to develop a lot of control to master the use of the brush and there are a lot of details to take care of. Some artists don't use masks on their work but they are usually working larger then what we are. All of the above was masked, by a transparent film called frisket. I have used that term before, but the frisket I was using with my watercolor wash was a liquid latex that I applied with a brush, this frisket is more like saran wrap, or transparent contact paper. It has a temporary glue applied to one side and is on a coated release paper. You cut it to the size of your board (we use Illustration board) then take the backing off and lay it over the board that has your transferred drawing already on it. Then you take an exacto knife and cut the frisket using your drawing as guidelines. When you are ready to paint an area you lift the frisket covering that area off of the work and go paint. When you finish painting you put the piece of frisket back down in its original place and lift off another piece. It probably takes longer to do then it does for me to write about. So the process of air brush painting something is not quick, not to mention set up times and clean up times. The brushes have to be kept clean or they will clog, the paint is usually acrylic so drys quickly and sets hard. Still for even coverage of large areas an air brush is the fastest way to go, and you don't have to worry about brush streaks. Currently I am working on my 2nd airbrush study, a nude reclining. I have painted the background but still have to do her body. So I should have a picture for you next week of that finished work. Then we will be doing a study of a hot air balloon, that should be fun.

That is it for this week. Everyone in America have a Happy Thanksgiving on Thursday. Try to not eat too much, though I know that is half the fun of Thanksgiving. As always comments are welcome.