Media malfunction

After yesterday's struggle, I didn't pick up the gesso'd piece of paper for this drawing until it had dried for two days. The background colors went on nicely, and I thought, So far, so good. But just in case yesterday's issues repeated, today I drew the art in pencil and did all the watercolor first, before adding the pen outlines. I started to recognize yesterday's behavior when the watercolors beaded up on the gesso surface and, rather than covering uniformly, just moved around wherever I moved my paintbrush, but I did the best I could, in some cases waiting for it to dry and putting on two coats to get it semi-opaque.

I wanted to keep all the colors fairly light in this one, so I used a medium purple for the hair instead of brown, and kept some of the pastels in the background while watercoloring over others with a thin coat of Opera Pink. I put a coat of gesso on the eyes, the teacup, and kitty's muzzle, and took a lunch break while everything dried.

Later, I came back and went in with my Uniball pen, and was dismayed to discover that, just like yesterday, it was either refusing to go onto the surface at all, or it was bleeding. I managed to outline everything I wanted to, and again left it to dry, later patching up mistakes. But I never even had to break out the India ink to do shadows under the cat, under the chin, on the arm and hand; I just drew my small paintbrush alongside the Uniball line and picked up enough black bleed to put in the shadows.

Until I figure out the problem, I'm going to revert to inking, painting, and staining directly onto the watercolor paper, only using gesso as a base white for highlights on the pictures. Fighting your materials is antithetical to the act of creation!

One thing I couldn't decide on this one, so feel free to offer an opinion and/or an idea (words): Should the book have a title?

Gesso, pencil, watercolor, Uniball pen, gel pen, on Strathmore 140-lb. watercolor paper, approx. 7x10 inches.