It’s Fall—I Sketch a Pumpkin
October 21, 2016
Above: 8 x 8 inches. Pentel Brush Pen with pigment ink (gray squeezy barrel) and Schmincke gouache on OLD (and defunct and no longer available) Folio paper.
Left: Here's a detail section from the above image.
Dick showed up after grocery shopping one day with a pumpkin. He knows I enjoy sketching pumpkins. I took some time to do that in my handmade book containing the OLD (and defunct and no longer available) Folio paper, which I love so much. I really enjoyed the pen sketch and was going to leave it at that, but Dick piped up. It did give me a chance to play with cobalt blue—a blue I don't typically use. I'm quite fond of the excess. It's hard to hold back from the excess as I only have a few pages left in this journal and there are only 2 or 3 of these journals (containing this paper) left on my storage shelf.
Look at the lovely cast shadow color one can make with cobalt blue. I'm smitten.
Not long after this another pumpkin showed up at the house and…well…
Fun sketch! I love the details of the markings on the side of the pumpkin and all the colors in the stem.
Susan Thanks. I am most taken, in life, with the stem, so I played with color in it. I’m glad you liked it!
Susan, I specifically use gouache that is pure pigment so that I can use it both somewhat lightly (like a more translucent or granulated wash than regular watercolor, or opaquely.
In this particular situation I used the gouache opaquely in places on the stem. In most of the body, except for the dark and light blues I used it translucently so you can see the lines coming through—as I loved those lines.
Sometimes If I’m using it in the latter way I will go ahead and restate my ink lines—in this case that means I might restate those pumpkin “side seams” that are coming down in the front. But I liked that the boldness of the black ink was knocked back a little bit in those places so I left it as is when I finished painting.
Hope that helps.
Love that, Roz!
Thanks Miss T. I’ve noticed it’s started to get some MOLD on it so it will have to go at in the garbage this week. SIGH.