Flowers and Gecko Page in Derwent Inktense

Flowers and Gecko Page

Derwent Inktense and Pigma Micron on Large Moleskine Watercolor Book

While rearranging my supplies and beginning to pack down for my move at the end of February, I found my 72 color Derwent Inktense set under a large stack of other supplies. This is the churn. I have a lot of good art supplies and that's one thing that's always kept me excited about them. If I leave them alone for a few months and immerse in others, when I come back to them it's like getting a new package from Blick.

It took a certain comfort level of supplies to reach that happy rotation level. I think some of it is seasonal and situational too. I have wonderful oil painting supplies and get tempted to use them whenever the weather leaves me frisky enough for setup and cleanup for oils... but at that point I also need to have the space to really spread out. I need a place to hang paintings to dry for weeks without choking on the fumes or bumping into them. Happily, next Spring I'll be living in a nice rural house with a studio that's not also my bedroom! I will have enough space to set up easels and work larger, to get layered and work on several paintings at once (all up above the cat's easy reach) and so I'll finally be able to use that glorious holiday set of Winsor & Newton Artists' Oils that I picked up right before I moved to San Francisco.

One of the fun results of the churn is that if I spend months working in other mediums, I come back to something difficult with more control and better skills. Derwent Inktense are very strong watersoluble pencils, well named, and when washed they are permanent. Anything that didn't dissolve still might smear but I can glaze color over color with them, I can pull color off the tips with a water brush and mix like inks or just wash over a drawing for the results I got this time with the little gecko.

He's sitting on a soda can. I loved the reference for that, he's so tiny. Even smaller than the anoles I had in my house in New Orleans and even more colorful with his red patches. My cats never caught the anoles because they weren't stupid, they climbed the walls and stayed out of reach. But they often came in my house and always brightened my stay. I like little lizards and they do cut down on flies too!

So here's today and yesterday's daily art. The novel's finished and December's going to be full of art!

Cats from Life with Serval Zouletta

Cats from Life Page

Pentel Brush Pen and Watercolor on Moleskine 

There they are, two Ari cat life studies in pen and watercolor, five Zouletta Serval studies in pen and watercolor. I used Sepia, Quinacridone Burnt Orange (to warm the mix in Ari's fur), and Payne's Grey for serval paws and Ari cat's background. 

Zouletta was much more lively tonight at Big Cat Hospital. The folks at Big Cat Rescue put a camera in the cage whenever one of the big cats is in for treatment, so volunteers can watch to see if they're recovering okay. There's a number to call in a cat emergency, this is entertainment but also volunteering  to check on sick, often endangered big cats. 

I first got into it with Skippy the Bobcat, who had a lot of Internet fame. I posted a painting of him on Facebook an raffled it to support BCR, wound up carrying 15 months of taking care of a bobcat with that painting so feel very good about it.

Now the cat in the infirmary is Zouletta, who ate an acorn. They had to give her surgery to get it out of her small intestine. She's doing better tonight, less lethargic, less miserable looking. She gets up and moves, turns around, washes herself and the Cone of Shame is gone. I don't know if she's had a bowel movement yet but she's definitely recovering well and if she hasn't, I think she will soon. She's on the mend.

Beautiful Zouletta turned showing her face several times so I managed to get her profile, she moved too much for a full face view. Still, that's not bad for big cat studies from a live, restless big cat! I'll bet when I get to visit the Arkansas big cat rescue place, I'll find at least some of them awake and repeating poses. Good practice for when I make that trip!

Sleep well, Zouletta!

I'm also maknig progress on my novel, neck and neck with the deadline. Need to finsh by midnight tomorrow night and have only 3,606 to go. So I've got a good chance of getting it done. Wrote 4k today along with serval sketching. So that rocks. Hope I can get this last sprint in!

Cats from Life

Cats from life in brush pen 5 1/2" x 4"

Two studies of Ari in my large Moleskine along with a serval named Zouletta Serval. She was on the Big Cat Hospital live feed and that's a life drawing opportunity too. It's the same thing, the cat moves, I can't scroll back but just have to watch for repeat poses.

I plan to finish the rest of the page with cats from life, probably studies of Ari but maybe another sketch of Zouletta. She is a lovely cat. She had a transparent Cone of Shame on but I didn't document that for posterity, just failed to sketch it. I could see her head and ears well through it.

Tyrannosaur and Hollyhock, Part 2

Tyrannosaur and Hollyhock Page

photo references by Joanne_N - pen and watercolor on large Moleskine

Yay, finished the good page. I wasn't sure how I'd handle the background, but a mistake provided the answer. I got a terrible blotch of the grayed blue I used for the plaster bits in the skull falling right at the tip of the bottom jaw. Splashed out onto the brown too and so I spread it over the shadows strengthening them, touched that color in over the brown anywhere I saw shadows. 

I first tried to lift it out but it was stubborn. So I used the blue again, with a little violet and a little brown to gray it, and started working around the head blending it in. That worked! I can see it when I really look but it blends in optically as just one more light-dark variation in the misty background. Looks deliberate. Turned out that was the best color and value to set off the brown skeleton.

The photo reference had a much darker background but I like the blue mistiness better for a painting. The brighter colors of the hollyhock worked nicely to set it off. I'm happy with this page. Still thinking of sketching a reconstruction of the tyrannosaur on the facing page, maybe with a magnolia because those are very ancient, primitive flowers.

Tyrannosaur and Hollyhock Part 1 - Ink

Tyrannosaur and Hollyhock Page

5 1/2" x 8 1/2" on large Moleskine watercolor book

This time the Weekend Drawing Event host on WetCanvas.com is Joanne_N, who's got wonderful images. For once a dinosaur landed in the lineup! First drawing of it is just the skeleton head and arm, though I like the pose and may attempt to do a reconstruction later. Had a bit of space to the right so adapted the pink hollyhocks photo to fit in it, noticed the hovering bee after that was done and added it. 

The weather's been beating me up, so I'll treat these as today and tomorrow's art and give them watercolor or other coloring tomorrow. Haven't yet decided on what to use except it'll be a water medium!

Pears from Life

Pears from Life

Neocolor II artist crayons on large watercolor Moleskine

Today's painting is actually catching up for yesterday, unless I get in another sketch or something I'm still one day behind. I probably will though. This took me a while since I did the first layer lightly and washed it. The whole page curled up when I did and you can see that original wash in the background that I didn't color over because I liked it - a mix of black, Ultramarine and white layering.

I used the same light green artificial pear for all three views, rotating it to see it at different angles. It's not perfectly symmetrical and I also deliberately let it vary a bit in my rendering, not worrying if I made it a little fatter or shorter. I played with color on all three versions and pushed one way back by fading out the colors with white - which showed up more in the photo than the original. But color adjustments in photos are tricky at best, get one area looking true and some other area will be washed out or too dark or too blue or something.

It's one step more intense than the chalky looking thing in the photo, more like a solid Naples Yellow than a pale grayed beige. The shadows did do that double ring effect too. Values are about right, it just paled out because of what's probably gamut issues.

Oh wow! 200th post! Just noticed that! Yay, been at it a while with this blog. Onward!

Vase and Fruit finishing Lightwell Page

 Twilight Lightwell and Floral Still Life Page

pen and watercolor

Floral Still Life with Five Apples

pen and watercolor on large Moleskine watercolor journal.

So far I've done 10 of 14 "Animals" ATCs and once I finished another Ari cat one this morning I wanted to do something I could post. So I glanced across the room at the arrangement of silk flowers and thought, let's do the first version. I'll probably paint this several times over in different media, but this is a start to get a feel for it. I love the variety in it and the different forms. I love the crystal vase my friend bought me too, will be doing some much more detailed, realist renderings of that. 

Silk flowers are as good as live ones for painting. Sometimes better. Especially across the room, the forms are natural enough and the light strikes them well. For details I might compare them with some of my photos but if I'm not getting that detailed, it's much better to be able to return to the subject again and again!

Ari posed for me in a lovely way while I was typing this up, so I quickly sketched, inked and painted #11 of the series. I love the way he'll do that. He was in an odd pose but I managed to get the gesture and someone's getting a good cat ATC out of this. Next up, I've got a bobcat reference!