Author: -N-

Oak Trees – LInes, No Lines

Tired of being indoors, I pulled a bunch of stuff out to the side patio – paints, brushes, water, chrome book, water, palette, head phones, ink, pencil, pen.  I played a bit and mixed up some greens using yellows and blues, and phthalo green.  I don’t like having only phthalo green on my palette, but that is what I had.  I like sap green and Hooker’s.  I also like Payne’s Grey.

Being outdoors means being cramped on a really small table, so everything was jumbled up.  The goal was to just be outdoors and do something.  So, I used some photos of trees I have taken over the years.

The first tree was one I took the other morning when out on a shoot with my friend Tom.  Here is the photo:

And here is my rendering in line and colors:

And then a photo from April 2015:

And the results – no lines, only the intention to paint light and dark, contrast, whatever:

I’ll tell ya, this last painting was painful!  I noticed that most of my colors tend to be pastel – a lot of water, not a lot of paint.  I felt like I was beating up my poor brushes trying to get deep colors with more pigment than water.  Wetting the colors a bit before might help.

In my opinion, neither painting is especially sophisticated or elegant.  I will say that despite its primitive quality, I am pleased with the lineless painting as I did accomplish something.

Does your head feel totally stirred up when you try something alien to your normal ways of doing things?  Mine always does and it takes awhile to return to orbit.

Village Windows (I’m Done!)

This is the third layer of Village Windows, and the last.  It couldn’t go much further from here.  The big surprise came when I added water to the sky.  Soooooo much purple!

And after that, I added more color pencil and more water, and finally more iron gall ink with my dip pen.  I kept to my two things – the ink, the layers of pencils.  I added colors as I went, just exploring.  I felt that it was a good thing to do as this is really the first picture I have ever done with watercolor pencils.  I have the Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer ones, with 60 colors.

Dimension is not something I am really good at – perspective.  Things get cattywumpus.  In fact, per my eye doctor, I have no depth perception at all, and may have never had it in the normal sense that most people have.  Even when I was 18 I was told that.  Good?  Bad?  I manage – I don’t wander around banging off the wall!

And here is the final picture.  Parts work, parts don’t.  Watercolor pencils are really interesting, just as is the iron gall ink.  As an experiment in a new media altogether, I rather enjoyed the experience.  I did learn a bit in the process, which was the point – how and what to do with watercolor pencils?  I couldn’t write a dissertation on it.  I can tell you it was a lot of fun, and I know I will revisit them in the future.

Village Windows

Here is yesterday’s first layer of watercolor pencil, now “watercolored”.  I tried to follow the lines of the pencil.

Here is the second layer of watercolor pencil, with a little bit more detail.  The sky was done with about 4 or 5 colors, layered down with a blue, some white, some grey.  The roofs are an orange and a brown and a black.

As you can see, I also colored in the windows and am trying to add texture to the tiled roofs.  Some green, too, for the foliage in front.  After this, I then added water.  Once more, I followed the lines, such in the roofs.  The space on the lower right is a bit of a problem.  I think it needs something, but have no idea at this point.  Maybe a cafe awning so we can a shot of espresso?

As I have never used watercolor pencils for any complete picture, my cunningly brilliant plan is to simply layer color, then use water.  As you can see, there is some bleeding.  Most interesting to me is the sky – in the center the little bleeds are rather interesting.  In the windows, I also did some lifting of color with a dry brush to lighten the glass, as a reflection or to enhance a shadow.  The iron gall ink is beginning to blur into the colors.

I have no idea how many layers I will end up with, but I am going to try to do glazes / layers to represent shadow and form.  No idea how successful this will be!