Back to basics

Someone new to the Wonky Critters and Friends page today asked for pointers on how exactly to get started. People had various suggestions (besides "watch Deb's three lessons, naturally!"): Scribble on the page and see what shapes emerge; slap on some color and see what it inspires; do a blind contour drawing; do a regular contour drawing; and so on.

It made me realize that it's been a long time since I painted a "straight" portrait (i.e., no exaggerated features, no weird colors in the background, no extra textures), and it's also been a while since I did a contour portrait straight to ink. Ironically, while Deb Weiers's thing is blind contour, when I do her style of portrait I like to plan it first with pencil and then go back over it with pen after I apply colors and shading. So I decided I would do a continuous-line contour (not blind), and paint a portrait in watercolor on white paper. It seemed kind of foreign after almost six months of doing everything differently!

This portrait of a little older and softer Joyce Carol Oates is done with a continuous line, but I didn't want too much distortion, so I did pick up my pen in about four places to move it to a new starting place. So it has more of a straightforward portrait feel to it, and I painted it with only watercolors. After I finished, though, it felt like it was a disembodied head floating on an excessively bare ground of white, so I added a quote, and also a background in turquoise ink. The background is a bit splodgier than I would have liked, but still probably better than if I'd tried to do a smooth wash in watercolor, being way out of practice for that.

Her face came out a little larger/longer than it is in life, but I think it's pretty accurate as a likeness. Not as much fun as wonky stuff, but it's good to keep your eye and hand accustomed to looking for the real colors and proportions.

Uniball pen and watercolor (and yes, some white gel pen for her gray hair and the lights in her eyes—I have gotten used to this "cheat") on 140-lb. coldpress Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches, with a Daler Rowney ink wash in the background.

Fiddling

I had insomnia last night and woke up grumpy and out of sorts. Coffee helped a little, but basically it was one of those aimless days where you do a little of this and that and can't settle to something. It didn't help that I got hooked into watching the impeachment proceedings for a while and lost my "composure" every time a Republican got up to lie. Finally, I decided to do some painting. Sometimes that relieves the funk, but sometimes it just makes it worse, and today was one of the latter days.

I began by making another attempt at the first lesson of Let's Face It, since the majority of my art supplies arrived and I could now include charcoal, pastels, pens, and so on. But I was totally at a loss for an idea or a model, so when my friend Sassa's portrait popped up in my feed, I decided to use it and put my own spin on it. I was pretty happy with the early stages, but I didn't like what I did to the shirt and there was no undoing it; and then I put the big circle behind her head, which I shouldn't have done, because in Sassa's original portrait she has the moon behind her and I didn't want it to be a total copycat piece. At that point I decided I'd just keep adding little circles or "planets" until it seemed like the right number, and I think I exceeded that by several.

I took a break after that for a late lunch and some recreational reading; and when I finished, I had the urge to make some art that was more original, and possibly save the day for myself. I clicked through all the photos I have saved of people reading, and chose a cute one of a vaguely Eurasian girl with a neat bob haircut, sitting on some stairs holding up a book. I purposely prepped a cheerful background. I did my drawing and started to paint, then realized that her head was far too large for her shoulders, hands, and book, and made her look squashed onto the paper. But I didn't want it to be a totally wasted effort, so I followed through and finished it. It's not in my top 10, but...it's mine.

Mixed media on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper. 8x12 inches each.

I think I'm going to go read something facile and frivolous for the rest of the evening and hope tomorrow is better.

Lesson #2

I really didn't think I would enjoy this lesson when I watched it. I haven't drawn with charcoal since art school, which was about 18 years ago, and I wasn't ever a huge fan. You can get great effects, but it's also so easy to mess up, and speaking of messy.... But I decided when I signed up for the class that I would give each lesson at least one good-faith try.

I dislike when all the students use the same reference photo and you're staring at a variation on a theme for every single post. But I did like the vintage photo with the cool hairstyle chosen by the teacher. This second lesson, too, was supposed to be based on "story," but the teacher came right out and said at the beginning of the segment that she doesn't like to read (why would they pick her for this segment!), so she took her model from a photography coffee table book she likes. So I thought about "vintage" authors I like, and a few came to mind. First I searched for pix of Rumer Godden, but there weren't any in which I liked her hair. So then I tried Daphne du Maurier, and hit the jackpot.

The basic technique was to draw the entire picture in charcoal (not vine, but a charcoal pencil), then put transparent colored inks over the top, going for some runny effects, then salt it to get some texture, then go back in with a white conté crayon to pick up highlights that got lost with all the technique, and possibly also reinforce some darks with India ink. I skipped the salt, because I have never particularly cared for the effect and didn't feel like dealing with the mess, but I faithfully carried out the rest. So...here's Daphne! I like the feeling of submersion in water that the runny turquoise ink gives, because of the Cornish origins of her stories.

I note here that although I finally received a partial shipment from Dick Blick today that let me do this, the Fluid hotpress paper is on backorder, and using that would definitely have given this drawing a tighter, more precise look. (Coldpress is textured, while hotpress is smooth.) The texture messed with my ability to get a few of the exact details I wanted. But...I'm always complaining about not being looser!

In retrospect, I wish I hadn't gone back in "hard" with those stripes or with the pupils of her eyes, they're distracting from the softness of the rest of the picture. Art and learn!

Peel & Sketch charcoal pencil, turquoise and burnt umber Daler Rowney inks, India ink, white conté crayon, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 8x12 inches.

Amalgamation

Well, still no charcoal or pastels or pencils for the week's assignment, but I decided to do another, just for fun, and substitute some other techniques.

I did the same thing with the white gesso and stencils, to better effect this time, I think, because of the way the patterns invade the figure. I went around the image with a smudgy outline of India ink (instead of charcoal) before I painted the rest of it, just to give it some sort of particularity—a reverse glow? That wasn't so effective, because I don't have the skill at it yet, but practice makes perfect. As for the rest, I did the runny ink background as in the new assignment but retreated to some of the techniques I learned from Deb Weiers (notably the outline in pen) for the rest of it.

I'm actually fairly pleased with it, although I wish I had gone with a different lace pattern than the kind of lame flower thing I ended up choosing, so it would have looked a little more classy and a little less schoolgirlish.

The model is actually author Joyce Carol Oates, although I made her look a few decades younger in this. I wasn't really going for a portrait—but she has those deep eyelids that always give a face some distinction, plus I liked her hat, so I used her as a reference.

Stencils, white gesso, Daler Rowney inks, pencil, India ink, Uniball Vision pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. coldpress Fluid watercolor paper, 8x12.

 

Let's Face It 2021

I signed up with Kara Bullock Studios to take a year-long class called "Let's Face It 2021," featuring a new lesson each week with a different artist, hopefully resulting in at least 52 portraits for the year in which I learn new techniques.

This is my offering for Week One, and it's not quite what it was supposed to be, because I ordered all the supplies for this lesson from Dick Blick and apparently didn't allow enough time for them to get here. Today is the last day of the week, so I finally decided to just do the lesson with the materials I have on hand, which leaves out a bunch of interesting techniques.

The lesson was to think about a story that made an impression on you, and paint an abstract portrait that brought it to mind. Mine is hardly abstract; but I did include some of the elements, so it's not a total loss. This is Mary, the protagonist of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.

I used a stencil on this to get some of the garden details in the background, and this time I did it beforehand in white gesso, allowing it to reveal itself when I went over it with various transparent colors of ink. I think it's effective and will practice that a few more times to get it right. Less effective was the black "fence" across the bottom. I should have waited until last and made it a white picket fence instead—in black, it looks more like some weird railroad track or something.

The main things I was missing were charcoal and pastels. I did find a charcoal pencil, but it was a pretty hard lead, so it didn't smudge around the edges like it was supposed to. Maybe I can repeat this lesson next week when my materials finally arrive!

"Mary Contrary"—gesso, stencils, pencil, charcoal pencil, Daler Rowney inks, watercolor, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 (including border).

The Gardener

 I had a whole picture in my head of how this one was going to go, and I messed up almost every element.

I bought some stencils because I really like how some people have been using them in the backgrounds of their paintings. What I didn't properly take in was that they were painting with acrylics. So when I tried out my stencils with watercolor, instead of nice crisp lines I got bleed and smudges.

I should have stopped at that point and started over, but I figured oh, well, it's background, it will be fine. But after I did the rest of the drawing and painting and then went in with black line everywhere, the so-called background looked weird because it was equally as intense in color as the foreground, but didn't have the black line. So I ended up putting kind of a scribbly line around/over everything, in the hopes of pulling it together.

So, it's a hot mess. But I still like certain elements, so I'm going to share. In accordance with the messiness of the art, I used a "messy" quote about gardening, instead of something profound from Gertrude Jekyll or somebody. And it's true—gardening IS good therapy, and you DO get tomatoes. And zucchini, and peas...

I wonder if my "model" will recognize herself from this. The reference photo was gleaned from her Facebook page, and it was a difficult angle to capture. She suffers a little from Pinocchio nose...

Stencils, watercolors, Daler Rowney inks, pencil, Uniball Vision pen, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12.

Dapper Don

 Inspiration often arrives for me with a picture on the Internet, whether it's through social media or just a random perusal of images. Most often the subsequent work is a mash-up of two or three photos, or the translation into some concept that I want to illustrate. The production of a straight portrait has become less interesting to me than the transformation of ordinary into, well, at least more interesting, if not transformative.

Some of you may recognize this elegant gentleman as Ryan McDonald, husband (and hopefully good sport) of my friend Mika, while others may just think, Oh, it's a youthful Don Quixote with tinted sunglasses—that's an interesting anomaly. Either way, here he is, my latest conceptual portrait, "Dapper Don." Thanks to the model, particularly since I didn't ask permission first! 

Daler Rowney acrylic inks, pencil, white gesso, black Uniball Vision pen, Signo white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 8x10 with a one-inch border.