Daily Sketch - Raining

Woke up this morning to a vague drizzle, and attempted to capture this:

Midway through the painting, it started raining harder, making further progress impossible, but also leaving an interesting pattern of splotches all over the sketchbook.

I went back in with the watercolor pencils to try to add some darker values that had gotten wiped out by the rain.

I can't decide if it looks better this way, or if there might be something fundamentally different that I need to work on with my process.  With oil paints, you can block in large areas of value, but if you try to do that in watercolor you obliterate your ability to add highlights.  I know some painters use gouache and go back in to add them on top of dark areas, but I think that might be a fundamental impossibility with the water-brush approach.  Maybe I should have just brought some regular brushes?

Daily Sketch - Thinking About Snow

Pencil, Pentel Brush Pen, watercolor pencils and water-brush.

Concept art is a thing that people do, I guess.  I usually feel too lazy to put a bunch of time into a single pin-up style image.  I wonder why that is?

Daily Sketch - Chattanooga Coffee Shop (Again)

This gal stood in the shadow of the  coffee shop for just a moment, and was faintly illuminated by the overcast sky.  I don't know how much it really looks like her, but I think it captures the pose, which is more important when you're trying to sketch moving people.

I'm a little bit jealous of people who live where there are trains and subways - every subject is trapped there for at least a few minutes.

I drew the whole thing in pencil, inked it with the Pentel Brush Pen, and then filled in the grey with a black watercolor pencil.  When you go over it with the waterbrush, it is awesomely versatile.

Daily Sketch - Cumberland Trail Sandstone

The past few nights we've been camping near Chicamauga Creek outside Chattanooga.  The sandstone here is unreal - laced with these iron bands, and colored grey orange and pink.

As I look back on this one, I see that it all seems to be in a very narrow value scale.  I suspect part of the problem might be that the waterbrushes inevitably dilute whatever color mixes I've created, so they're excellent for washes on the lighter side, but I need to figure out how to augment it with darker values.  I picked up more cartridges for my brush pen, so maybe some India ink will help.

Also, it turns out water is super challenging to observe, let alone paint.

Required Viewing - Wanderers

How have we lost this vision - what could our future hold, beyond this planet?  For anyone interested in Speculative Fiction.


Wanderers - a short film by Erik Wernquist from Erik Wernquist on Vimeo.

Daily Sketch - Stone Cup, Chattanooga

Didn't have much time on this one - I barely finished the pencil sketch before my subject got up and walked away.  Luckily a couple of gals sat down maybe 15 minutes later, so I stole their shadow patterns and colors to fill in the watercolors.  Later that afternoon I picked up some supplies from Art Creations and spent about 20 minutes chatting with a kind fellow who turned out to be the owner.  I thanked him for still being in business - Amazon and the big box stores have pushed out so many small art stores these days that it's a pleasure every time I run across one.  When I first began painting in college, I spent hours at our local store, and the manager there gave me so much advice - I learned most of my painting materials knowledge from him, over the years, and that's something Amazon can't give you.

Required Viewing - Playground

Maybe you've heard about this, it's been posted on all the cool art blogs lately, but if you haven't, watch this incredible animation.  Here's what you can do with a story.



PLAYGROUND：あきちあそび from Ryosuke Oshiro on Vimeo.