This dog portrait was my warm up sketch to continue my mixed media experiments.
I started with a brush pen sketch from a Sktchy muse reference photo. I used leftover gouache and then the dry media you can see listed on the recto page.
I then searched for another photo reference on Sktchy and did the following portrait of a young man wearing a hat.
I approached the portrait of the man differently. I began with direct brush sketching—placing in washes of leftover gouache (translucently, not opaquely) to get the general shapes.
Then I drew in some structural lines with color pencil. (That same leftover cup of oddball colors I used in my 2026 International Fake Journal Mount Journal.)
And finally I ended up mixing a dark neutral with leftover gouache and added it under the hat brim, and a bit in the beard.
The final layer was that yellow and white gouache in the hair and beard, and a little on the top of the hat brim.
This is the direction I would like to explore more: no ink at all. Instead, just painted shapes, and a few rough color pencils lines of detail.
I do love that Neocolor II green gold-ish color! That is in both sketches.
Like me, if you paint more than one experimental sketch in a row, you may find that you start to hit your stride. The action of painting with new parameters helps you tighten and refine those parameters.
Experiments in Your Daily Practice
These two mixed media sketches therefore give me some boundaries within which to work. I’ll continued feeling my way along this path.
What art path are you on currently?
Stop for a moment and ask yourself what you enjoy most about the process you’re currently using?
What do you feel is missing from the result?
It could be contrast, and then all you need to do is focus on amping up your contrast around your focal point. (It might be issues with angles, proportion, negative space, etc., and then you know you’ll need to work on those first before doing other explorations.)
But maybe there is something you are craving that your current approach doesn’t give you. Maybe you want bold crisp ink lines? Maybe you don’t want the interference of those bold dark lines? Maybe you want opaque paint? Or transparent? What is it you want?
You could change your ink color to see if it is the black ink that is bothering you. Many artists sketch in sepia ink or color inks. Here are some sketches I made using a parallel pen and purple ink. Maybe you want water-resistant inks you can paint over? I’ve found Platinum Carbon Black ink is great for sketching and painting over. It only takes a moment to dry and it can be used in fountain pens (if you keep up with your basic fountain pen hygiene). FW Acrylic ink and Ziller Acrylic Ink can both be used when sketching with a dip pen. That approach will give you different line quality as well as different ink color.
Look at where you are today. What sorts of different results you would like to see? Take notes. You don’t need to start a experimentation project today—it is simply useful to ask these questions of yourself so you can start to form ideas.
After a bit of thinking on issues like this a direction will appear. You can make a plan for explorations and experiments. Set some guidelines for yourself to keep grounded in current approaches you don’t want to give up.
See what comes up.
This is a great way to pull out older materials you haven’t used in awhile. Or a great way to finally sit down and experiment with new materials you never got around to testing.
Explore mixed media!
I, too, love the paper textures that show through dry pencils!
They are too fun aren’t they!!!????