Quick Draw

There's something about an open book...if you aren't reading it, you can be drawing it. I made myself do the chapter heading lettering just as I was seeing it, which was upside down. Fun! And not too much detail. In fact, I kind of regretted going as far as I did trying to put in the text block on the page. Hard to get it random enough, and at the same time to look like regular rows of type.

Drawing and Painting

I'm continuing on with the drawing in pen each day. Last night I decided to draw this orchid plant (a gift from my friend Anarda) with my micron pen, and then today I went back and painted it. The colors are so intense/extreme on orchids that it's almost hard to capture them and keep them real-looking. In fact, I think my painting looks a bit pallid next to the real thing! This was fun to draw and to paint.

I'm not so sure about the drawing in pen / painting with watercolor thing, though. When you do your drawing in pencil, you can really define your lines, colors, and shadows with the paint alone; I found on this painting that, for instance, the center of the leaves dipped in and demanded a little different color there, but the space for that was already mostly taken up by the black line, so I had to simplify or omit some of the subtleties. Also, the black outline gives me more the feeling of an illustration or even a cartoon than it does a painting. Or maybe it's just a style thing that I will learn as I go along. Anyway--ORCHID.