Red Rose and pastel landscape progress

Red rose in Derwent Graphitint on paper

Yesterday, my beautiful granddaughter Sascha came home from a walk with a lovely large red rose that was blown off a neighbor's bush with about half an inch of stem. It's still sitting in its saucer on my desk. I had to sketch it, so decided to use strong, soft Derwent Graphitint watersoluble graphite pencils. Dry, they're like 8B graphite pencils with a hint of color. Washed, that hint of color becomes a lot stronger but still has a subtle graphite sheen.

When I use pencil I love the softest graphite pencils, so these have been favorites for a long time. I'm not the sort of artist who shades by five or six or more delicate layers with a hard pencil. Scribble and smudge, give me sweeping motions and strong contrast right from the start! So these are a lot of fun and I've got quite a few of them - by accident at the moment I've got maybe 3 sets of 12 but can't find one of the sets of 24 that I acquired, so I need to replace that. But having an extra won't hurt! 

How I wound up with small sets was their inclusion in trades and gift sets. One of the small sets is in an awesome zipper case with watercolor palette, hardcover sketchbook, other sketch and wash pencils and a waterbrush all in an easily carried case. Can't find its native waterbrush but have so many Niji ones it'll be easy to replace.

Iris Hill and Oak pastel plein air

This is something I started day before yesterday, when the rain stopped and I hung outside with my farrier daughter while she fixed her truck. It was sunny and beautiful, the foreground in shade with this sunlit patch beyond the trees blazing behind the iris hill. The iris patch extends far to the right too and into the distance. I might be able to finish just from what I have done already... or I might go outside again to finish, which would be truer to the scene.

I used a complementary water underpainting, scribbled masses in pastels and then washed with a waterbrush. Paper is a tan Canson Mi-Tientes Touch piece, drawing board a battered aluminum clipboard with a box underneath that exactly holds my 60 Rembrandt half stick pastels. Might hold 60 Great American half sticks even though that box is slightly larger too, have to try that. Obviously not at the same time, but pretty handy for going outside!

In fifteen minutes I have Johannes Vloothuis class online so going out won't be till later. I'll see how I feel, if he gets me all wound up to paint I might amble out, but if the chronic fatigue or arthritis bites I might not. Pretty tempting though, it's sunny and lovely out there again!

Dinosaur and Sake Set

tyrannosaur sketch and sake set

in blue Graphitint pencils dry

I got in some sketching this morning and finished what I meant to do with the opposite page - sketch a reconstruction from that view of the skull. Not 100% satisfied with it though I do like how the arm and mouth came out. Something about the head angle made it hard to do the face.

I meant to wash the watersoluble pencils but didn't, particularly because I liked the way the pottery looked without a wash.

The sake carafe and cups are from an ebook I bought on sale, "Urban Sketching" by Marc Taro Holmes. I enjoyed his video on Urban Sketching: Birds and snapped up this ebook today on a Black Friday sale. The only sale item I bought this year, money's tight. It's a good ebook, fascinating and right on topic for all the sketching I've been doing in 2015. 

Cat, bird and botanical sketches

Ari Cat from Life, Two Views

Pen and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor journal

Early today before I went out, I saw Ari looking at the wall and sketched him rapidly with the nearest pen, a Pigma Micron. He was so beautiful and his tail went at a lovely angle. Then later I sketched him again in another pose with the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, gave it plenty of time to dry and watercolored with my Lukas 1862 pans set of 48. Combining Sepia and Payne's Grey gave me the smoky middle-dark tones of his tail and back perfectly, his tail is grayer and less brown than his back and his feet have touches of that coolness.

Then I went out on my usual every other Wednesday appointment and got done fast, started playing with the pocket brush pen again in the waiting room using my own photo of a pigeon.

Pigeon in Brush Pen and Derwent Graphitints

I made up the mysterious cool grey of his feathers by using Aubergine violet and a cool blue-green together, then added Dark Indigo in the lower shadows and Cloud Grey over the mix on his back. Legs are Cool Brown, shadow is Cloud Grey, then washed and was very happy with the effect. The bird had an odd little shape of white at the base of his tail that I reserved to keep in. Fun little project. I also got new pigeon photos yesterday on Voting Day along with possibly a seagull among them, won't know till I sort the pictures. 

Botanical sketches in Derwent Graphitints

Finally dispensed with pen work when I noticed some dried leaves on the ground and sketched them. By then I was out in the garden and just intrigued by the dead leaves, rearranged them to my liking. Over where I waited for the van, one lone white flower appealed to me so did that in Graphitints too, using my water brush to pick up some color off a yellow Derwent Art Bar for the bright center of the flower over the initial Chestnut rendering. 

Happy with all these pages, it's a good day when I can journal more than one page and not hate any of the drawings. If you do any art journaling, I'm sure you know the feeling!

Cat Portrait and Crooked Tree

 "Croggers" memorial cat portrait

Derwent Graphitint pencils and wash on paper

Crooked Tree Demo 

8 1/2" x 11" pen on paper

Croggers the cat was beautiful and his photo was posted for this weekend's Weekend Drawing Event at WetCanvas. I felt for the little guy and did a portrait drawing, paying close attention to markings and exact features and expression. Successful portrait, and he has that sweet meditative look that well.

Derwent Graphitint are tinted graphite watersoluble pencils, very soft, 8B softness. They dissolve fast and color brightens with water. I used them on my large Moleskine watercolor journal.

Then did a promised lesson on tree anatomy and shadow direction for my new student. She'd done a scene with one bare tree in an autumn landscape.  I let this be a winter one and implied snow with the bushes bending and stark values of the black on white. Could have added blue shadows, didn't, just kept it simple. But I like the design and may develop it into a more refined painting or drawing.

Ari Cat Life Sketch in Derwent Graphitints

Ari Cat Life Sketch

Derwent Graphitint pencils on paper

I meant to do this as pencil and wash, but the only wash it really wanted was very delicately around his blue eyes.  I went very lghtly around them in Indigo and then just touched the brush to the blue line drawing it in, dissolving it without bleeding the black pupils into it. After that I couldn't distract with the wash on the rest of him, just let his pencil textures stand.

I like Derwent Graphitints for sketching, subtle color muted with graphite and as pencils they're very soft. Around 8B soft, good and strong for sketching. They've been favorites for a long, long time.

Look close and you can see several colors mingled in his fur and paws, while I used a deep green instead of black for the scribbled lines of the pillow and sheet. They were black but I changed them for purpose of the drawing. He likes laying on the bed in exactly my spot. They say cats don't like our scent but he always curls up in my place on the bed or in my laundry to get it on himself. Every cat needs to know he has me and of course I get paw-scented and face-scented all the time so cats I meet know I've got Ari for my painting buddy.

He just meowed for early supper so I'd better go feed the model!

Ari Cat life sketch and Irises from photo, 9" x 12"

Two more sketches, this time with Tombow brush pens on a wirebound sketchbook a friend gave me. It's not archival but the Tombow pens aren't lightfast, making it a good place to work things out for future paintings. Thinking of doing those two irises in pastels with the Holbeins on Mi-Tientes Touch.