Sea Bleeds

Today I wanted to try a background that takes advantage of the way watercolors bleed together, so I thought hey- underwater!

Sea urchin scrunchi.  As you do.

I did the bleed with veridian (might have been some payne's gray in there, too... it was leftover on my palette...) and ultramarine, and then I went back and glazed over the whole thing with turquoise.

Smoothed out.

And then of course once I finished all the colors, I went back in with my pen again.  I'd actually like to noodle around more with my pen, so we'll see what the future holds...

Gee, which of these three photos was taken under an artificial light...

We leave for Maui tomorrow (all in all a near-twelve hour travel day ugggghhhh), so it's unlikely I'll get a post up for the next few days.  As always, I'll backdate the entries to the appropriate... um, date... so when they hit it will be a slew of them.  I'm hoping to capture some nice local color!

(Ha hah, color.  Thank you, I'll see myself out...)

Angel Up Unarmed

I was reading a book, and for some reason the description in a small passage struck me as so serene and lovely that I immediately wanted to illustrate it, which led to a very quick sketch:

Mmm, beeswax.

Of course, after I finished that, and the first quick wash of color, I kept reading to let said wash of color dry, and discovered a few paragraphs later that said angel is supposed to have a sword and shield.  Whoops.

Anyway, it was a nice little thing to remind myself how how I can use watercolor to capture quick, unrefined impressions.  I look forward to trying it out on the go in Maui.

Branch

Because of course I had to follow up last night's entry:

Who's crazy now??

And you know what?  I really like this one, too.  I especially like the way I got the bleedy-blending to work in my favor, for a change.  Just wanna pinch those lil' cheeks.  (But I never would, because he'd snap one of those branches in two and chase me with the spikes like an adorable little psycho...)

Princess Poppy

My son, like most two-year-olds, has multiple obsessions, and one of them is Trolls.  As I worked on tonight's piece, the holiday special was playing in the background.  Three back-to-back times.  It's a testament to the creators that I don't actually mind this, or the fact that I can more or less recite along with the original movie, line-for-line.  I love the movies, and I love the characters, so I decided to illustrate one of them in my own (larger-eyed) style:

MORE GLITTER!

And you know what?  I'm not going to say a single critical thing about it, because when I showed it to The Little Gentleman (he's way outgrown "Neeps" at this point), he reached out in wonder to touch it, and exclaimed, "Princess Poppy!" so I know I nailed it.  Plus it was super fun to do her hair, and the color-gradient of her dress.  Maybe I'll do Branch tomorrow.  We'll see.

Snake

I give this one a resounding meh.  By which I mean, I need to revisit Snakes, because they are worthy of so much more... it started out somewhat promising and then just... muddied its way into meh.

Meh, I say.

Part of it is that I need more time to work, maybe add in some hatching... but there is no time, because bed.  Onward, ever onward!

Idunn

My mom got me my very own copy of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, so of course I've been up to my eyeballs revisiting Aesir and Vanir antics, which of course means that sooner or later, something like this was bound to happen:

Good for what Ails ya'.

That's Idunn, in case the title of the blog didn't give it away.  And speaking of giving things away, that's a golden apple guaranteed to restore your youth!  Quick, get a bite before Loki screws things up again...

Starface

Painting this little portrait of my DnD character, Severan, was a bit of a bear, and by bear I mean Emotional Roller Coaster (the quote of the day, as inspired by my first wash of red, was "Everything is Failure and Death.")  In the end, however, I'm not displeased with it, and I've learned the potential healing power of multiple washes.  That being said, I do plan on spending some time learning how to more believably render scar-tissue, be it on scarlet flesh or otherwise...

Hair tied back, to better show the scar, of course

Not bad, not bad.

(and in case my tiefling paladin's sobriquet "Starface" sounds vaguely familiar to my regular readers, here's why.)

Cutting Edge

We had a pretty epic gaming session today (over six hours, which was amazing but also exhausting) so needless to say, I've got things like blades and armor on the mind, which directly inspired this evenings experimentation:

Ooo, shiny!

It was a useful exercise, and I definitely want to come back to it to gain better control, but I feel like I could sketch in a tiny bit metal now without too much difficulty. Which means maybe there will be a drawing of Severan in the near future...

Storm Tossed

Quick update tonight- so quick the paint literally isn't dried, and I am planning on going back into it.  But we had company this evening (eee!) so I only just now threw pigment on paper... and it's way past bedtime.

Linework- I wanted to get more intricate, but I was running out of time and really wanted not to skip a painting.

Too impatient- more bleeding than I'd like.  And we'll see how it dries down.  But for now, I really like it.

The point, of course, was to once again try my hand at using natural black hair as a decorative element, like swirly silky hair.  I think this is proof that it can absolutely be done- and probably much better than this hastily-thrown-together attempt.

To bed!

Revisiting Savah

I decided to revisit the fluttery green silk of Savah's robes today, and try a few different things.

Now that's yellow!

I started off with a yellow wash, thinking to get some nice glazing in, and while it was nice, I think I should have toned the yellow down a bit, because it was just a smidge too neon to match my vision.

Nobody talk about angles.

I wasn't displeased, per se, but I also wasn't pleased, so I tried yet again, this time with many many pale layers.  And as I waited for each of the many many layers to dry, I worked on a doodle of my hair, which was cooperating with a fetching updo.

Both Unfinished.

I think I'll just have to keep keeping at it.  Like so many things in life.

The full sketchbook page (for now).

I'm thinking of painting the little portrait tomorrow... we'll see how I feel.  It's definitely my favorite thing that I did today, but alas... not actually watercolor... sooo... as much as I like it in black and white, I might just have to remedy the situation... plus I want to put some more linework into her face (shading-wise) so we'll just see.

Desert Sketch

Pretty much exactly as described:

I didn't have a lot of time (or energy) tonight, so I kept it extremely simple.  I'd like to revisit it on a day when I have more of both, so that I can do a better job.  That being said, I do like how the sky came out.

Savah

ElfQuest is getting very, very close to the conclusion of The Final Quest, and as such I've found myself awash in nostalgia.  Part of my initial love of watercolor came from the old Starblaze Editions of The Original Quest, so it's only fitting that as I struggle to learn the craft, I return to the characters I fell in love with over 25 years ago:

Some simple linework.

That's Savah right there, aka Mother of Memory to the Sun Folk, adorned in my take on the outfit she wears when she first meets the Wolfriders.  I really, really wanted to paint her fluttery, transparent-ish green robes, sooo...

Not bad for a 4" high doodle!

Now, I did not get the effect I was hoping for, which means that I will be revisiting the subjects of ethereal silks at a later date, but that aside, I'm actually quite pleased with how it came out, and I hope you are, too.

Afrodite

Last night I was watching a tutorial on drawing hair (I actually have a pretty good grip on that, but you never know when you might come across a new tip or trick that hasn't yet occurred to you) and it struck me that the hair in question was all very, very white-girl-ideal-type hair.  Like, long, and silky, and manageable.  And I'm pretty damn good at that kind of hair.  But.

But.

That is not the only hair in the world, not by a long shot.  And while yes, it's very easy to take hair like that and turn it into a decorative element, it seemed to me that there's no reason other textures couldn't also be decorative, if I spent as much time noodling with it as I had over long silken locks.  Which got me to thinking about how I'd played with wet-on-wet to do yesterday's hair, and how much I'd liked the effect I got with my clouds on Saturday, and I thought to myself, "I'll bet I could make a really gorgeous afro using that technique," and then it was stuck in my head so hard that I decided that's what I was going to try my hand at today.

And then there was a lot of careful consideration over what I wanted my black lady to be wearing, because exoticizing, etc, which brought me back around to a conversation with my boss (who is black) about how his community needs more awareness of black professionals (outside of the realms of sports/entertainment) so I thought to myself, "Hell, I'll put her in a suit," and I did.

Don't adjust your monitor: the photo is blurry.  But it gives you the idea of how the hair looked wet...

...vs dry.  So soft!  Such gorgeous texture!

I loved how her hair came out (very close to my vision- I can see how I'll tweak it next time), but when it came to the rest of her... well, once again my lack of patience bit me in the ass (turns out I do need to literally remove myself from my desk during drying-time, not just read-a-book-until-I-think-'it's fine...'), but I really think I managed to salvage it, in the end.  Except for her nose (it's killing me that the plane break ended up so much higher than I'd intended) but I'll cut me some slack.

And, obviously, I'll give it another try in the future.

Skin Deep

Today I was going to work on skin tones, but a whole bunch of little things went wrong and I just wasn't in to what I was doing, and it definitely shows.  ::sigh::

Meh.

The one thing I do really like is the part where I sort of said "fuck it" an started just playing with her hair.  Which just goes to show, there is occasionally something to be said for losing any and all craps you originally intended on giving.

Argh, every time I look at it I get so frustrated with all the things wrong with it.  Which means time to stop looking at it, and instead go hang out with my loves.  And also drink some water, because I'm dehydrated as hell and have the headache to prove it.  Woo!

A Long Winter's Nap

Yesterday's project was informative but tedious, so today I wanted to do something more fun, and to me "more fun" means "involving figurative art of some sort".  But I also wanted to put to practice some of the skills I've been learning over the past week, so I decided on structured fun.  We'll get to process in a moment, but first things first, I wanted to show off the finished project, because I'm actually quite pleased with it:

"A Long Winter's Nap", indeed.

The main thing that would make it better would be stronger,  more dynamic line-work, but since the point of this piece was working on my newly-learned color technique, I'm content to let it remain basic.

It took me a few tries to figure out what I wanted to do.  I knew I wanted to use a gradient wash in the background, and I felt like I needed a wintery theme, so I was leaning towards blue and gray.  I thought I  might do a tree of some sort, but with the small size of my sketch book, I ended up doing a pretty lady bust:

I did a light under drawing in pencil!  So fancy!

I'd still been thinking vaguely tree-related, as though I might turn hair into branches and her heart/chest into roots, but then I just sort of... went a different direction:

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

And then on to the wash!  Thanks to yesterday's glaze chart, I knew that to get the colors I wanted, I'd need to lay down the gray first:

Go gravity, go!

And then came the blue!  Or, rather, turquoise:

Ooo, gradient!

I got kind of frustrated because I accidentally flicked a drop of water onto the page (upper left side).  I tried to fix it, but as you can see in the next photo, it bloomed horribly and ruined the gradient.  Oh well it's still pretty.

Then it was time for a little wet-on-wet technique, which I figured would be excellent for the storm cloud:

I was SUPER correct about this, although as you can see in the next photo, it didn't stay this contained.

After that bit of triumph, I moved on to a flat wash:

Look at that big dumb splotch.  Grrr.  But I like the highlights on the cloud!

And then started glazing my brains out!

Colors, colors, everywhere.

Then there was more glazing, and some wet-on-dry, and I finished it off with some china white for the snow.  And like I said, I am quite pleased with the results.

"But Jenny O," you might wonder, "how did you find the patience for all those billions of layers?  That looks like two hours of work right there!" to which I would reply, "Very perceptive, Gentle Reader, it was about two hours of work!"  And then I would explain that I found the patience by literally walking away from my desk in between each layer, and reading my new, Christmas-gift-to-myself book.  It was a highly effective technique, and I plan to use it in the future, as well (although I will need new books...)

I think the best thing about today's piece is that finally, finally I'm starting to see how I might actually achieve the luminous-effect of watercolor that drew me to it in the first place.

Glazing Over

Tonight I did a glaze chart:

One of those times when the camera phone really, REALLY doesn't convey the actual affect.  OH WELL.

It was a pretty useful exercise, and gave me some nice insights into some of my paints (I had to limit myself to seven colors, because SANITY).  I look forward to putting some of that knowledge to work this weekend, but for now?  For now bed, because I'm frigging tired.

Toad Son Study

I decided just to do a little tiny painting today, to practice my patience-with-drying.  And I'm pleased to report that I did manage to summon enough patience to do multiple layers of color, although by the end I wanted to pull my freaking hair out.  Someday I may achieve the advanced position of Gracious Patience, but that day is not today, no sirree.

Two colors laid down: a flat wash (yay flat wash!) of palest yellow, followed by pale ocher.

By far my favorite stage, with five layers in various areas.  Probably  definitely should have stopped here.  ::sigh::

Things were out of control by this point, but what was I going to do?  I HAD COMMITTED TO SCREWING MYSELF OVER.

And then when I decided things were looking questionable enough that the only thing that might salvage the situation was some really nice inking, I lost my damn mind and decided, rather than inking this 1"x2" painting with my sensible .005 micron pen, to instead try using my new travel water brush because why would I use a tool I'm well-versed with when I could struggle with one I haven't mastered yet?  Ha ha hah, oh Rationality, why do you even try?

::sigh::  I chose... poorly.

Even still, staring at what resulted, a part of my brain whispered, "No no, it's cool- just... just go back in with some dramatic black shadows!" but I told that part of my brain to shut up, that we were getting out while the getting still retained some trace element of imagined dignity.  And I did.

Yay learning!

(It will be entertaining to look back over these a year from now, and laugh at my progress... I hope...)

Awash in Flattery

Tonight I tried my hand at flat washes.

The artist prepares her page (pay no attention to the green splurt left over from last night's efforts).

(See, it's practically invisible now...)

As you can see, the results were mixed.  After I did the green, I knew that I simply didn't have a large enough brush to be effective on a area the size I was working with, so I made smaller areas, and although it got betterish, I learned that some colors ::coughultramarinecough:: just had no intention of cooperating.  But really I need to be using the proper tools to get the effects to work the way I want them now.  Except that for the moment I'm restricting myself to what I can do with my Travel Kit.  Womp womp.

So then I did some free-hand ink drawings...

Linewoooooork

...although I only "finished" (by which I mean screwed around with) one of them.

I have no patience for my impatience.  ::SIGH::

I might "finish" the others at a later date.  Hopefully I'll manage to channel the patience that was lacking for my "plant medusa", as Nathan called her, and thereby avoid the whole not-letting-it-frigging-dry issues (which just scream at me every time I look at this).  ::sigh::

I want to try more flat washes, but with even more diluted color.  But I'll probably try my brush at a gradient wash, next... whee!

Layers of Mud

Today I ran a little drill from Watercolor Workshop (thanks, library), wherein I did some layering: wet on dry, wet on wet, backrun with water, and backrun with paint.  (and then I just played, because why not?)

Apparently it's Science Fiction Day, so I doodled accordingly.

The exercise really sort of underscored what my main issue with watercolor is: a complete and utter lack of patience.  Which is sort of mind-blowing to me, because I am perfectly passable with oils (or at least I was, fifteen years ago) which, I assure you, require a great deal more waiting around than watercolor does.  But maybe it's just because when you screw up oils you can go back over and fix them.  When you screw up watercolor is just sort of... stays screwed up.  I'm not talking about an errant smudge or blur or what-have-you, that can be turned into what we like to call "a happy accident".  I'm talking about irredeemable muddiness, which has long been my watercolor bane, and which 100% is chalked up to my inability to let things dry sufficiently before I start mucking around with the next color.

It should be interesting to see how I manage to cultivate greater patience in the coming year, and I have no doubt it will be of use to me in all my varied walks of life.

A Warm and Watery Welcome

Ah, it's here at last- 2018!  Which is an even-numbered year!  Which means... 365 Project Time!

Thanks to some prodding by my beloved Lifemate, I've decided that this is the year I stop saying, "I sure do wish I was better with watercolor," and actually do something about it.  He even supported me in this endeavor by purchasing a nice little travel set, complete with a fancy-shmancy water-brush, so I have no excuses.  I actually already had a good travel set, but to be honest I like the one he got me better, especially now that I've played with the water-pen (I was a bit skeptical at first, but I'm a convert now).  It's definitely going to Go Places with me.

Now, having spent the past two years adjusting to my role as Parent (in addition to my roles of Individual and Spouse), I knew that I'd need to bring that very specific balance of Structure and Flexibility to this project.  More structure than 2016's Blog Project, because I've got a better handle on things now, but also more flexibility than 2014's Photo Project because Life.  So rather than say, "Oh I'm totally going to do a painting a day!" I rather more reasonably said, "I'm going to do at least one painting a week, and on the days I can't get to painting I will at least do a sketch that might be used for a painting, or a skill drill."  And then, because past experience (ie 2012's Art Project) has taught me that there are days when inspiration just isn't there, I created a bit of a Table for myself, to prompt me on those days when I wail, "I don't know what to draaaaaaw!"  It breaks down as follows:

Monday: still life

Tuesday: portrait

Wednesday: landscape

Thursday: an illustration from one of my stories

Friday: architecture

Saturday: animal

Sunday: fan art of someone else's story

January: Pacific Islands (this is very specifically because we'll be in Hawaii later this month)

February: Polar/Nordic Regions

March: British Isles

April: Eastern US

May: Western US

June: Mediterranean

July: South America

August: Africa

September: Australia

October: Asia

November: Eastern Europe

December:  Germany (because ancestry!)

Week 1: monochrome

Week 2: ink first

Week 3: no ink

Week 4: ink last

So if I don't have a hankering to draw/painting a Specific Thing on a given day, I bring out the Table and figure out what my prompt for that exact day is.  Thanks, Past Jenny O; I know Future Jenny O will be grateful for your anal retention.

That's that.  But what did I do today, you might ask?  Well, I made myself a very basic little color chart, to let me see what exactly I'm working with:

I started with the three primary colors from the set Nathan got me, and made a proper little deconstructed color-wheel out of it, then I laid down the rest of the colors in the kit, and finally added in the colors from my other kit that weren't already represented (with a bit of blending for good measure, just to see...).

Needless to say, I'm feeling quite accomplished, and much more comfortable with the water brush.  I'm excited to see what the year brings!