Watercolor Sketch Kit Revealed

It’s a breath freshener! No, it’s a paint box! It’s two mints in one!

I wanted to show you what I took on the road to make pictures, on a trip with not enough time to make very many of them or space to put many extras. That car was tightly packed with everything a scientist needs to keep himself busy away from home for six months. I got to take a small overnight bag and whatever I could fit in my purse. And my banjo, which ain’t small (a Gibson Mastertone TB-2, made around 1929. It was a tenor when I bought it and became a glorious 5-string through the luthier’s magic. But I digress).

Waterpen. Holds about 1/2 an ounce of water refillable at a tap or stream near you.

Anyway, the barebones art kit that fits into my purse is this:

• 1 rapidograph pen;
• 1 waterbrush- a plastic handle contains water, which is squeezed into the bristles of the brush at the end. Ingenious. Has a cap to keep it from leaking. A gift from my friend Becky, where she found it only she can say;
• 1 Moleskine sketchbook, 5×8;
• 1 mint tin with empty half-pans (I bought them from Jerry’s Artarama) filled with dried tube watercolors. Double-stick tape holds them to the bottom of the tin;
• 1 .5 mechanical pencil with extra leads;
• A couple of pencils;
• A sharpener;
• an extra eraser;
• 1 Sharpie ultra-fine felt tip pen;
• a paper napkin to wipe excess paint or dab runny noses.

That’s it. Easy to take everywhere and forget you have it until you really want it, and then, there it’ll be.

Yes, it was cold outside- I put on gloves and warm coat and sketched until the waterbrush began to freeze.

Black Swan Study

A commission: a pair of Black swans. I may have mentioned it. It involved me being chased by an angry fowl and taking refuge on an arched bridge over its personal waterspace. It preened and boated itself triumphantly back and forth beneath me for half an hour, glaring at me with that dreadful red eye while I took pictures. A glamorous creature with a dangerous edge; a Hollywood diva of yesteryear in the style of Bette Davis or Gloria Swanson, no pun intended, but I bet she wasn’t born with that moniker.

I’m starting with a study for the final painting, which will be 27″ x 15″, acrylic on board, and will have two swans. For this study, which measures 17 3/4″ x 12 1/2, I left off one swan to keep it simple.

I started off with a black silhouette of the bird. I’ll add detail later. I just wanted the shape here.

Next, I mixed up a big glop of titanium white and raw sienna, and one of cadmium lemon with titanium white, mixed with heavy acrylic gel medium, which reminds me of library paste. This got slapped on as a background, and swirled with a fat bristle brush to raise up waves and ridges around the silhouette.

Then I added the shape of the head and neck, and suggestions of feather edging and the shape of the back and folded wings. Funny bird, this swan. It’s black, except for the primaries (flight feathers), and the biggest wing coverts curl up at the ends.

Sorry for the short post; it’s late, I’m tired, time for bed. Sleep well, y’all!

Where Did I Go?

I went all sporadic on you again, sorry! I’ve been in Reduction/Organization/Creation mode, no time left over for much of anything else except for doing my taxes. Not that I haven’t thought about you- honest- everything reminds me of a blog post. Remember my little remark about cochineal beetle juice the other day? I just happened to be sipping my favorite new apertif, Campari and Cinzano With a Twist on the Rocks, enjoying the very interesting warm red color of the drink, as well as the peculiar bitter aromatic flavor with an underlying nuttiness, and looking at the ingredient list on the Campari bottle noticed that the only thing specifically mentioned was Natural Carmine Color. The rest of the ingredients, apparently, are a closely guarded secret. Only Mr. Campari knows for sure, or something like that. So I looked up Natural Carmine, and sure enough, it’s cochineal beetle juice. Who knew? I feel even closer to the splendors of nature drinking this stuff, and now I have something else in common with paint.

Think I’ll call this drink The Painted Bunting

Current art projects include a logo for OU’s Darwin celebrations (Darwin turns 200 next year- lots and lots of candles he’ll be blowing out), some new drawings, a pastel of a resting bison-see above-and a new commission of a pair of Australian Black swans. That’s a going to be a post all in itself. Do you know what I had to go through to get my reference material?

Q:Where do you find Australian Black swans in Oklahoma in the dead of winter?

A: You find them at the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum in Seminole. Silly question.

Q: Are Australian Black Swans nice birds?

A: No. Swans are mean and will hurt you. Australian Black Swans will hurt you the hardest.

Oh no! A swan! Run like hell!

About the bison picture at the top of this post: the background was an experiment that turned out very well. I’ve been hearing all about pastel washes: you draw on the pastel and “wash” it with turpentine or turpenoid, in my case. Works real nice. You use as many colors as you want in the dry medium, get the colors where they look good, then brush on the turp, mooshing up and dissolving all the colors , smushing them around and into each other. When it all dries you can go over it again with more dry pastel. And turp it some more. As far as I know there’s no end to it. The pastel sinks into the tooth of the paper and stays there for good (I’m using Rives BFK heavyweight). Part of the beauty is that the paper doesn’t buckle, dries fast and flat when you saturate it with turpentine as opposed to water. Just don’t light a match while you’re waiting for it to dry, and use some ventilation, for God’s sake.

Pastel wash on Rives BFK, still wet.

Once you have your pastel washed paper, you can draw right over it, and add more pastel color on the drawing. Try it- it’s fun and easy!