Our gang was back at the museum cuz, “baby, it’s cold outside.” I decided to draw a stone guy who was making an offering at a funeral, or so sayeth the plaque associated with him. Hope you like him.
Fabriano Artistico CP (7.5×11), Platinum 3776, DeAtramentis Document Black
Fabriano Artistico paper, Hero 578 w/Platinum Carbon Black
My urban sketching has become pretty well-defined. My ‘style’ is sort of cartoony with a heavy emphasis on linework as that’s what I like to do. Color is thrown in as an afterthought.
But if I’m ever going to improved with color I’ve got to experiment and so here’s a couple baby steps down that road. In both cases I’ve retained my penchant for fountain pen line work but I started by doing a wet-in-wet background. Much to learn here but I had fun which is, afterall, the whole point of my sketching. Hope you like these little guys, done from my imagination.
Fabriano Artistico paper, Hero 578 w/Platinum Carbon Black
If you follow my posts you know that I’m a pen driver. I draw a bunch of lines, hope they look like something and then, if I want to add color, I generally just ‘fill in’ the various pieces, using watercolors like crayons.
But I thought it was time to do a “painting.” I’m not really sure when a sketch becomes a painting or whether you have to approach things very differently to create a painting. Seems to me like it’s more the later than former so that’s what I did….that different thing.
We’d just gotten some snow and I was out walking, saw a “winter scene” to my liking and took a quick snapshot of it. When I got home I took a 5×7 sheet of Fabriano Artistico “Extra White” cold press paper, and I made a few marks to indicate a horizon and the verticals for my fire hydrant. Ya gotta have fire hydrants in paintings don’t you? I do.
Then, with considerable intrepidation, I started applying paint roughing out the tree and hydrant in light color. Once I knew their ultimate shape I increased the color until it was mostly as you see it here. Then I added a bit of ink just to emphasize things a bit. I don’t know if this is an example of my demonstrating a willingness to learn new tricks or that I have no shame in posting my first painting. Either way, here it is.