Experimentation

I went to the art store today, because I lost my black micron pen and wanted to buy a new one. I didn't, of course, escape with such a meager purchase! I defy anyone to buy one pen and walk out.

One of the things we did in Brenda Swenson's workshop was draw with Tombow pens, which are colored, water-soluble markers. She uses only one color, a kind of sepia-tone, which is nice; but I decided I wanted to play with using other colors as the basis of a painting. Since the colors from Tombows will bleed into your painting if you add watercolor, though, I decided to stick with some fairly neutral colors, so I bought a gray-green, and a dull purple one.

I went out in my back yard to draw the fence between my house and my neighbors'--they planted a vine on their side, and it has crept around and up over the fence, to give a nice leafy, softening effect. So I drew the block wall and leaves in the gray-green, and then the fence cap and the blossoms on a rosebush and a scented geranium in the purple, and then I decided to paint; but instead of introducing more color, I just used a wet brush over the Tombows.

As you can see, I had very messy results; I guess I went in with too much water, and everything bled together and got blurry. Also, the purple bled into the green, which I should have anticipated but didn't. I'm going to try this again, but using just the green, and then use paints to finish, and see how it works. I like the gray-green as a base color--an interesting change from the sepia.

After this experiment, one of the outdoor cats came along and decided to lie down in the middle of the picture and bathe himself, so I did a few quick studies of him licking various unmentionable parts in some of the extreme positions that only cats can encompass. I liked these better before I introduced water, but...experiment noted, I'll try something different next time.

Book cover

Here's the cover of a young adult novel I just read. I drew this all in pen, without resorting to sketching it out in pencil, which is a first for me. The lettering was a little irregular, but otherwise, I think I caught the cover design pretty well.

I liked this book--if you'd like to read my review of it, go to the young adult blog for Burbank Public Library!

A couple more...

Continuing with contour line...

It's weird how it looks right to you on paper and then when you scan it you see every little dip and bend and sway, every strange angle and line.... Doesn't this lamp look like she has her hands on her hips and is saying "Wha-a-a-t?"

On this one, because these goblets are clear glass, I went in and tried for the shadows and reflections, along with attempting to capture the way the circular indentations that go all the way around the bowl of the goblet look when you see them through the glass to the other side. This is a weighty glass, and I feel like I rendered the heaviness of it.


So far, all of these are done while sitting in my living room. I'm going to go outside and try something more ambitious soon...