Watercolor and Pen and Ink Experiments

The above is an outgrowth of some of the exercises I have been doing from the Bert Dodson book Keys to Drawing with Imagination. The exercises I did are below. The first was the butterflies in silhouette, then since it is spring I got the idea of doing the same with a tulip shape. I was looking for some contact between shapes and I thought the tulip shape might be easier to work.

Once I finished the silhouette mode of the tulips I went on to the 2nd part of the exercise, which was to draw the images in contact and then darken the background or do a reverse silhouette. Since I had been playing with some new watercolor (to me) paints I though why not put the tulips on some painted water color paper. Above is the finished drawing. The tulips with just a darkened background didn't have a focal point, so I picked one of the tulips and added some details. Sort of OK, but I am glad this was an exercise and something I was more invested in.  Paper here and in the 2 other works on this page is cold press 6 x 6 inch Fluid Watercolor Paper that I purchased in block form from Dick Blicks last summer.

Original exercises for silhouette mode with pen and ink. I actually think I like the butterflies better, but I couldn't get the contact areas to work smoothly so used the tulips for the reverse exercise.

I purchased some additional paints, and wanting to see how they would work with one of my other paints did another wash study. The colors are Hansa Yellow Medium and Quinacridone Rose along with turquoise. The yellow and the rose are my new colors. This is another wet in wet wash which I started with the Hansa yellow in the center, then added the rose and finally the turquoise.  When it dried I thought it would be fun to add some ink work, and decided to keep to the circular theme. I drew 3 overlapping circles (using a roll of tape as a template) and added ink using my technical pens. No particular look in mind up front, I just wanted  to use various fills/textures. When I finished the outer rings I added the inner circle. Circles were drawn with pencil and then inked.

Not wonderful but kind of fun. and I do like the colors, might have been better if I had overlapped the colors a bit more, but I didn't want to muddy them which can be a concern with watercolor.

 OK at this point I was on a roll so I painted a third sheet, using the yellow and the pink but adding some purple instead of the turquoise. There is also a bit more color overlap in the wash with this one.

For a reference I selected one of the WetCanvas pen and ink forums challenge images, and using acrylic black ink and a dip pen drew the flowers in over the wash.  I did pencil sketch the outlines of the flowers first, mainly for placement but details were all done with the pen. This one I rather like, and think I need to play around with this technique a bit more to see where it can take me. Maybe I will use one of my own flower photographs next time. Maybe by the time I finish a series of these I will be more experienced with wet in wet watercolor washes.

Wednesday I took the bus into Boston for a visit to the MFA (wanted to finish viewing the Megacities Asia sculptures) and then a walk through a different area of Boston for photographs. I ended up walking the Rose Kennedy Greenway from the North End to South Station, there are some additional photographs on my Facebook page if you are interested. Anyway I did my usual on the bus ride into Boston and made this sketch of a fellow passenger. I did do other sketches but I liked this one the best. Done in my small sketchbook with a Copic Fineliner pen the .1 tip.

The above photograph is from my walk yesterday. I finally found some spring daffodils that hadn't been badly damaged by our snow and cold weather of over a week ago. I just thought these were pretty and the photo came out well. Oddly enough daffodils can be a bit hard to photograph.

Also from my Boston trip yesterday, this is the Christian Science Mother church. I am photographing this through the stand of trees that they have planted on one side of Christian Science Plaza, I like the tunnel to the left along with the still bare branches and blue sky. The reflecting pool is still empty so the plaza wasn't the best location for photos yesterday, not to mention the cement mixers that were doing something toward the front of the church.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

September Update

I actually finished the above colored pencil and ink drawing last month (August) but somehow never got motivated to update the blog with the image. Perhaps it is just as well as the leaves are more like fall in colors than August. I was thinking about redoing this but this time mixing up the size of the leaves as all the leaves in this drawing are the same size. I think with different sized leaves I could reduce the amount of background blue that is showing here. Still it was kind of a fun exercise even if the results aren't wonderful.

I have been spending some time on the computer playing with Adobe Illustrator, the images above are the results. Have to decide which one I like best to have it printed up for this years Christmas gift tag. The Poinsettia is based on a photograph I downloaded off the web. Needless to say I took some liberties with the image to achieve my final results. Looking at these three images I think I need to do some more playing. While I like the third one best there are still some things that I would like to tweak.  The fun part of doing the work on the computer is that making changes is relatively easy. Which one do you prefer?

The above short pose figure drawings are from back in July. The model that evening is very thin, which actually makes her harder to draw if that makes any kind of sense. Top grouping are some of my 2 minute poses, while the bottom groups were 5 to 10 minute poses.

August wasn't a good month for me getting out to my short pose sessions, the Artist who holds the sessions was on vacation one week and I missed another week just because. Not totally a bad thing since I haven't been doing my blog updates as I should have been doing. Ah well now that the weather is cooling off hopefully I will get back on track with my figure drawings and my blog updates.

Also haven't been spending a lot of time out and about photographing nature. Still I have a couple of butterfly photographs to share this week. Above is a Summer Azure, don't know the specific species as it is just too difficult to type this without capturing the butterfly but figure that is close enough for this blog.

Above is another Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. I have seen quite a few of these guys this summer, which considering this hasn't been a good year for butterflies as a whole I am surprised by. I don't think I have seen one monarch butterfly this year, and after so many last year it is a surprise. Still Spring was very wet and cold so I don't think as many Monarchs made it up this far north this year. Also communities have been spraying for mosquitoes which isn't good for bee or butterfly populations.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Everyday Objects and Butterflies

The camera and I have been housebound since last Friday. Well I could have gone out Saturday, but I was exhausted from the previous two days so spent it recovering instead. Being inside I though I would do some more sketching for the Sketchbook Challenge August Theme.

The drawing above is of a planter I have. A friend gave this to me years ago and I have always loved the face. I don't actually put a plant in the planter, I keep the plant (an ivy) in a pot that slips into the hole but otherwise it does serve its purpose. I have to keep it on a plate as it is made of a porous material that leaks water on my table top if I don't.

I have also spent some time working on the Ferns, below is an updated scan of progress.

Mostly I have been focusing on the background areas. Still lots of works to do on this before it will be finished, but so far I am pleased with my progress. I also continue to like the soft gray color of the paper in contrast to the black stipple work.

Below is last nights figure drawing:

Not a lot of artists turned out for this session, just the usual standbys. We had a "rare" summer nor'easter yesterday, chilly, with periods of downpours and a heavy drizzle the rest of the time. The ground was dry enough that they didn't issue any flood warnings other than for roadways, so the rain was needed.

Last nights pose looks deceptively simple, but was not quite so easy to draw. The model is a lovely slender young woman with blond hair. I know I didn't do a good job on her hair, and am also dubious about the hands and feet. Still I enjoyed the evening out despite the rain.

Because I haven't been out with the camera since my last post I thought I would share a couple of my recent butterfly photographs with you.

The above is a Purple Red Spotted Butterfly. Well I think that is what it is, even though mine only has a couple of red spots and no purple (that I could see). I made this photograph last Thursday in the Great Blue Hills Reservation over by Houghton's Pond. I was actually on a path through some trees when I saw this one flitting along, it obligingly settled in the only patch of sun light for me to make the photograph.

The above photo was made last Friday at Long Pasture Sanctuary on Cape Cod. I have been totally unsuccessful identifying the species. It is one of the pair I showed you in my last posting, just a different photograph. Ah well, I keep hoping I will figure it out one of these days. More butterfly photos are posted in the Insect Album on my Flickr Account.

That is it for today, per usual comments are always welcome.

Drawings and Photographs

The Sketchbook Challenge theme for August is Everyday Objects. Since I didn't manage to do any drawings last month based on their theme (Elements) I decided I had better do something this month so selecting an object that is part of my everyday drawing life I drew. Not sure how much time I spent on this, not all that much, maybe an hour or so. For those who don't recognize it, it is a 3mm mechanical pencil lead sharpener. When I posted this to the flickr Sketchbook Challenge group someone commented that they thought it was a sippy cup at first glance. I suppose it does look a bit like a sippy cup, esp as from the drawing you can't tell how large it is. In real live it is much too small to hold something to drink.

The photo below is of a new stipple drawing in progress:

This spring I made a photograph of a clump of ferns popping up out of the ground and starting to unfurl their fronds. They were still pretty much curled when I made the photo, as you can see in the lightly penciled drawing above. Anyway I really liked this photo and decided that it would be a good subject for a pen and ink drawing. The paper is really gray, one of the tinted Stonehenge papers to be exact. Stonehenge is a fairly sturdy paper popular with Color Pencil artists. I purchased several sheets a couple of weeks ago and am still experimenting with it to discover what I like and don't like about it.

You will note that I am not that far along with the stippling, the reason is that I have been out and about making photographs. The butterflies are finally semi cooperative and I have posted several of my better ones to my Flickr account (link to my account is on the right). The past couple of days have been beautiful weather wise and I really had to take advantage of it.

Yesterday I drove down to Cape Cod and finally spent some time in Sandwich. Photo below is the old Grist Mill near Sandwich center.

I also finally managed a visit to the Thornton Burgess Museum and garden which is located on the Mill Pond, the photo of the Dill blossoms below was made in their garden. The museum is housed in a very old home with examples of his illustrations for his many books and stories hung on the walls. The wooden floor in the house is amazing as the boards used were about a foot wide, not something you would ever find in a more modern house. The museum is well worth the time to visit.

Finishing my look around Sandwich I drove further down the Cape to again visit Long Pasture, the MA Audubon sanctuary. I strolled the paths through the fields checking out the small wild flower garden areas to see what I could find to photograph. The photograph below of two butterflies on the same plant was my reward.

I have no clue what these guys are, I spent a fair amount of time last night researching various images, but still haven't managed to ID them. I also saw a Tiger Swallowtail, several monarchs, a couple of yellow butterflies, and a small brown butterfly, but wasn't able to make any good photos, frustrating. Photographing butterflies takes patience and luck as they often don't want to cooperate. Still I really enjoyed my day out and about even if it did leave me exhausted.

That is it for today. The weather is supposed to change this weekend with rain moving in sometime tomorrow.  Good for the lakes and ponds which are a bit low, still for August everything is still fairly green, so there is no drought here in MA. Per usual comments are welcome, and if anyone can ID my butterflies please let me know what they are.

What can you do with a doodle?

Fold in Space

Make a colored pencil drawing such as the one above.

I would have reversed the order of these first two drawings except that the colored pencil one is prettier so I wanted it to show up first. A problem with blogs is that the first image is the one that will be used as a reference image for a post. Because of that I prefer to post the best/most colorful images first. It does take away the ability to unveil a drawing but there it is.

Anyway the above drawing started out as a pencil doodle. The doodle turned into the drawing below. I liked the shapes so decided to transfer the basic drawing to better paper and add color. The paper is 8 x 8 inch Stonehenge, a paper that many color pencil artists seem to love. I have to use a bit more of it I think before I decide if I like it or not. It does require that the color pencils be layered in light layers until you finally reach the coverage you want, but otherwise it does take pencil well. I have been playing with it using some of my ink pens and will let you know how I like it for ink some other day. Pencils used were my Derwent's, Artists, Studio and some of the Signatures.

Below is last nights figure drawing:

Not sure about this one. It did turn out a bit better then I thought it would at the first break but I think the legs aren't quite as well drawn as they could have been. Her body doesn't look like it is actually sitting on the bench. Maybe if I had taken the darks a bit darker. Oh well there is always next week when I can try again.

Last week here in MA we had absolutely beautiful summer weather, temps into the low 80's most days with sunny sky's and no rain. The rain arrived this weekend, which on the whole is a good thing as after a week without we need it. I visited another MA State Park last week. This one is in the next town over to me, Easton, MA. I didn't even know this park existed until a few weeks ago. It is called Borderland and was the home of an artist and her family. After the artist's death the Estate was purchased by the State and made into a park.

Below are some photos:

Upper left are some riders enjoying a canter on the lawn in front of the main Estate house.  Middle left is a view of one of the 3 ponds on the Estate. Bottom left is a photo of the old farm house (now empty) that is also on the grounds. They keep the old pastures mowed so they won't return to forest. The top right photo is of some wildflowers blooming along the fence bordering one of the pastures. I needed another photo for my contact sheet so added the lower right of a Goldfinch eating thistle seeds, made in Field Park, Brockton. Goldfinch do love thistle seeds so this time of year is a real feast for them when the thistles are blooming and going to seed.

I was over in Marshfield yesterday at the MA Audubon sanctuaries and manged to photograph these 3 butterflies.

The top two photographs are of skippers, though I don't know their exact names. The upper left really shows how the wings are formed. The bottom photo is of a Monarch, and is the best photograph I have made this year of a Monarch. The background is not good (the roadway at North River) and the angle even worse, but it is in focus.