Tag Archives: watercolor

Quick-Sketching A Larger Scene

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It’s well-known that I’m a slower than molasses sketcher, but I am making a concerted effort t speed things up.  The big problem is that when I do everything else goes downhill and I get frustrated.  Such is my life but I keep trying.

A few posts ago I talked about some sketching I’d done one morning, including a quick sketch from a photo of a scene not far from my house.  I decided to go to that location and do it again.  Here it is, this one done in a Stillman & Birn Alpha (8.5×5.5) and with a dab of color added.

A Sneak Peak At Stillman & Birn Nova Paper

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Did you get excited when Stillman & Birn announced their new Nova series of sketchbooks?  I sure did.  Most people know that I’m a fan of S&B but, like everyone else, when I wanted to draw on toned paper, I was stuck with 60-80lb paper with little or no sizing.  This stuff was ok for line sketching but any attempts at watercolor and the paper buckled, pigments dulled as they were sucked into the paper, and you couldn’t manipulate the watercolors the way you can on a better paper.

But one day I got a call from S&B, asking if I’d like to try out their new toned paper line.  I pondered my answer carefully.  Microseconds went by as I came up with my careful worded response.  “Heck yeah!  Bring it on.”  And they sent me some single sheets of their tan, gray and black papers.

Which brings us to now.  These papers will change the way watercolorists think about toned papers for two reasons, both having to do with the fact that physically these papers are like S&B Alpha white and cream papers.

They are much heavier than other toned papers.  I don’t have any data on these papers, but they are the same thickness as Alpha paper, suggesting they are around 100lb (150gsm).  In any case, the extreme buckling I’ve experienced from other toned papers just doesn’t happen.

The papers are properly sized, so you can actually work watercolors on them.  Those who have experienced Alpha papers know that large-scale wet-n-wet is probably not the idea approach but these papers can handle a fair amount of water.  The pigments can be moved around.  You can charge into another color. You can lift pigments from these papers.  The colorsl remain bright on these papers.

I started testing by doing what I typically do with toned papers, draw with pencil or fountain pen.  Very quickly I realized that  this was lots of fun but not really a challenge for these papers.  They were almost screaming “put some water on me,” and so I did.

I’d like to provide a detailed, blow by blow on the process of getting used to these papers but, for me, it was like working on my typical Alpha and Beta papers.  If anything, I might have used a slightly thicker mix to achieve the results you see but I’m not even sure that’s true.

Above you can see a bit of buckling. I soaked the area inside the building outline and applied the color wet-n-wet. Because the exterior remained dry this small amount of buckling took place. What I did here simply would not be possible with other toned papers I’ve used.

 

 

 

Stillman & Birn says that actual sketchbooks with Nova papers will be available sometime in August.  I don’t know if that means softcover, hardcover, or both but I know I’m going to get in line to get some.  Stillman & Birn will shake the world of toned papers with these sketchbooks.  Thanks, S&B.

 

 

 

 

 

A Sketcher Version Of Morning Papers

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Julia Cameron popularized the idea of “morning papers,” suggesting that writing three pages of text about anything every morning would improve your creativity.  I did this for a while but it was at a time of my life when I was writing for several hours of every day and it just became another job I had to do.

The idea of thinking about creativity every morning, though, makes a lot of sense.  My sketching buddy Yvan starts his days by drawing something from his imagination and he recommends it highly.  I don’t have any imagination so that is difficult for me.

Instead, I often get up, get a cup of coffee and play, watching YouTube videos, Craftsy courses, or maybe I’ll flip through an art book or three.  And when I do these things I generally end up with a pointy device in my hand as I try to emulate some of the stuff I see.

This is a significant part of how I learn and improve (I hope) my sketching.  The sketches I post on this blog aren’t about learning; they’re the result of using the skills I have to produce a sketch.  While the sketches I create while learning aren’t much to look at, they are the real engine of my progress.  Anyways, I was doing this sort of thing this morning and thought it might benefit some to pull the curtain back and talk about one aspect of my “process,” such that it is.

My buddy Yvan had sent me a sketch he’d done on the river and it caused me to pull up a photo of the scene I’d taken recently.  I’m interested in doing larger scenes quickly so I grabbed a piece of photocopy paper and started scribbling.  Here’s the result.   Now I’ve got to go on site and draw it again.

The smaller sketches at the bottom of this were to see how it might look with a gray ink (right) and a look at whether I could use watercolor on photocopy paper. Bad idea 🙂

I’d found out that Anne-Laure Jacquet will be coming to Montreal and that I might get to meet her so I was re-watching a couple of her YouTube videos.  One was a real time painting and about halfway through it I got the bright idea to try to replicate it.  I’ve been wanting to start using a brush to draw and that’s what she was doing.  Seemed reasonable to quickly try to draw her building.  It wasn’t reasonable as it’s always better to work slowly with a new technique but this is also part of the freedom of not trying to create anything worth showing anyone 🙂

I didn’t have her exact colors but I grabbed a brush that seemed similar to hers and went to work.  I should have used a smaller brush because I was working a lot smaller than she was on a 4×6 piece of watercolor paper.  I only spent about five minutes trying this and I quickly learned that I needed to use a thicker mix of paint if I was going to draw with the brush.  It was a very insightful five minutes and I will be doing more of this.  I added a bit of linework just to satisfy my penchant for using a fountain pen.

Last and certainly least was that I’d just gotten some Daniel Smith Bloodstone and Raw Umber Violet and wanted to try them.  As I’ve mentioned, I have no imagination but I remembered a sketch Liz Steel did of some silos (I think) and how she’d used something dark between them to generate shadows and overall contrast.  I had a 3×5 Calepino notepad on my desk and I quickly drew three little silos (sketch is only the size of a business card) and then played with my new colors between them.  Not much of an exercise but I got to use my new colors and to once again be impressed with how much better Calepino paper is than Field Notes paper for such things 🙂

This morning session probably lasted an hour.  I had two cups of coffee, watched a couple videos and got to try several things I wouldn’t do if I was out sketching with friends.  Because I get to follow my whim during such sessions and because none of this stuff typically sees the light of day, I can cover a lot of new ground, trying things, failing at things, and trying again.  These try fail cycles, I hope, will bend my visual cortex to my will and I’ll become better at this sketching thing we do.

 

Sketching In The Flowerless Flower Garden

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It seems as though we won’t be having a summer this year.  Lots of rain and temps cool enough that we’re back to wearing jackets to go sketching.  Pretty odd for July, even in Quebec City.

We headed to a large garden in Ste-Foy last week for a sketching session.  Reports said the rain wouldn’t start until late afternoon, though it looked as though it could rain at any minute.  We’re getting used to the dull days, though, so we didn’t think much of it.  The garden brought reality home to roost.  There were so few flowers, so little growth.  The trees and grass were all very green, probably because of the rain, but the garden plants looked like it was April.

Everyone cast around for something to draw and I started by drawing on of my fellow sketchers.  I admit my heart wasn’t into it but a quick sketch was done quickly.  After this I got up and started wandering the grounds, around and around I went.  Nothing inspired.

There were some people weeding some large beds and they had a small garden vehicle in support.  I decided “why not” and sat down to draw it.  A woman came over and asked if I wanted her to move the vehicle, thinking I wanted to draw the garden, but I explained that I was going to draw the vehicle.  She laughed, probably thought I was nuts, and I set to work.  Here’s what I came up with.  Not a Rembrandt but it sure was fun to draw.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5×8), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Looking Up To Draw

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I do almost all of my sketching on location so I’m very comfortable doing so.  There is one circumstance, however, that I find challenging.  Looking up at the subject to be sketched always seems harder than it should be.  I don’t know if there’s something about the upward-looking angle or the fact that I have to bob my head through a much larger angle between subject and paper.  In any case, getting the proportions and perspective correct is always harder.

We were sketching at the train station, though, and I drew this portion of one of the buildings.  Quebec is blessed with these sorts of rooftops and so looking up is is worth the effort.