Seeing

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Ink pen and water-soluble crayon

Ink pen and water-soluble crayon

This week at #sketchbookskool is with Cathy Johnson. I love her work and I really like her lessons. First homework assignment was birds (or a squirrel, or some little creature). Unfortunately there isn’t a bird in site right now due to all the snow we are getting, but luckily for me I take a lot of photos. These gulls were at the Searsport Harbor a couple of years ago, I have always admired them and thought they would make nice painting subjects. Gulls are not as easy to draw as one might think.

One thing I really like about this lesson is the idea of learning about your subject–drawing as if you were working on a field guide. There are a lot of different types of gulls. These are most likely Herring Gulls, but the one with the dark eye could be a Thayer’s Gull.

The gull in graphite is not as successful as the one I did in ink. I find it interesting that I seem to do a better job when I use tools that I can’t erase! Funny.

Graphite and water-soluble crayon

Graphite and water-soluble crayon

Working the background

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water-soluble crayon and colored pencil

water-soluble crayon and colored pencil

Doing these little detail drawings is a lot of fun. I am working on incorporating some movement and activity in the background. This background was inspired by the pattern on the topside of a scallop shell that I picked up a long with this broken shell. The broken shell reminded me of Georgia O’Keefe shell paintings, so I thought I would try to do one with that as inspiration.

I like the texture and movement in the background, I am going to work on these combinations for a few more pieces. I need to work on doing a better job of creating a motion feeling…but it’s starting.

This was drawn in my moleskin sketchbook.

New Materials

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Shell Study: Derwent Inktense

Shell Study: Derwent Inktense

Inktense are intense! Fun to try some new materials today. My first try was just the intense, the second sketch I decided to use the #inktense pencils to do the underpainting and then use prismacolor for the drawing. This seems to be a good combination. Next try will be inktense and then ink pen. I love how saturated the color is. This is similar to the water-soluble crayons…but different. Once you put the color down and it dries, it is permanent. Looking forward to exploring how to work with this medium. These two sketches were in my moleskin, paper is soft, so I am going to try a different paper next. Just in case you are interested here is the link for the Derwent Inktense.

Looking forward to drawing tomorrow!

Slipper Shell in progress

Slipper Shell in progress