In contrast to the first pen and ink of this series, I loosened up on this one, sketching it very quickly. I used water soluble ink from standard ink pens and washed certain areas with water. I like the way the water spreads the ink around. Please visit my Etsy shop for my artwork for […]
This iteration looks a lot like the (2/8) version. The difference is in the way I painted it. Previously, I penciled in the scene, then inked it, then painted it. In the sketch below I did a brief pencil sketch, then I painted the scene, then I inked it. I painted the trees before I […]
My paintings so far this year have a limited range of colors. This happened because I used small bowls of paint to mix my color and I have more than enough for a single work. I don’t like to throw away paint, so I use the left overs on the next sketch. I remembered that I […]
I used lamp black and charcoal gray for the dark undersides of the clouds in this sketch. To soften the edges of the dark brush strokes (applied to dry paper), I diluted the pigment on the brush and drew it parallel to the initial stroke, as one would execute a graded wash. Toward the bottom […]
I have altered my approach slightly to my free form designs. I pencil in the design first, as I usually do. Then I begin to paint in the areas subtended by the lines. If those areas, taken together, suggest a theme, I paint areas to further that idea and ignore the penciled-in lines. I noticed […]
With today’s composition, I’ve reached the limit of my frisket-and-shake technique, at least for regular patterns (see Netted). The graph-like overlay on the painted area resulted from shaking the liquid masking (frisket) that I applied in closely-spaced parallel lines. The design includes some very dark areas. A bit of overspill from my ink bottle, poured […]
Today’s jumping off point was mixing colors with white and black. In the frame-design world, the mat corners we use when showing customers their artwork matted and framed, are classified by tint or tone. Tints result from mixing the pigment with white; tones from mixing with black. I began with purple and mixed it with […]
I distressed an 11″x14″ piece of 90 pound watercolor today. It was significantly easier than wrestling with 300 pound paper (see 300 Pound Abstract and Another 300 Pounder), even though it was much smaller (8″x8″). I did some painting (Prussian blue and quinacridone gold) on the paper before immersing it in a pot of water. Then […]
I am reading about artists from the 1940s and 1950s, whose number includes Jackson Pollock, the quintessential ‘action painter’. His paintings were so large that he was within the confines of the canvas, placed on the floor, as he dripped and splashed paint. Some who watched him paint described the process as a ‘dance’. The painting below […]
I love to peruse the magazine section when I go to a bookstore. I gravitate toward the watercolor magazines and buy one now and then. However, I find that I rarely read them once I get home. Just as “writer’s block” is a phenomenon that inhibits writing, I’m sure that there is an equivalent circumstance that […]
