It’s always a great idea to take a moment and look out the window.
Our neighbors at the back of our yard have a lush growth of ferns at this time of the year.
I turned the page in my journal and sketched on this pre-painted background—the verso page background was in the same vein across the spread so you clearly see what I started to sketch on based on the recto page.
I used a red Prismacolor pencil to sketch the plants. Then I filled the scene with color pencil and Neocolor II (used without water for the most part). I did take a fine brush at the end and use a little white gouache. It was a bit dirty so I didn’t get a strong pop of highlight, but I stopped myself because I was getting fussy.
I have to say it is pretty fun to push a wet brush over the Neocolor IIs and have them dissolve into thick malleable color.
This sketch is part of the scribbling with dry media I’ve been doing for the past 3 months.
The doodle of a “cardinal” is Pentel Brush pen on copier bond. I did it a little later that day and decided to cut it out and save it by collaging it to this page spread. There was something very cheery to my eye in the brush pen strokes. (We do have cardinals in our yard, but this was just an idea of a cardinal made while I was sitting at my desk.)
I’ve never been a landscape painter. I’m distracted by all the details. This sketch shows I still am distracted (though the neighbor’s decommissioned chicken coop really does look like that).
Despite the fussiness, I think it’s worth putting some more time into looking at landscapes so my visual vocabulary for landscapes can expand.
We don’t need to spend hours everyday working out new visual vocabulary. Fifteen minutes a day for a couple weeks can make a huge impact—what are you going to put time into daily to increase your visual vocabulary? When your 15 minutes are up you can always return to the comfort food of your practice, the subjects and tools you enjoy most. But you’re still making progress in that daily 15-minute focus.
Ask yourself what types of marks can you make with the different tools and materials you already have? Then use those tools and materials to see if you can execute those marks—or maybe end up with something totally unexpected yet still useful.
Toned and Pre-Painted Backgrounds?
Another way to expand your vocabulary is to work with toned and pre-painted backgrounds. I’ve written about this a lot on the blog and you can use a key word search to find posts about my approach.
Keep this in mind: if you want to paint on the pre-painted background use acrylic paint or acrylic inks so you don’t disturb your first textured/background layer with your paints.
Also, if you want to work transparently with watercolor on top of a background be sure to use a background color that can give a glow to a painting as the underpainting. Try, at least initially, to not set up impossible situations that transparent watercolor won’t be able to address.
But if you’re going to paint opaquely, or use opaque crayons and such, your painted texture can be more strident in color, value, and pattern.
Remember not to judge the final outcome. Turn the page at the end of your session (when the page is dry). Come back to it next week with fresh eyes and see what jumps out at you, what you enjoy, what you would like to avoid in the future. You now have a list of new approaches to work on going forward—your vocabulary is growing.
Let’s fill some pages.
I love the cardinal doodle you added to the facing page!It’s one of those things that would make me smile every time I opened my sketchbook to that place. I also like how your landscape shows the colors and the main shapes of the scene.
Thanks so much Maery. I’m glad you enjoyed these things. That doodle makes me smile too. I’ll keep pushing on the landscapes and looking for those shapes, I need to work on patience!