Illustrations

I took a break from portraits this week—first time in a long time—to do a couple of illustrations for a project I have been working on. I'm not going to say what it is yet, because it's a surprise for someone, but I can show the illustrations without anyone being the wiser, so here they are.

The first is this bottle of Jack Daniels with an accompanying shot glass.

I drew this with a Pitt fine-liner pen in sepia, except for the label writing in black, which was put in with my Uniball. Then I watercolored.

I was pleased that I still have the eye to draw something without doing it in pencil first, even though the bottle is the tiniest bit tipsy and also a little narrower than the real thing.

I love doing "product" illustration like this and attempting to make the labeling and text look accurate, even if a bit simplified from what is actually there. I also enjoy trying to mimic the effects of glass, liquid, and reflection.

The second is a drawing of Patrick's Roadhouse, a longstanding tradition for people who live along Pacific Coast Highway near Will Rogers State Beach. This only captures part of its sprawl—there's another, smaller building attached that I didn't even try to fit in—but it gives a good idea of the quirkiness of its character, from its bright shamrock-green paint to the cluster of effigies atop its roof.

The drawing isn't wholly accurate, but I think it's recognizably Patrick's.

On this one, I started with a pencil underlay, because I'm not good at proportional stuff without thinking it through. Often, the angles that are supposed to go upward look to me like they are going downward, and it takes a close and sustained study (and sometimes some actual measuring) for me to see the directionality properly. Don't know why that's so, but it is. Anyway, after the pencil, I inked it with my Uniball and painted it in watercolor.

Both were on my Bee Mixed Media sketchbook paper, which is great for these funky kinds of drawings—it's smooth and fine, and holds up well to watercolor at a weight of 93 lbs.

And now, back to portrait-making...

Week 20

This week's assignment was with Christa Forrest. The objective of the lesson was to capture an unusual angle on a face, which is more difficult, as Christa points out, if you are accustomed to using the traditional method of mapping out a face, like this one, right.

Since I learned to draw portraits using the contour method, I don't find this exercise quite as challenging as someone who relies on proportional tools such as this. I still have to spend some time looking, angling, and sometimes erasing to get it right, but I feel like I have an advantage because I was not taught that way. That's not to say that I don't make mistakes, just that they may be different ones!

This portrait was supposed to be painted "straight" (i.e., natural colors) with a blue-sky-and-clouds background, but since I wasn't painting in acrylics, I decided it would be more fun to do a color study. So I painted the model in four shades of purple watercolor (with a little white gesso for highlights, because I can't find my Titanium white!), and used a bit of Payne's Grey and some Sunflower Yellow for tiny highlights here and there. For her hair, I did an undercoat of shades of brown, but decided it would come together better if I mixed my darkest purple with my Payne's Grey, so I went over all of it with that combo once the first layer dried.

I don't know if the white highlight curls in the hair are too many or too few. I just did a few and stopped when I thought I should. They're not quite as adept as Christa's.

Christa covered up all those beautiful collarbones with tissue collage to give her a blue shirt, but I wanted to try painting them, since getting the shading right is challenging. But I needed to "end" the painting at the bottom somehow, so I took purple's opposite (green) and used some gouache and ink to stencil a leafy frame for her shoulders. The leaves and the highlights in marigold inspired the background, which may be too bright for the subject, but oh well.

I did paint "straight" in one sense: I didn't do any outlining with my Uniball. So all the lines and shadows and highlights were created with paint only. I haven't done that for a while—it felt good!

Here are the reference photo and Christa's painting:

 

And here is my version.

"Breeze"—pencil, gesso, stencil, ink, Paul Jackson watercolors, gel pen,

on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, about 9x11 inches.

Week 18, redux

Today I decided to try that assignment again by Lara Provost on LFI2021, mostly because I loved the colors she used for her background and wanted to do a painting with those instead of the brighter, more earthy ones I used on my reading girl. Again, however, I am working in watercolors instead of acrylics, and it's hard to get those defined random strokes of color like she did, unless you do an undercoat, let it dry, and then go over the top with other layers, and I wanted a more spontaneous result. So I threw in some of the same colors, and then primed them with water to run in various directions and give me a more watery and less defined look while still including the germane tints.

My model is my Facebook friend and portrait-painter extraordinaire Sassa Wilkes, who recently cut her hair and obligingly provided a selfie to steal. With her light eyes and russet hair, I thought she'd be the perfect subject to go over this backdrop.

She has such delicate redhead skin tones that I didn't want to do my usual double outline of black pen, I wanted to leave it soft to go both with her and with the watery, delicate background. So I used a brown Pitt Artist Pen sparingly, just to define edges and work on her eyelids and lashes, and the only place where I used black was for her pupils.

I don't use white watercolor, so for the highlights I laid down some white Daler Rowney ink in the spots I needed it, and let that dry before I did the rest of the picture. It worked pretty well!

"Sassa, Shorn"—Daler Rowney inks (background), pencil, Paul Jackson watercolors (foreground), Pitt pen, Uniball pens in black and silver, white Signo gel pen, on Fluid coldpress 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Mad

Well, I couldn't do one and not do the other!

Next JENeration Art posted a Wednesday challenge to do a piece of art using red and pink watercolor, a fine-liner, and a water brush, and when I think of red right now my mind only goes one place. I know my girl will be a shock to the other "players" with their sweet little things with pointy ears and wings, covered in flowers and butterflies, but I'm posting her!

Her word, of course, is a double entendre. I didn't quite capture the manic quality of her smile, and I can't get her to look right at the viewer no matter where I put the damn highlights, but...it's not bad. I had fun with the background.

"June"—pencil, Daler Rowney inks, Paul Jackson watercolors, Uniball, Signo gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, approx. 9x12 inches.

Week 19

This week's LFI2021 was a "mini" lesson, which is to say quick and minimal input from the teacher, not a big project. It turned out to be just a pencil drawing with some shading. Some people did a beautiful job, but I am not a pencil person and dislike the tedium of shading and cross-hatching, so I thought I'd pass.

Then I saw the photo of the instructor, Danielle Mack, and she was so adorable and personable-looking that I couldn't resist painting her.  Since she has dreads, I wonkifyed her a little per Deb Weiers style, including adding a word (she seemed really "present" and alive). I hope she doesn't mind being turquoise.

"Danielle"—pencil, Daler Rowney inks, Unibal pen, Signo gel pen, collage, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, approx. 7x8.25 inches.

Week 18

I completely forgot last week to do the LFI2021 lesson for the week, so this morning I took a look. I liked the lesson, but...I'm getting bored with painting pictures of pretty women with no point to them. So I did something a little different.

This week's teacher, Lara Provost, made her abstract background with acrylics (left, below) and then painted over the top of them in oil, mostly obscuring the background with her subject (right, below).  I really liked the background, but it was almost completely covered by the end, and I felt like what's the point?

I decided to try something similar, but using watercolors and leaving more of the base colors showing through the subject. I also chose a reference photo with a reading girl, because I need to keep adding to my repertoire of reading people.

Here's my initial background:

In my chosen photo, the subject was holding her book with a couple of fingers right down at the bottom of the spine, but it was a small photo and, when I blew it up, didn't give me much to work with, so I simply dropped the bottom part of the book below the bottom of the photo so I could leave them out. It also had the other arm with the elbow elevated and her head resting against the forearm behind it, but when I drew it (sticking exactly to the photo), it looked weird and deformed, so I took it out again!

I was going to paint out the wall behind her, but I liked the interesting edges too much, so I just dropped the top part back a shade by covering it with a layer of white ink.

This one was a bit messy because I painted the background in watercolors, and when I started using the gesso and inks over the top of them, the watercolors lifted back up. So there's a little bit more mingling than I had planned.

I kinda regret painting in the flower pattern on the sofa; or at least this flower pattern. I should have done something more natural-looking with blossoms and leaves instead of this retro Mod-ish fabric. But, can't go back and fix that, so there it is.

I was going to letter in the title of the book she was reading, but decided that if it was a book someone didn't like, they might take against the art as a whole, while simply having sun and moon shapes on the cover gives a feeling of fantasy or whimsy without being specific as to the contents. (It was The Alchemist, by Paolo Coehlo.)

I had to scan this in two pieces and patch it together, since it's 12x12 and my scanner is 9x12. Someday, a bigger scanner!

"Reading Alchemy"—Paul Jackson watercolors, pencil, Uniball pen, gesso, Daler Rowney inks, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 12x12 inches.

This one's for Davey

Fortunately, I am not alone in my family in my obsession with The Handmaid's Tale (the Hulu series). I've been waiting for it to return for what seems like a very long time, and a couple of weeks ago I went on Hulu only to discover a bunch of one-minute previews from the points of view of each of the characters; my immediate reaction was to tell my ex-first-cousin-once-removed-in-law David, "It's coming!!!"

Now that it's here, I'm so happy I found out that he is immersed in it too, because I have someone to whom I can say, "Can you BELIEVE what happened this episode?" Of course, now it's a matter of waiting each week for the next and the next, unlike when I first discovered it and binged a season at a time. I may just go back to the beginning and watch it all again; it's that good.

David and I were back-and-forthing on Messenger the other day about the show and also about my latest painting, and he said, Hey! you should paint Aunt Lydia! So this one's for him.

"The Aunt"—pencil, Uniball pen, Paul Jackson watercolors, Daler Rowney inks, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 9x12 inches.