Currently Browsing: Hair
More Dry Brush: Portraits
I wanted to revisit the idea of dry brush watercolor used in portraits again today. This portrait, also made with leftover paint has light, transparent base washes still showing through at the edges of the next and around the beard and hair. But here also you can see the exaggerated way in which I use […]
Thinking about Dry Brush Portraits
One of my favorite things to do is to paint with watercolor in a dry brush fashion. What does that mean? Dry brush means that there is relatively little water on your brush. You move the pigment carrying brush across the paper and the brush picks up the texture of the paper. For the best […]
In-Context: Before Cataract Surgery
Even avid readers of the blog might not recognize when this was sketched unless it had the date on it. I know exactly when it was sketched because I can still feel how my eyes felt on this day as I searched for the lines. I have found it interesting to observe my own artistic […]
Cooking Shows and Interesting Ears
Yep I sketch while I watch TV. I’ve written about it a ton on the blog in the past 11 years! Well one of the reasons I love to do this is I love EARS. I don’t know if there is a “season” for cooking shows. New competition shows in cooking seem to start all […]
Project Friday—Let’s Collage
In this post I’ll walk you through a recent collage I made. This isn’t something that I preplanned. It’s simply something that I worked on with the materials at hand, moving from one thought to the next. I’ve turned the step-by-step into a Project Friday because I hope you’ll get up from the computer, make […]
Do You Stop Or Keep Pushing?
One of the things I’m asked most frequently by students is, “When do I know I’m finished with my [painting/sketch]?” I’ve heard many people give the flip response, “When you realize that you’ve gone to far, then you know you should have stopped.” It’s actually more simple and more complex than that. First, yes, if […]
Drawing Beard Stubble
Even if you don’t enjoy sketching beards as much as I do you owe it to yourself to practice some beards. Why? Because if you enjoy sketching people, some of the people you sketch will have beards. And all those beards will be different. You’re working on your visual vocabulary. The human face has a […]
Stonehenge Aqua Review Part 5—A Look at the Hot Press Surface
This is part 5 of a multi-part review of Stonehenge Aqua cold press and hot press. Please see this link for the first post in the series. Hot press paper is my paper of choice, so I’m going to spend more time testing a new hot press paper than I am testing a cold press […]
Stonehenge Aqua Review Part 3—Color Pencil on the Hot Press Surface
This is part three in a multi-part review of Stonehenge Aqua. Please click here to view part one. If you wish to read part two please click here. At two future posts will deal with the hot press version of this paper and a wrap up. If you think I’m fussy about which brand and […]
Stonehenge Aqua Review Part 2—Ink on the Cold Press Surface and Binding
This is part two of a multi-part review of Stonehenge Aqua (hot and cold press) 140 lb. watercolor papers. Please see part one (which contains a recommendation summary) at this link. While I may have started as a child with color pencils I quickly transitioned to pen and ink. As a result of that I’ve […]